All language subtitles for BBC.Utopia.In.Search.Of.The.Dream.Series.1.1of3.Blueprints.For.Better.1080p.HDTV.AAC.hevc

Is it part of the human condition to
dream of living in a better world?

In a utopia?

Ever since Thomas More coined the term,
the idea of utopia has captivated us.

It's been reimagined and reinvented by
generations of writers and artists and

dreamers, each interpreting it in their
own distinctive ways.

But why has this vision of a place
somewhere between fiction and reality

such a hold over us?

Utopian dreams have driven popular
culture.

And high art.

From Swift to Star Trek.

Fargana to Wikipedia.

Utopias have broadened the horizons of
the human imagination, inspiring

extraordinary architecture.

Look at this.

Whole new genres of fiction and radical
experimental communities.

We're a deviant culture. We change the
relationship that the people have with

material goods.

In this program, I'm going to find out
how utopias start as aspiration.

as blueprints for fairer worlds.

Could you guys come up with some rules
about your own perfect world?

I'll explore the values that utopian
visions have in common and whether they

inspire real change.

If you can improve the world for the
most marginalized population, it can get

better for all of us.

By finding out what you can do, it's the
only way you can be the best person you

can be.

I want to ask what our utopian visions
reveal about humanity's deepest hopes

fears.

Remember this?

It seems like an age ago now, doesn't
it?

A kind of warning.

but the route towards a better world is
rarely smooth.

This is our time to restore prosperity
and promote the cause of peace and

reaffirm that while we breathe, we hope.
And where we are met with cynicism and

doubt and those who tell us that we
can't, we will respond with that

creed that sums up the spirit of a
people.

Yes, we can.

We all want to believe in a better
world, in a utopia.

The big puzzle, of course, and it's
baffled humanity at least since Plato,

how do we get there?

Let's start with perhaps the most basic
utopia of all, a moment of liberation

from the humdrum of everyday life.

Where better to begin than at the
football match?

Here, tens of thousands of people come
together to share in a common passion

a dream.

If there's one person who understands
this utopia, it's veteran commentator

Motsen. I think for many, many people it
was always a release, because when

football crowds were huge just after the
Second World War, many people worked

not just Monday to Friday, but the men
would also work Saturday morning.

And when they left their jobs at
lunchtime on Saturday, they would make

for the football stadium, and that was
their release.

at the end of a very grueling and maybe
boring working week.

There was a utopian feel about it
because this was their moment when they

let off steam or cheer or boo or support
their local club.

I love those Lowry paintings of the
football grounds and everyone processing

as a direct equivalent of the factory.

And of course, going to the match is one
of them, isn't it? It conveys them

descending on a football ground.

The factory worker and the managers are
all in the same place and they're all

cheering for the same thing.

That's right. And that's quite amazing
in terms of bringing the community back

together. Yeah, and I think that's where
this feeling of belonging...

For a football fan, it is really
essential to why he's going. Because

gets inside the ground, he is
irrevocably linked to the performance of

players and to the brains of that
manager.

You know, suddenly they're at one.

They all want success.

And if it's failure, they all go through
that as well, together.

Football says something to me about the
resilience of humans and their ability

to keep on hoping and keep on dreaming.
Absolutely.

Clubs have their good runs and their bad
runs, and the supporters live through

the bad runs, hoping that the good run
is going to come very soon.

I always remember reading Alan
Sillitoe's book, Saturday Night and

Morning. Oh, yeah, wonderful.

And sort of the anti -hero of that,
where he said, this chapter started, he

always knew Notts were going to lose,
because the guy was a Notts County fan,

but he was so pessimistic when he went
to the game.

So, I mean, that makes another point.
Football isn't all about, you know,

standing there and yelling. I mean,
there is a sort of a sentimental,

side to the way people follow the game.

John Moxon's right.

Football is about very much more than
football.

I think it speaks to a deeper yearning.

This shared hope for better, week in,
week out, come what may.

It seems to me that hope, that optimism,
is something that runs as a current all

the way through human history.

The kind of hope for better that we see
in football fans was given philosophical

gravitas by the Tudor polymath Thomas
More.

More set out a blueprint for a better
world, an imaginary, idealised society

with a name which started as a knowing
classical joke.

Literally, in Latinised Greek, utopia
means no play.

a place that can't exist, or a place
that doesn't exist.

But when Thomas More published the book
in 1516, he included a poet in which he

spelt the word differently, utopia,
which means a good place.

And it's that inherent ambiguity that
means that utopia's been contested for

centuries.

More's own dream of utopia was of a
faraway land.

