The Canadian science fiction TV drama Orphan Black begins with Sarah Dawkins (the astonishing Tatiana Maslany) scratching a precarious living out as a con artist with her young daughter Kira (Skylar Wexler) making a startling discovery at a train station one night: a woman named Beth Childs, who is totally identical to her, committing suicide. So identical, in fact, that she is a clone. As Sarah comes to grips with this discovery, an investigation into her clone reveals eight more: microbiology student Cosima Niehaus, soccer mum Allison Hendrix, Ukrainian assassin Helena, her German casualty Katja Obinger, Rachel Duncan, a corrupt and vindictive official with the Dyad Institute, and three presumed to have died before the series' events: Danielle Fournier, Arianna Gourdano and Janika Zingler. Now, with the help of her gay artist/prostitute foster brother Felix (Jordan Gavaris), their foster mother Siobhan Sandler (Maria Doyle Kennedy), Beth's police partner Art Bell (Kevin Hanchard) and Cosima's friend and science colleague Dr. Delphine Cormier (Evelynne Bronchu), Sarah must lift the lid on the cloning programs known as Projects Leda and Castor and put an end to them.
Let me flag this up-front: Orphan Black is sometimes so convoluted it makes even Lost seem straightforward. But nonetheless, for the brainiest kind of SF it is just so cautiously plotted and paced from episode one that if this is your cuppa, it will just keep having you wanting a top-up. Creators and showrunners Graeme Manson (writer) and John Fawcett (director) and the rest of their team keep us toe-to-toe with Sarah from her fateful discovery of Beth's suicide and her quest for answers over the show's five seasons, interweaving this with flashback explorations of the clones and all their personal lives and pasts. Utterly rare is a TV show which improves upon itself with each season, and drops the curtain at the right time, but Orphan Black ticks both those boxes for me.
It's also consistently thought-provoking in its statements about the merits and hazards of cloning. Should it be done? If so, how? Should we have the choice to be cloned were it possible? What would it mean for independence and personal identity? Pleasantly, however, the show always encourages us to give these questions, and more, our own answers. It also takes pride in putting women and LGBT characters in the spotlight (however cliched several are).
But if there's one reason above all to check Orphan Black out, it absolutely must be Tatiana Maslany. With the herculean task of eight radically different roles, Maslany had to film each scene in which she plays numerous parts with the help of dolly-mounted motion control cameras and a body double, but even as they became more demanding over the series, as each one she just makes it look all too easy. I was truly over the moon when she won the 2016 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for season four, and after just a few episodes I'm sure you will know why she did.
Orphan Black is a wildly addictive, clearsighted and suspenseful TV puzzle. Fittingly, you won't be able to say you've seen anything like it.
Let me flag this up-front: Orphan Black is sometimes so convoluted it makes even Lost seem straightforward. But nonetheless, for the brainiest kind of SF it is just so cautiously plotted and paced from episode one that if this is your cuppa, it will just keep having you wanting a top-up. Creators and showrunners Graeme Manson (writer) and John Fawcett (director) and the rest of their team keep us toe-to-toe with Sarah from her fateful discovery of Beth's suicide and her quest for answers over the show's five seasons, interweaving this with flashback explorations of the clones and all their personal lives and pasts. Utterly rare is a TV show which improves upon itself with each season, and drops the curtain at the right time, but Orphan Black ticks both those boxes for me.
It's also consistently thought-provoking in its statements about the merits and hazards of cloning. Should it be done? If so, how? Should we have the choice to be cloned were it possible? What would it mean for independence and personal identity? Pleasantly, however, the show always encourages us to give these questions, and more, our own answers. It also takes pride in putting women and LGBT characters in the spotlight (however cliched several are).
But if there's one reason above all to check Orphan Black out, it absolutely must be Tatiana Maslany. With the herculean task of eight radically different roles, Maslany had to film each scene in which she plays numerous parts with the help of dolly-mounted motion control cameras and a body double, but even as they became more demanding over the series, as each one she just makes it look all too easy. I was truly over the moon when she won the 2016 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for season four, and after just a few episodes I'm sure you will know why she did.
Orphan Black is a wildly addictive, clearsighted and suspenseful TV puzzle. Fittingly, you won't be able to say you've seen anything like it.
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