S1E1 Episode 1

Utopia Series 1 Episode 1 aired January 15, 2013 on Channel 4 as the series premiere. Series 1 holds 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 6 critics; IMDb 8.4. The Guardian called it 'politically terrifying, narratively sophisticated and stylistically idiosyncratic - one of the best British serials I have seen.' The premiere establishes the show's tonal signature in its first minutes: violence presented with clinical colour and no apology, ordinary people dropped into an extraordinary conspiracy without the usual thriller genre comforts. Ole Bratt Birkeland's hyper-saturated cinematography - yellows and greens that read as wrong even in daytime scenes - is announced here and makes the show visually unmistakable from the first frame. Quartz later described it as 'staggeringly gorgeous for such a violent conspiracy thriller series,' a quality apparent from the premiere. Dennis Kelly's script refuses genre convention at every turn, declining to establish heroes who are clearly right or villains who are simply wrong - the graphic novel MacGuffin functions as both plot engine and tonal key to what the show is doing.