What would happen if 14 pioneering Americans waved goodbye to their lives in modern-day society, moved to a remote location and set out to create a new society a-la-'Lord of the Flies'?
Such is the premise behind the new 'Big Brother'-concept show Utopia on Fox.
Like the popular William Golding book, which centers around a group of young British schoolboys who become stuck on an deserted island and try to govern themselves with lackluster results, the show starts the cast off with no societal structure.
"The Utopians will make every decision about how they live and work. Will they choose democracy or dictatorship? Capitalism or socialism? Fidelity or free love? Which religion, if any, will prevail? Will they punish or forgive? Keep or share?" says the show's description. "Are those chickens friends...or food? If not now, when? It is all up to them. This is not a game. There is no prize. This is 'Utopia': reality TV in its truest form."
Despite the unique narrative of the show, "Utopia" has been off to a sluggish start after a much-hyped Sunday night premiere on Sept. 7.
The premise is similar to the popular reality show "Big Brother," but with a considerably different living environment:
"'Utopia' is a positive and constructive program that gives people the opportunity, if you can start all over again, start from scratch and create laws and make decisions, will you be able to build a society that is better than the one we have; will it be chaos or happiness," show creator and reality TV veteran John De Mol told The Deadline. "'Big Brother' is a competition among 12 people who don't have the worry about money, their fridge is always full, it's a totally different setup."
The show is currently scheduled to air new episodes on Tuesday and Friday nights, both of which are popular for baseball as the season draws to a close and game views go up leading up to the World Series.
Whether or not Fox continues to keep the series going as the official fall TV season starts is one thing, but if the buzz surrounding the new Batman origins show "Gotham" (premieres Sept. 22) can prove anything, it's that Fox won't have much to worry about either way.