His book is presented as a mariner's
tale. It was written in an era of

excitement as a new and perhaps better
world was being charted across the seas.

In Bristol, tourists take a spin in a
replica of the Matthew, the small ship

which John Cabot sailed across the
Atlantic in 1497 and reached North

During the age of exploration, there
were ships like this travelling all over

the world, packed with hardy souls,
desperate to find new knowledge, new

understanding, who knows, new land.

To me, the sea was like the internet of
its age.

Little packets of information travelling
backwards and forwards, crisscrossing

the globe.

And those sailors who were coming into
ports were coming with pretty tall

of lands far away that were verging on
perfect.

The promise of a utopia, of a better
place, of a good place, always seemed to

just over the horizon.

Thomas More's utopia was partly inspired
by Amerigo Vespucci's reports of his

encounters with the natives of South
America.

innocent and uncorrupted by the European
love of gold.

The natives of Moore's utopia have
democracy, religious tolerance and no

property.

What's fascinating, I think, is that
Moore puts forward a version of

several centuries before Marx and Lenin.

He writes, Nobody owns anything, but
everyone is rich.

For what greater wealth can there be
than cheerfulness, peace of mind and

freedom from anxiety?

It's a very romantic idea that back in
the golden age of exploration, people

weren't just looking for trade routes
and new resources, but they were also

looking for the answers to kind of all
the big questions in life, you know, and

therefore to utopia.

There's amazing stories and tales
about... people searching for Shangri

Eden. And I think today we're still the
same. We might have mapped the planet,

but there's still so much to see and
experience for ourselves.

Explorer Belinda Kirk has trapped camels
through China's desert of death,

uncovered ancient rock paintings in
Lesotho, and rode

unsupported right around Britain.

She believes that seeking out new and
better worlds is more than just a

It's an innate urge.

There's a lot of studies about the
explorer gene, which has been identified

7R, which is also known as the
wanderlust gene.

So this idea that a fit of the
population have this real

strong feeling to explore.

Now that exploration might be...

physically looking for new lands or it
might be that they are um our

philosophers you know they have got new
ideas and they're the people who break

those boundaries do you think that
there's you know something utopian

about all exploration i think it's the
characteristic that is largely

is the reason for our development and
evolution the groups that are innovative

that are exploring

they're going to come up with the
solution.

And I think that's what you need, isn't
it, for any utopia. You need progress.

And people being engaged, people being
excited.

There's that hope that this could be the
trip that is really enriching.

Is that what keeps you going back?

I think at the time you don't always
think that.

There's a lot of Type 2 fun in
exploration.

I don't know if you've heard of that.

No, but Type 1.

So type one is fun at the time and fun
afterwards. Type two is not fun at the

time, but fun afterwards.

And type three is not fun at any time.

So a lot of what happens on expeditions
is you suffer a bit.

But you learn that through suffering,
you can achieve things that you wouldn't

otherwise achieve.

And then I think you take that into the
rest of your life. It just sounds a

little bit utopian, this idea that you
can discover a better place that doesn't

have to be...

an actual place. It can be a better
place for yourself.

By finding out what you can do, it's the
only way you can be the best person you

can be.

Perhaps we don't all have the explorer
gene, but that doesn't mean we can't go

on a voyage to discover utopia
vicariously.

The exploits of the age of exploration
spurred writers to imagine new and ever

more exotic worlds.

One 18th century author's story of an
explorer enduring a lot of Type II fun

has become one of the most influential
works of literature ever written, and it

would ultimately inspire utopian change
in the real world.

I slept sounder than I ever remember
having done in my life.

For when I awakened, it was just
daylight.

I attempted to rise, but I wasn't able
to stir. I found that my arms and my

were strongly fastened on each side to
the ground.

In a little time, I felt something
alive, moving on my left leg.

Bending my eyes downwards, I perceived
there to be a human creature, not six

inches tall.

In the meantime, I felt at least 40.

More of the same kind following the
third.

I was in the utmost astonishment.

And I roared loud.

And then they all ran away in fright.

Where were we?

In Lilliput.

Exactly. What's the special thing about
Lilliput?

Yep, absolutely.

It's seven stories.

the National Centre for Children's
Literature in Newcastle, a little utopia

itself, Matthew Grembie's running a
workshop for local schoolchildren,

Jonathan Swift's work and our love of
fantastical worlds.

Can you think of any book that you've
read where there are other made -up

Harry Potter.

Oh, Harry Potter, interesting.

Hogwarts, that doesn't exist?

No. You sure?

Yeah. Anywhere else?

