History Series / Utopia

* TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch: In the first episode, a murder is disguised as a suicide.

* EveryManHasHisPrice: Michael manages to turn the tables on his blackmailers by [[spoiler:obtaining evidence that the Russian flu outbreak is actually a mass poisoning carried out by the Network]]. Using this new leverage, he negotiates a deal whereby he will stay quiet in exchange for a substantial annual stipend, which helps to convince them that he doesn't pose a threat to their plan.

* LawOfInverseFertility: While Michael and his wife struggle to conceive using IVF treatments, he accidentally impregnates a prostitute on the side. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when she turns out to be a Network agent sent undercover to create the necessary conditions for blackmailing him (and whose pregnancy is most likely fake).]]

** [[spoiler: Anya, Michael's prostitute lover who is supposedly carrying his child, is revealed to have been a Network agent all along. Her kidnapping was faked in order to manipulate Michael into helping the Network. It's also heavily implied that she wasn't even pregnant at all]].

* [[spoiler: Becky is a mole for a scientist, previously disgraced by the Network, who wants to sell the manuscript to them. In return, he supplies her with the medication to minimize the fits brought about by the disease she's suffering from. In the end, Becky refuses to give him the manuscript and he throws the drugs into a lake.]]
* RealityRetcon: The scientist discovered that the 2002-2003 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome SARS]] outbreak wasn't actually a viral epidemic, but rather a bunch of unconnected respiratory infections. The Network responded by disgracing and discrediting him so that no one would take him seriously.

* KillThePoor: [[spoiler:The Network's plan is a variation on this: by sterilizing up to 95% of all people, they will drastically reduce the human population, thus (theoretically) eliminating starvation and poverty within a century or so.]]

* RealityRetcon: The scientist discovered that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome SARS]] wasn't actually a viral epidemic, but rather a bunch of unconnected respiratory infections. The Network responded by disgracing and discrediting him so that no one would take him seriously.

* EveryManHasHisPrice: Michael manages to turn the tables on his blackmailers by [[spoiler:obtaining evidence that the Russian flu outbreak is actually a mass poisoning carried out by the network]]. Using this new leverage, he negotiates a deal whereby he will stay quiet in exchange for a substantial annual stipend, which helps to convince them that he doesn't pose a threat to their plan.

* [[KillThePoor]]: [[spoiler:The Network's plan is a variation on this: by sterilizing up to 95% of all people, they will drastically reduce the human population, thus (theoretically) eliminating starvation and poverty within a century or so.]]

** [[spoiler: Anya, Michael's prostitute lover who is supposedly carrying his child, is revealed to have been a network agent all along. Her kidnapping was faked in order to manipulate Michael into helping the Network. It's also heavily implied that she wasn't even pregnant at all]].
** [[spoiler: Milner, the MI5 agent apparently working to bring down the Network, is actually a network operative.]]However, later it is revealed that [[spoiler: she]] is a ReverseMole who is working against the Network under the cover of infiltrating the protagonists. Then in the final episode [[spoiler: it appears to suggest she was working for the Network the entire time, although within 20 seconds she's shot her Network colleague in the face and helped the protagonists' burn down the warehouse housing the vaccine.]]

* TragicVillain: Arby the assassin, brainwashed and having had all the empathy beaten out of him by the network, gradually comes to realise the error of his ways. The fact that he is unable to feel guilty over killing so many people upsets and confuses him, and he unwittingly reveals to Jessica during the cafe scene that [[IJustWantToBeNormal he just wants to be normal]].

* IllGirl: [[spoiler: Becky, who's suffering from the same diseases that killed her father.]]

* ClearMyName: Grant is falsely accused of [[spoiler: carrying out a school shooting]].

* ConspiracyTheorist: Wilson Wilson. Though given that a shadowy cartel of politicians, scientists and cold war spies are in fact secretly planning to [[spoiler: sterylise the UK]] he has [[ProperlyParanoid good reason to be paranoid]].

** [[spoiler: LivingMacGuffin: It is eventually revelead that Carvill hid Janus inside his daughter, Jessica Hyde, and that finding the manuscript was only the secondary goal of the Network.]]

** [[spoiler: Anya, Michael's prostitute lover who is supposedly carrying his child, is revealed to have been a network agent all along. Her kidnapping was faked in order to manipulate Michael into helping the Network]].

* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: Pretty much the Network's justification for [[spoiler: sterylising nearly the entire population of Britain, believing it to be a merciful alternative to everyone starving to death when food shortages become too great]].
** '''Letts''': You accuse us of being genocidal? Not acting is genocide! Where do you think your food comes from Ian? A third of the world's farmland is now useless due to soil degradation. Yet we keep producing more mouths to feed. And what's your answer to that? Energy-saving lightbulbs?

A quirky [[UrbanScifi sci-fi]] ConspiracyThriller broadcast on Channel 4, Utopia follows four members of an online forum who come into posession of an [[MacGuffin original manuscript]] for the long-awaited second volume of a graphic novel, written by a ReclusiveArtist in a mental assylum who [[AuthorExistenceFailure died before it could be published]]. However, when the fifth member of their group is murdered by [[ThoseTwoBadGuys a pair of psychotic assassins]], the rest find themselves on the run while trying to figure out what deep dark secret hidden in the manuscript could be so important.

Also embroiled in the conspiracy are [[ClassicalAntiHero hapless civil servant Michael Dugdale]], torn between covering up his bosses' schemes and working against them, and the enigmatic [[DarkActionGirl Jessica]] [[SociopathicHero Hyde]], who wants the manuscript for her own reasons (and who also seems to be of considerable interest to the aforementioned hitmen).

* BigBad: Mr Rabbit

* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler: Arby and Letts, the former upset by being forced to carry out the massacre in the school, and the latter visibly upset by having to give the order]].
* WrongSideAllAlong: [[spoiler: Wilson, having come to the conclusion that the Network's plan will ensure humanity's survival, betrays his friends and is subsequently killed by Jessica]].

* ConspiracyTheorist: Wilson Wilson.
** Though given that a shadowy cartel of politicians, scientists and cold war spies are in fact secretly planning to [[spoiler: sterylise the UK]] he has [[ProperlyParanoid good reason to be paranoid]].

** '''[[spoiler: Milner]]''': ''What do I have to do to convince you people I'm on your side?''

** [[spoiler: '''Wilson''']]: I mean, what he's saying... isn't that... right?]]

* DoubleAgent: [[spoiler: Milner, though at the end she's revealed to be a [[DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent double reverse quadruple agent]].

* WrongSideAllAlong: [[Wilson, having come to the conclusion that the Network's plan will ensure humanity's survival, betrays his friends and is subsequently killed by Jessica]].
** [[spoiler: '''Wilson''']]: I mean, what he's saying... isn't that... right?

* TheMole: [[spoiler: Milner, the MI5 agent apparently working in secret to bring down the Network, is a network operative.]]
** However, later it is revealed that [[spoiler: she]] is a ReverseMole who is working against the Network under the cover of infiltrating the protagonists. Then in the final episode [[spoiler: it appears to suggest she was working for the Network the entire time, although within 20 seconds she's shot her Network colleague in the face and helped the protagonists' burn down the warehouse housing the vaccine.]]

* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler: Arby and Letts, the former upset by being forced to carry out the massacre in the school, and the latter visibly upset by having to give the order]].

* AntiHero: Jessica is somewhere between [[SlidingScaleOfAntiHeroes Type IV and Type V]].

** --->'''[[spoiler: Milner]]''': ''What do I have to do to convince you people I'm on your side?''
** [[spoiler: And then of course she's revealed to be the BigBad. Jesus, Milner!]]

A quirky sci-fi ConspiracyThriller broadcast on Channel 4, Utopia follows four members of an online forum who come into posession of an [[MacGuffin original manuscript]] for the long-awaited second volume of a graphic novel, written by a ReclusiveArtist in a mental assylum who [[AuthorExistenceFailure died before it could be published]]. However, when the fifth member of their group is murdered by [[ThoseTwoBadGuys a pair of psychotic assassins]], the rest find themselves on the run while trying to figure out what deep dark secret hidden in the manuscript could be so important.

A quirky sci-fi ConspiracyThriller broadcast on Channel 4, Utopia follows four members of an online forum who come into posession of an [[MacGuffin original manuscript]] for the long-awaited second volume of a graphic novel, written by a ReclusiveArtist in a mental assylum who [[AuthorExistenceFailure died before it could be published]]. However, when the fifth member of their group is murdered by [[ThoseTwoBadGuys a pair of psychotic assassins]], the rest find themselves on the run while trying to figure out what deep dark secret hidden in the manuscript could be so important.