Utopia (2013)

After I watched the Amazon series Utopia, I discovered that it was a remake of a British show.  Dare I watched the original?  Yes, I dare.

The story opens at a comic book store.  There is a clerk and a few customers.  In walks a pair of men, one of whom bashes a customer over the head with a lead pipe.  The other, Arby, asks the clerk who bought the Utopia comic.  Once all the patrons and clerk are dead, the two men depart.  Meanwhile, Benjen gets on his chat group to announce he has purchased Utopia.  They plan a meetup.  However, before he leaves, Arby and friend show up to murder him.  Simultaneously Graham - one of his chat buddies - steals the comic during the murder.  Now Graham is on the run while the rest of the chat group - Ian, Becky, and Wilson - try to figure out what has happened.

Unlike the American version, the original Utopia comic mentions nothing about Jessica Hyde.  There is more nuance in the British version despite having a shorter runtime.  That was strange.  Rather than a scientist who discovered a flu, Michael is a midlevel bureaucrat in the health ministry.  The character of Samantha doesn't even exist here, which is just as well.  Characters that were rather shallow in the American version are better fleshed out.  Also, they aren't some monolithic group.  Becky is hiding something, Wilson is ambivalent about whether they are on the right side, and the identity of Mr. Rabbit is a lot harder to determine.  Jessica Hyde looks less like a homeless person but has a dead-inside quality that suits the character.

Whereas the end of the Amazon version has several twists that are not explained, the British version explains all the twists and queues the audience for the next series.  Yeah, that's much better.  Definitely watch the British version and skip Amazon's pale remake.