FOX had high hopes for their Utopia reality series but the ratings were anything but perfection. The network has now cancelled the show after less than two months on the air — 10 months short of the network’s social experiment plan.
Utopia follows a group of regular people who are relocated to a remote area and given limited resources. They must figure out how to survive and create their own society. Those who are dispensable can be voted out and replaced with newcomers.
The series started out airing twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday nights. Utopia had a decent debut thanks to a special post-football debut on Sunday, September 7th. The ratings dropped about 50% a couple days later with its first Tuesday night. The Friday airing did even worse.
After a handful of showings, FOX dropped the Tuesday episodes and now they’ve dropped the dismally-rated Friday ones as well. The live-streaming feed will be shut down today and the participants — who committed to spending a year in this social experiment — will be sent home.
Utopia’s Friday night timeslot will be filled with repeats of MasterChef Junior starting this week. Season two of the young cooking competition launches a new season this Tuesday — filling Utopia’s former timeslot.
What do you think? Did you like Utopia? Why didn’t it catch on? What should have been changed?
I liked Utopia because I could watch people interact naturally, not scripted. I especially enjoyed how Bella handled abusive situations. It would have been more popular if all the participants were straight.
Really hope Fox doesn’t want to green lit yet another crappy reality series like it did with X Factor and now Utopia.
Perhaps there is still hope; another useless and idiotic reality show cancelled. The execs who thought this would be worthy should be exiled to Utopia.
I watched a few episodes then got tired of it. If I watch a reality show I like to be interested in the people… at least some of them. Then you can root for them to win… or lose! That’s what I like about THE AMAZING RACE & SURVIVOR. These two are better done than most. With Utopia, I didn’t care about any of them.
Nobody with a lick of sense coulda believed this show wasn’t “staged”, phony as a Ford Corvette, same as “Bigg Bruddah”, which it tried to imitate in many ways. Now, just WHO could just be themselves with cameras & recording people all over the place?
I believe Americans are finally growing tired of this genre of “reality” shows, and hopefully they’ll all soon be history. And I hope those phony “dating/relationship” shows soon follow.
IMO, “Utopia” was a piece of garbage that should never have been aired.
I wanted to apply as a Utopian for next season. I enjoyed the idea of how 15 strangers, all with their own imaginations of Contributing to a more perfect world, could succeed. This show was authentic in portraying human behavior in conflicts, interests, and social norms. Red, Bella, Ernesto, and Nikki were my favorites. Pastor Johns time sadly ended too quickly. His presence made more sense as a contributor to a “perfect world” experiment than Amandas, or Aarons, or the first couple (boring!) whose names don’t even matter. Sorry FOX couldnt wait it out!!
Kind of a cool show loved redneck red breaking off into his own group every other episode overall not horrible but not surprised it got canceled.
It was a great show, I don’t know why they cancelled it. The human struggle at it’s fundamental core, what isn’t there to like about it?
i didnt mind it, i was disappointed they moved it to weeknights after beng on sunday. i work weeknghts and miss amazng race on sunday nght too! now its just sunday night football and hope when celebrty apprentice comes back they keep it on sunday
I’ve never watched Utopia. From the description the premise sounds nothing like Big Big Brother. It does kind of remind me of a show from approx. 5 yrs or so ago where a bunch of kids lived in what was suppose to be a town. They were divided into three teams, each represented by a colour. They would compete against each other for prizes and if I remember correctly it would also determine their rank in society. Those in the lower class had the dirtier jobs to do. Someone could also be sent home at the end of each week.
Victory is ours!!! YES!!!
I couldn’t stand listening to the announcer of the show. I like parts of the show but thought it could have been narrated better and should have been by a well known host or people in the actual Utopia group rather than than the odd guy and the opening and ending of each episode. Also a little slow.
It never should have seen the light of day to begin with. It was trying to be too much “Big Brother” (and I don’t even like that show either.)
Too bad. I wanted to see how the concept worked out. Did Amanda have a boy or a girl?
It’s funny how FOX cancelled X Factor for this and this failed miserably. At least X Factor was consistently in the 2’s.