It's in Wonderland. It's in Wonderland.
That doesn't exist either. One thing

that we thought we'd ask you to do is
make up a place which is different from

your normal life. And I'm just
interested to see how it would actually

So it's always sunny in this world, is
it?

Yeah. Uh -huh.

That's what makes the trees grow so
well. Yeah. It turns them happy.

There's no cars.

You've just got to walk everywhere.

Ah. What's this here?

It's a town on a flower.

A cow and a flower?

Wow. So all the celebrities live on the
petal.

Right, and who lives in the middle?

Just normal people.

So is it better to be a celebrity or a
normal person?

Um, celebrity.

While Thomas More wrote the utopia for a
narrow audience, the erudite Tudor

ruling class, what made Gulliver's
travel so enduring is that Swift aimed

a much broader readership, empowering
them to dream.

He is doing something really remarkable
with it. He is making it a much more

approachable kind of utopia than there
has been before.

He's putting in these little people, the
Lilliputians, he's putting in the big

people, all of the strange fantasy
inventions, which give it a new kind of

I think, and make it available for a
much bigger audience. So as soon as

Gulliver's Travels comes out,
everybody's reading it, whether they're

aristocrats at court or, we're told,
children in schools.

It's obviously written by a man who has
an agenda.

What are his politics?

By this age, Swift has been on a bit of
a political journey, and he's now a

Tory, not in the modern sense of Tory,
maybe. He's someone who has a real

sympathy for those who are left out of
power.

To me, it's a defining element of
utopian fiction that it has an agenda.

Jonathan Swift made his principles clear
in the preface to his story, where he

claimed that the bulk of the people
were... forced to live miserably by

labouring every day for small wages to
make a few live plentifully.

In utopias, there are often a lot of
rules to make sure that everybody

in the right way so that the whole
society functions really well. So could

guys come up with some rules about your
own perfect world?

With his idea of escaping into
extraordinary worlds, Jonathan Swift

invented children's literature.

And, just as importantly, he put utopian
dreams into the heart of it.

Some of the very first children's books
that are published in the 1740s and the

1750s, so just a couple of decades after
Gulliver's Travels, they pick up on

this idea of big and small, which is
embodied in the word Lilliput. And you

the Lilliputian magazine, the first
magazine written for children, 1751 to

which has taken that word from Swift.

It's a really interesting publication.

It has poetry in it, it has riddles, it
has all sorts of miscellaneous content,

including, and this is what I find so
fascinating,

Three or four utopian stories, little
travel narratives, which are rather like

what's happened in Gulliver's Travels,
and which are going to take these young

readers to some really extraordinary
places, governed by extraordinary rules.

In your perfect world, are there any
rules that people have to obey?

Yeah, um, don't argue, Gus.

And if you're sad, be happy.

What about this one I can see there? No
one's allowed not to like football.

Yeah.

If anyone tries to be...

more important than other people.

They're not allowed to be more important
than other people.

The Lilliputian magazine's utopian
stories are each about how a child takes

an island kingdom and rules it according
to their own edicts to make it a better

place.

One of them was the history of the
Macaulayans about a little boy who

save a corrupt society by...

leading his people to a new island and
putting in his own rules to make it a

much more virtuous country.

And the remarkable thing about that is
that in this new country, there's a

radical redistribution of property.

All inhabitants, every four years, are
to bring their money into the public

treasury, from which an equal
distribution was made again.

That sounds a bit like some of your
ideas about everybody being equal. Don't

think? Yeah.

Stories like this in the Lilliputian
magazine had real impact, seeding

revolutionary ideas among a new
generation of thinkers living at a time

intellectual and political ferment.

In the late 18th century, the shock of
the French Revolution reverberated

through Britain's stratified society.

This was a time when industrialisation
was creating dark satanic mills, and

William Blake dreamed of a spiritual
utopia, a Jerusalem in England's green

pleasant land.

One young reader of the Lilliputian
magazine, perhaps more influenced by its

writings than any other, was Thomas
Spence.

This radical political firebrand was
born into a poor family in Newcastle. He

had 18 brothers and sisters, and he
actually lifted whole sections of the

Lilliputian magazine.

and used them directly in his own
radical political writings.

For Spence, the route to utopia on earth
lay, perhaps unsurprisingly for a kid

from such a big family, in gathering
resources and sharing them.

For him, it was all about commencing.

The concept of the commons, the ideal of
shared ownership by a community, is, I

think, a vital...

but often overlook strand of utopian
thought.

We take it for granted today, but common
land, like much public space, has had

to be fought for tooth and nail.

This is Newcastle's Town Moor, 1 ,000
acres of rural space slam in the middle

urban Newcastle.

