Tag Archives: Channel 4

Utopia

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Utopia Channel 4 serie

Though I don’t watch much television lately, I recently discovered an excellent series that I feel duty-bound to share with readers. It’s a British production called “Utopia” (2013) and is one of the few shows I’ve seen to consistently tackle topics such as geopolitics, man-made pandemics, political blackmail, assassination and the surveillance state with a sense of intelligence and realism (though with a twist of dark humor). It’s an amalgamation of parapolitical topics strung together by a fictionalized narrative, similar to the best X-Files episodes but more sophisticated and pessimistic to keep up with the times. Props to YouTube member John Alves for uploading most of season 1 (except episode 3, for some reason) which you can find on his channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvfxyfr-cNDcVMI0RKeydxg

This is the trailer for Utopia season 2 which will air in July on Britain’s Channel 4 (and hopefully will also be on YouTube shortly after):

Saturday Matinee: Max Headroom

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“Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future” (1985) was a television movie originally broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4 and served as a pilot for a series co-produced with ABC in 1987. It’s widely considered the earliest science fiction TV movie and series of the cyberpunk subgenre. Part of the reason for its enduring cult status is the sharp social satire of its vision of the future which remains topical to this day.

The film takes place in a corporate dystopia controlled by an oligarchy of media conglomerates. Like in Orwell’s 1984, television is used as a tool for propaganda as well as mass surveillance. Similar to Winston Smith, the protagonist of 1984, reporter Edison Carter works within the system while questioning the ethics of his employer, but unlike Smith, Carter has enough clout and connections to challenge the system and whistleblow  while retaining relative autonomy. He is helped by his producer Theora Jones, computer hacker Bryce Lynch, pirate broadcaster Blank Reg, and rogue artificial intelligence personality Max Headroom.

In Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future, Edison uncovers a conspiracy involving a new commercial technology called blip-verts: subliminal advertising that can cram greater amounts of data into minds of viewers but with devastating side-effects. During the struggle to bring the investigative report to the airwaves, Max Headroom is accidentally unleashed.

Snowden’s Christmas Message to the World

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Yesterday, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden gave an “Alternative Christmas Message” on Britain’s Channel 4 television. It was short and concise, yet more substantial and important than a typical State of the Union Address. Though he makes the connection to Orwell’s 1984 that many of us have already made, it’s still a message more people need to become aware of or be reminded of. It’s also a call to action that all freedom loving people can rally behind regardless of nationality and political ideology.

This is the full transcript followed by the unedited video:

Hi, and Merry Christmas. I’m honored to have the chance to speak with you and your family this year.

Recently, we learned that our governments, working in concert, have created a system of worldwide mass surveillance, watching everything we do.

Great Britain’s George Orwell warned us of the danger of this kind of information. The types of collection in the book—microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us—are nothing compared to what we have available today. We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go.

Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person. A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They’ll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves—an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. And that’s a problem, because privacy matters. Privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.

The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. Together, we can find a better balance. End mass surveillance. And remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying.

For everyone out there listening, thank you, and Merry Christmas.