This article studies the relationship between ‘fugitive receptions’ and excessive audience engagement with the cult television series Utopia (Channel Four, 2013-2014). ‘Fugitive receptions’ are centrifugal and unpredictable and thus this research offers an unusual perspective on our normative understanding of media engagement as predictable and measurable. The research relies on audience-fan interviews and the longer-term diffused online reception of the series. In particular, the article analyses how audiences go beyond parameters of normalized audience engagement in their navigation of elements of transgression, ideology, paranoia, and the series’ abrupt cancellation.