It might look peaceful nowadays, but in
1771, This was the battleground that

fired Thomas Spence's utopian politics.

When landowners threatened to enclose
the moor, Spence rallied the local

to campaign for common ownership of the
land.

The freemen wished to see the people of
Newcastle enjoy sole and several grazing

rights in perpetuity by able to lead
their animals up the hill and onto the

for the summer season.

Spence clearly did ignite the debate,
was provocative, and he did generate the

thinking behind a common. And they
actually succeeded.

It took a week in Parliament, and they
came back with the Town Moor Act 1774.

They were hailed as heroes, and it's led
to where we are today.

But today, a quarter of a millennium
later, and there are still cows being

grazed on the moor by freemen.

I mean, that's quite a victory.

It's tremendous, but it is part of the
culture in this city.

The town moor is the prized asset.

It's the city lung.

After helping to create a little utopia
in Newcastle, Spence scaled up his

campaign, thumbing his nose at the
grandest landowner in Britain, His

King George III himself.

The trumpet sound proclaims the land

around that you...

That's Thomas Spence's alternative
national anthem.

In his championing of the poor, Spence
dreamed of commencing not just land, but

education and money.

This is a really, really important
historical object.

1797 cartwheel penny.

And with this object, Spence saw an
incredible opportunity to get his

his utopian vision.

out to the masses.

200 million of these were issued in the
1790s by the Crown.

First time Britons owned an identical
image of Britannia and, of course, of

George. So what Spence did was he took
them and he counter -stamped them with

his message.

It read, No landlords, you fools.

Spence's plan forever.

He sent thousands of these coins back
into circulation.

His plan was utterly visionary, and for
having it, conceiving of it, he

found himself repeatedly in prison, and
repeatedly he defended the principles he

dedicated his life to.

The king thought he'd issued a
propagandist message to the people.

Spence took it and issued.

a utopian vision for the people.

Thomas Spence died in 1814 in the same
poverty into which he'd been born.

If he was alive today, I'd like to
imagine that he'd be a digital rights

campaigner.

Because in cyberspace, his idea of the
commons remains a powerful, if

concept.

Here, the Commons is no longer about
shared land, of course, but about shared

ideas.

I'm going to try to explain how it is
that the internet takes Thomas Spence's

thinking about the Commons onto a whole
new level.

In the words of George Bernard Shaw,
that great Irish playwright, you can

of it like this.

If I've got an apple and you've got an
apple, and we exchange our apples, we

both end up with one apple.

But if I have an idea and you have an
idea and we exchange ideas, we both end

with two ideas.

The concept of a commons of ideas and
knowledge on the internet is championed

today by Wikipedia.

In Berlin, hundreds of Wikipedia editors
from across the world are holding a

convention.

I think of this as a kind of UN of
knowledge.

They're sharing ideas and bravely
fighting for free speech in their time,

as Spence did in his.

I think my contribution to Wikipedia is
a way to disseminate more freedom and

democracy for more people in my country
and in the world maybe.

We share the same beliefs, we share the
same goals.

If I would describe it in words, it's
like a second life.

It's really...

just thousands of people trying to get
things right so that what's being

presented on Wikipedia is the truth.

The crowd -made online encyclopedia is
nothing if not ambitious in its utopian

dream for every human to freely share in
the sum of all knowledge.

With 18 billion visits every month, 40
million articles in almost 300

and around 120 ,000 regular volunteer
editors, Wikipedia is arguably one of

humanity's greatest collective efforts.

So, are you ready to edit?

I'm ready. You're ready.

So you're going to click the edit.

Executive Director of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Catherine Marr, is helping

become a Wikipedian.

I'm going to go for something I know a
bit about.

The French Revolution.

I was hoping there might be missing
references, but I'm seeing... There are

missing references in this section.

That looks like something that we could
do.

I want the Mission Impossible music.

Oh, what have I done? I've made a
shambles of this.

I really have made a shambles of this.

There's an important lesson here, which
is concentrate.

Here we have a commons.

But is this commons a virtual utopia?

Is it really as smooth -running,
democratic and idealistic as it appears

In practice, it would seem impossible
for such a model to work. You could ask

people to write some sort of common
sense of knowledge, come to consensus on

difficult issues, and that it...

Anybody could edit it, right? And that
wouldn't fall prey to sort of vandalism

or other problems.

But the reality is that Wikipedia works,
and it works remarkably well, and it

works in 300 different languages with
all of these people from all over the

globe. So I think there is something in
there that is about sort of an optimism

and a generosity of spirit that speaks
to our better nature.

