Orphan Black
Apr. 21st, 2013 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
varjohaltiaBBC America aired episode 4 of Orphan Black last night. I want to rave about the show, and by doing so, promptly ran into the realization that it's incredibly hard to pigeon-hole it. BBC America claims it's "science fiction" or "supernatural". There certainly is a science fiction aspect to it, although it takes a few episodes for it to appear, and by episode 4 it really is still all about people and situations.
Then again, BBC America also claims it's an "Original Series" and I'm having some trouble figuring out what that means, since it's an all-Canadian production that by all accounts BBC decided to buy rights to after the fact. Then again, so is SyFy's Continuum, so go figure.
Anyhow! The basic premise is that the main character discovers that she's just one in a series of clones, that there are other women that look just like her (but live completely different lives and have different personalities) and someone is intent on killing them. There is a strong aspect of police procedural in tone, but the plot is multi-layered, complicated, intelligent, and certainly not episodic. The characters are complex, and not clearly "good" or "bad." (Although arguably Helena is clearly crazy.)
It's a good show. It's really refreshing in that it expects something from the viewer, and it rewards the viewer in return. It has the same gimmick as Dollhouse, Fringe and countless other shows, where, the same actress ends up playing vastly different characters. However, Tatiana Maslany's performance is just amazing, and she puts all previous attempts at this to shame. Arguably, at least part of the attraction the show holds for me is to just watch all the different incarnations of her, from a street punk to a soccer mom to a Russian religious fanatic to an American grad student to a Toronto cop.
BBC America's Page
Then again, BBC America also claims it's an "Original Series" and I'm having some trouble figuring out what that means, since it's an all-Canadian production that by all accounts BBC decided to buy rights to after the fact. Then again, so is SyFy's Continuum, so go figure.
Anyhow! The basic premise is that the main character discovers that she's just one in a series of clones, that there are other women that look just like her (but live completely different lives and have different personalities) and someone is intent on killing them. There is a strong aspect of police procedural in tone, but the plot is multi-layered, complicated, intelligent, and certainly not episodic. The characters are complex, and not clearly "good" or "bad." (Although arguably Helena is clearly crazy.)
It's a good show. It's really refreshing in that it expects something from the viewer, and it rewards the viewer in return. It has the same gimmick as Dollhouse, Fringe and countless other shows, where, the same actress ends up playing vastly different characters. However, Tatiana Maslany's performance is just amazing, and she puts all previous attempts at this to shame. Arguably, at least part of the attraction the show holds for me is to just watch all the different incarnations of her, from a street punk to a soccer mom to a Russian religious fanatic to an American grad student to a Toronto cop.
BBC America's Page
