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The TV Series

  • Awesome Music: The incredible, experimental score composed by Cristobal Tapia de Veer encapsulates the paranoia and fear of the main characters while also giving some surprisingly upbeat (albeit with harrowing undertones) tracks.
  • Crazy is Cool: Jessica Hyde, Raised by Wolves to become a Crazy Survivalist. Best shown in Series 2 with her entire escape from the Network's prison facility.
  • Genius Bonus: The comics titled "The Utopia Experiments" evoke a series of experiments in animal group behavior which is often referred to as "rat/mouse utopia experiments". As these experiments are seen as modeling the effects of overcrowding and ensuing societal collapse, drawing this connection spoils The Network's ultimate goals.
  • Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Even when the protagonists are being faced with a literal global conspiracy hellbent on causing mass infertility on humanity to save the planet, Donaldson pretty much occupies the space for being the most-hated character in the series. Even though the Network doesn't have a lack of total psychopaths, Donaldson, though not a full-fledged member of the Network, is only in the Network for money and is a massive pain in the ass for everyone involved, with Becky being the prime contender. Ironically, he caused the worst friction to Ian and Becky's relationship in the series by spreading slanders about Becky having an affair with him (despite it's Becky who's being blackmailed into it), even though the Network has managed to strain the protagonists' relationship many times.
  • Overshadowed by Controversy: Hit by two of these cases during its airtime in 2013-2014:
    • The first one comes when it is revealed that the series involves a plot point in which Arby massacres an entire secondary school in order to pin the blame on Grant (and thus retrieving the Utopia manuscript from him), which ended in a total of 44 complaints from concerned parties about the plot point's horrifying similarity to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Interestingly, Word of God stated that while they did take some inspiration from the Columbine High School massacre as the inspiration for the plot line, they absolutely didn't expect the Sandy Hook massacre to take place on December 2012, a month before the first season aired. As such, it was a notable case of horrifyingly coincidental bad timing for the series.
    • The second one concerns the fictional depiction of Airey Neave's death by being murdered in the hands of the MI5 elements under the Network's control for being dangerous to them, which ends up in his colleague Norman Tebbit to decry the depiction as "despicable to someone who is dead and cannot defend himself".
  • Paranoia Fuel: Absolutely packed to the gunwales with it.
  • Signature Scene:
    • Lee slicing Joe's (Ian's boss) neck when infiltrating Ian's office, only to find out that he isn't quite dead yet and has to bash his head in with a fire extinguisher, which ends up in him not being able to frame the scene as a suicide act.
    • Terrence in the final episode of Season 2, where he delivers his iconic Hannibal Lecture to a woman and her child in the bus station.
  • Squick: Quite aplenty, with notable examples being:
    • The eye torture scene in the first episode.
    • Milner rummaging around inside someone's head to retrieve her bullet.
    • The fingernail torture scene from the first episode of Season 2.
    • Joe spending about a good minute of being exsanguinated from his neck after being sliced by Lee when the latter infiltrates Ian's office in the third episode of Season 2.
    • Wilson carving the Chinese character for "rabbit" into his torso as he becomes the new Mr. Rabbit.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Mr. Lee is shot and taken out of commission after one episode in the first series and is presumed dead. He turns out to have survived being shot but has minimal impact in the second series (only serving as a bully and major obstacle to Wilson after his Faceā€“Heel Turn) before being shot again (for good) by Wilson in the series finale.
  • The Woobie: To varying degrees (considering the setting), almost all of the main characters, especially Grant and Alice.

The Book

  • Misaimed Fandom: A lot of people think the book is supposed outline Thomas More's ideal society. Based on what we know about him and his views, it's more likely he intended to be Satire on flaws in the society he lived in.

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