Are there any topics that you could
imagine that would not be worthy of

coverage? Oh, Wikipedians decide that
sort of thing every single day.

Wikipedians determine what's notable and
what's not. And it's not necessarily

the same thing as what's famous and
what's not. You can have notable things

Wikipedia that only five people have
ever heard of, but it's important in

way to human knowledge.

And then you could have things that are
essentially ephemera, that are here

today and gone tomorrow.

Is that in any way pointing towards the
tension within the organization between

those who want to include more?

Yeah, we actually call them
inclusionists.

and deletionist.

And there is a strong tendency.

Most Wikipedians have a tendency one way
or another. I'm an inclusionist. I

believe that the more things that we
have that are available for people to

from, the more we represent sort of the
truth of the world around us. I can kind

of imagine Wikipedia as being a utopian
community, which is to say it has no

physical place.

but it's definitely part of a drive to
make the world better.

I think there's a utopian aspect to what
we believe, that free knowledge should

be available for all, that everyone
should be able to participate in it, not

just consume it, and that we should
reach every single person on the planet.

What really strikes me about Catherine
Marr's vision for Wikipedia is the

of equal access and equal rights for
everyone on the planet.

In other words, equality.

Alongside the commons, the ideal of
equality is a vital pillar of much

thinking.

People often assume that equality is
something humanity has come up with

recently. But in fact, the struggle for
equality takes us deeper still into

utopian dreams.

Let us make this... This conference, the
beginning of a stage in our quest for

making democracy the thing it should be
and should have been 200 years ago.

This is a time that we will make women
and men share equally.

Thank you very, very much.

Imagined world, where different peoples
and sexes enjoy equal rights, have a

long and rich history.

In 1405, a century before Thomas More,
and more than 500 years before Germaine

Gris as the female eunuch, Christine de
Pizan wrote the Book of the City of

Ladies.

De Pizan extolled women's
accomplishments.

Her allegorical city is a refuge from
patriarchy and male dominance,

she writes, by all women who have loved
and do love and will love virtue and

morality.

From the city of ladies to the city of
angels.

In Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood's
Dream Factory, which has pushed out

countless visions of alternative better
worlds, there's a project that fits

squarely into the feminist utopian
tradition.

This is a rehearsal of a play that
continues the fight for gender equality

exploring how pregnant women are
marginalised.

The Bumps is a play that's written
specifically for a cast of three

actors at three different stages of
pregnancy.

The piece is a way to create a small
economy for pregnant performers in the

absence of one.

It felt really good for me.

It's very moving to watch you guys work
together because I feel like...

Playwright Rachel Cowden -Nailbuff's
avant -garde play is about more than

an opportunity to pregnant actors.

It's also a provocative feminist
critique of why that opportunity doesn't

usually exist.

The hope is that watching pregnant
actors on stage makes everyone start to

wonder, why have I never seen this
before?

And not just in the theatre, but what
else is broken about our current world

that I'm now suddenly realising is
broken because I've just assumed that

pregnant women are invisible and don't
participate in society.

Almost everything I know I've taught
myself.

Yeah, discover it. How to walk down the
street.

How to bleed.

There's a bell hooks quote that I really
love, which is that art should do more

than show us the world as is. It should
show us what the world could be.

And so something that I really love
about utopian art is that it

the reality.

You know, it's not dreamy, la -la,
oblivious to what's going on because by

creating a solution or an experimental
solution, you're also reflecting on

something you're dissatisfied with.

I just want someone in my life, you
know?

And this feels so different from
needing.

Why do you think there's a really urgent
need to be thinking about talking about

feminist utopias now?

The feminist approach to utopia is
really crucial because what it does is

rejects the idea that utopia is the
product of one man's genius or

anybody's genius and that actually
utopia requires a

multiplicity of minds.

And the theater, to me, is the natural
place to explore utopian thinking in a

feminist way because it's so
collaborative.

Let's play through again. And what if
you use more space within the space?

And you can also allow yourself... It's
about realizing the patriarchy is

limiting for all of us. It traps
everyone. And that if you have fair pay,

have affordable child care, if you have
sane labor practices, these are things

that... make the world a better place
for everybody if you can improve the

for the most marginalized population
it's the key to how it can get better

all of us the more i explore it the more
i'm struck by how disruptive

utopian art like bumps can be helping us
re -engage with the problems of the

real world giving us a glimpse of a way
towards a better future

This has never been more so than in the
1960s, the time of utopian optimism,

perhaps like no other.

Alongside experiments with values and
chemical stimulants, the 1960s was also

the moment when explorers started to
look for utopia, not on the other side

the world, but in space.

The exploration of space is one of the
great adventures of all time.

We choose to go to the moon.

We choose to go to the moon in this
decade and do the other things. Not

they are easy, but because they are
hard.

launched a new wave of utopian
storytelling, nowhere more powerfully

the new medium of television.

Setting their stories in space,
television writers could smuggle daring

subversive futures under the radar and
see them broadcast into millions of

living rooms.

One series in particular was hugely
influential in tackling the issue of

equality.

This one I like the most. They caught
the essence of who I am

in this picture.

Lieutenant Uhura.

These are original publicity shots?

Yes. Michelle Nichols played Lieutenant
Uhura in Star Trek.

Her role on the bridge of the USS
Enterprise, inherently utopian, as she

to communicate in hundreds of alien
languages.

A signal, Captain.

Very weak. It's Balak.

It's a distress signal to the Fasarius.

We might smile today at the cardboard
sets and primitive special effects, but

Star Trek we see a coming together of so
many utopian elements.

Any reply?

Negative. The signal is growing weak.

Sir, I doubt if the mothership could
have heard it.

What's intriguing is that it's an
escapist entertainment, like Gulliver's

Travels. There's a crew in which men and
women are equal, and they strive for

peace in a galactic commons.

This is the captain speaking.

First Federation vessel is in distress.

We're preparing to board it.

There are lives at stake.

By our standards, alien life.

But lives, nevertheless.

Captain up.

This was also an imagined utopia that
set out to change reality.

Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry,
was making a statement on the struggle

for civil rights in America by writing a
black officer onto the bridge of the

Enterprise.

He was one of the most brilliant men on
the planet. And then somebody came up

and said, that doesn't make sense.

He'd hold a conference with them, and he
said, that comes from your limited

point of view.

I'm talking about the big picture.

What were his ideals like?

In a word, we are one.

Your performances are so strong, partly
because you really feel the message that

Gene Roddenberry's sharing.

Absolutely. Because we were doing
something that we really believed in.

and you have something to hold on to, to
hold up, this is

where I'm coming from.

In an episode called Plato's
Stepchildren, the series boldly went

television had so far feared to go, with
the first interracial kiss on screen.

I'm so frightened, Captain.

I'm so very frightened.

That's the way they want you to feel.

Makes them think that they're alive.

Kirk and Uhura's dialogue, ostensibly
about telekinetic aliens, can be

interpreted as a commentary on white
supremacists.

Kirk, as I recall,

he's like, you know, like this, and he
said...

I told you I'd get you sooner or later.

Did you realize when you shot that kiss,
how long it would be remembered for?

It's an enormously important historical
TV kiss. Oh, yes.

Yes, yes.

And interracial. Yeah, exactly.

And they said when the kiss went on, you
know, this was an interracial thing.

And I simply said...

Yeah, cos that's what my whole family
is. They wrote my life.

Michelle considered quitting the show
early on because she worried Uhura

have enough to do.

But she was convinced to continue by Dr
Martin Luther King, who saw the

significance of a black female role
model being beamed into American living

rooms.

I have a dream that one day on the red
hills of Georgia,

Sons of former slaves and the sons of
former slave owners.

Will they be able to sit down together
at the table of brotherhood? I have a

dream.

Do I gather that you recognize me? I
recognize what you appear to be.

Martin Luther King's utopian dream
shines through a Star Trek episode in

the crew beam Abraham Lincoln onto the
ship.

And there's a telling exchange with
Uhura.

Excuse me, Captain Kirk.

Yes, Johnson. Mr. Scott.

What a charming negress.

Oh, forgive me, my dear.

I know that in my time, some use that
term as a description of property.

But why should I object to that term,
sir?

You see, in our century, we've learned
not to fear words.

May I present our communications
officer, Lieutenant Uhura.

The foolishness of my century had me
apologizing where no offense was given.

We've each learned to be delighted with
what we are.

Dr. King was a man who preached that we
should not see differences between

races. That's right. And that we should
love one another.

Yes. Do you feel that Dr. King's message
was really quite like Star Trek's

message? Yes, very much.

That's why he was the trekker.

He rides, you know, and he made no bones
about it.

He was so pleased that we were getting
what he meant.

Utopian visions like Star Trek act as a
beacon.

They're crucial in criticizing the
present so as to mark the way towards a

better future.

But there's a flip side to utopian
thinking.

Dystopia.

Dystopian literature reminds us that
hard -won gains can be lost.

Dreams like equality and shared
ownership can go out of the window.

Dystopias warn us we must beware
humanity's darker, authoritarian side if

ever to reach a better place.

Just outside Vilnius in Lithuania, I'm
being interrogated by the KGB in an

immersive and very disorientating
theatre experience.

They call it 1984 the survival drama
after George Orwell's classic dystopian

novel about the Big Brother state.

This three -hour performance, set 20
feet underground in a disused nuclear

bunker, distills the Soviet experience
into a grim, unremitting dystopia.

The creators, for whom the Soviet
experience is recent memory, believe you

just read about dystopia, you have to
feel it.

Why do you put people through this?

Just to make people understand how
living in Soviet Union was like.

This experience of working here is very
important for me because I love free

Lithuania, I love freedom, and I want to
show our society that freedom is much

more better than totalitarian.

Always bleak vision of life under a
totalitarian state, still a bestseller

today. It's a recurring metaphor. The
book even has a cameo as a prop.

Or rather, a blunt weapon.

You imagine George Orwell might have
approved, as his sinister interrogator O

'Brien warns hero Winston Smith.

If you want a picture of the future,
imagine a boot stamping on a human face

forever.

Astonishingly, it's popular with
tourists and school parties who play the

of participant and victim.

We have a lot of students from schools,
so we call it live history lessons.

So three hours they are here just facing
the Soviet Union, the discipline there

and all the reality.

So how do the school kids respond? I
mean, it's quite an immersive, a very

immersive and quite a daunting
experience.

So usually, you know, they come here and
they are thinking that this is the

game, you know. Like guys who are 17, 16
years old, they are coming here and

just behaving like, what can you do for
me, you know.

So it takes about 10 minutes and we've
got the silence there, you know, and

are kind of scared.

Perhaps they walk out realising quite
how lucky they are to have been born

they were born. Yes, yes, they go out
usually through this door and they're

shouting freedom, you know, and just
like going out of the jail.

It might seem extreme, but the 1984
experience is

hardly outlandish in our culture.

Where George Orwell led, others have
followed.

In the 18th century, young people read
the utopian stories of the Lilliputian

magazine.

Now it's dystopian comics that help them
understand their world.

The 1990s cult Marvel series
Transmetropolitan is a classic example.

It imagined a near future of information
overload.

in which truth is lost in a morally
bankrupt society, binging on a diet of

and violence.

Transmetropolitan, the whole hook was
when truth is lies, who do you look to

bring you what's actually happening?
Who's your guide through that world? A

journalist.

Transmetropolitan's author, Warren
Ellis, is one of Britain's most prolific

comic book and sci -fi writers.

For him, the warning about a dark,
authoritarian future is about helping

generally young readership to navigate
issues of politics and control.

Reading dystopic fiction in comics can
give kids tools to understand how the

the world is run and letting them know
that they're not alone in their lack of

understanding and general horror of the
way the world is.

So there's this one passage that I
just... I think it's really staggeringly

prescient. So he's broadcasting to the
city.

You bought us what he likes, the papers
and feed sites that lie to you for the

hell of it. They do what they like. And
what do you do? You pay them.

You must like it when people in
authority they never earned lie to you.

These things are always true in
dystopian fiction.

unearned privilege.

One of the many little shocks that
Winston Smith gets in 1984 is

that O 'Brien can turn off the
telescreens.

Sudden unearned secret privilege.

The 0 .1 % were present in 1984 just as
they're present today.

I was wondering about this work in
relation to 1984, of a world where the

gets lost and you don't bother to
question it or challenge it. This is why

was such an important book, because it
was only two steps away from life at the

time. It was Anthony Burgess who
actually revealed that at one time the

title for 1984 was 1948.

OK. It was really very, very close to
the way Orwell saw the word at the time.

1984 is one of those books that every
generation can find a reflection in or

to prevent that or something like that
happening.

I agree with Warren Ellis.

I think of dystopian stories as the
warning lights of our time.

And it's striking how those warning
lights are flashing everywhere these

They're our favourite big -budget movie
franchises and glossy box -set dramas.

From a sadistic regime forcing teen
gladiators to fight for the death in The

Hunger Games.

If I'm going to die, I want to still be
me.

I just can't afford to think like that.

to a Christian fundamentalist state
where the few remaining fertile women

subject to ritualized rape to bear
children for their male masters in The

Handmaid's Tale.

You girls will serve the leaders and
their barren wives.

You will bear children for them.

Today's utopian fiction pits a heroic
protagonist against a world that's

inhumane, full of torture and brutality.

It asks us how do we hold on to our
values in this kind of a space?

Whereas in the 1960s, such literature
and filmmaking was optimistic,

nowadays it's full of profound fear.

For me, there can be no bigger fear than
the horror of Nazism.

Continuing to haunt us, the Nazi
nightmare is being reworked again in the

The Man in the High Castle, which asks
us not to assume our future is set.

Amazon's adaptation of Philip K. Dick's
sci -fi novel imagines a 1960s America

carved up by Germany and Japan, which in
this counterfactual world have won

World War II.

It was Heydrich who gave the order.

He was following orders.

You probably don't even know why he
wanted me and Lutz out of the way.

No, sir.

I don't?

I didn't think so.

This balcony really reminds me of the
scene where

the Oba Group and Fuhrer throw the
adjutant over the edge. A horrifying

Frank Spotnitz developed and produced
the series.

Why does he think dystopias are so
popular today?

My feeling is that we're living in a
period of heightened fear.

Really, since 9 -11, people are very
fearful.

And dystopian storytelling allows them
to work through those fears in a safe

space, an entertaining space.

Do you think that dystopian fiction and
filmmaking is almost cathartic then?

I do think in my small way, I try to
tell stories.

that help us think about ourselves, that
make us think about ourselves. And Man

in the High Castle, I think, is a story
that really invites you to look at

yourself.

It's really more about us than about
Nazis.

And that's why, especially in the first
season, there were hardly any Nazis with

German accents.

They were all American Nazis. What I was
trying to say was, look, you have this

in you, too.

Joe!

Say hi.

Say hi.

Glad you could make it.

I saw you in the parade on TV.

It was really comforting.

I had to watch.

Hey, Harry.

Nick Hale. Nick Hale.

The Victory in America Day celebration
at the Smith household.

Nick Hale. Yeah.

It was like Americana. That was like
Thanksgiving. And, you know, saying

to the neighbor. And it was pretty nice.
And, you know, John Smith has a really

lovely wife and children.

Joe, this is Thomas and Amy and
Jennifer.

Hi, guys. Say hi. Say hi. I think you've
got to admit that attraction to parts

of it.

You could argue that National Socialism
was a utopian movement.

In their mind, they thought they were
perfecting man.

In my mind, that's what makes it evil.

Hitler's vision of utopia was of a
genetically pure master race dominating

Europe for a thousand years.

Please, take a seat.

One storyline in The Man in the High
Castle interrogates this utopia by

confronting its main Nazi protagonist
with a terrible personal dilemma.

He discovers his son has a

rare degenerative disease and must,
according to Nazi protocols, be

My son, the picture is tough.

I'm afraid he isn't.

Within months, perhaps a year, there
will be paralysis.

That's a mistake.

Doctor, you're making a mistake.

I would never tell you this were I not
certain.

The look on his face of realization as
he suddenly comes to wrestle with the

inner human emotional life.

that he's supposed to entirely suppress
in the name of the regime is really

striking that character played
brilliantly by rufus sewell was an

to say there can be good people who
embrace evil ideologies that that

actually happens all the time and that
storyline of confronting the terminal

illness of his own son to me was a
perfect way to force him to face

the evil of the ideology he'd embraced.

As for medical assistance, a syringe and
an

ampoule of an effective combination,
absolutely painless.

A good dystopian drama is a warning.

It's a critique of who we are now,
saying these are the impulses that we

exercising. This is who we will become
unless we change path.

Frank Spotnitz is right, I think, that
dystopian stories are there to keep us

the righteous path, in check, on the way
towards a better future.

That future might seem uncertain in the
current climate of fear, but it's within

our seemingly undaunted search for
utopia that I find some optimism.

Utopias spur the human imagination and
keep us asking the big questions.

whether as dreams of escape and
exploration, as campaigns, or as

What links these very different visions,
it seems to me, is our almost innate

drive to make the world a better place.

We imagine utopias through fiction, I
think, because they encourage it. They

speak of the good in us and around us,
of utopian acts of everyday life and of

extraordinary kindness.

If someone falls in the street, just
watch as others rush up to help.

If we're attacked by terrorists, witness
our resilience.

Our desires for utopias is, I think, an
important part of human condition.

The thing that inspires us to keep
trying to improve our world.

In the next episode...

From imagination to implementation.

Radical communities.

Hi, can I join you?

Utopian ideologies.

Grand architectural visions.

We're declaring war on the flum.

But is humanity ever really up to the
job?

And Utopia in Search of the Dream
continues, same time, 9 o 'clock next

Tomorrow night, Eunina Ramirez is on the
Thames to find the heart of the English

landscape movement in search of Arcadia
at 9.

Then the one -woman army against
modernist architecture swamping New

Citizen Jane, Battle for the City at 10.