Orphan Black: Season 1
AKA "That series with Tatiana Maslany that everyone keeps going on and on about." Which...is pretty warranted? Mostly because of Tatiana Maslany.
The gist of things is that a grifter, Sarah, returns to town after running off a year ago, and hopes to reclaim custody of her daughter, Kira, from her adopted mother, Siobahn, with whom she left Kira for a few hours and then never came back. (Her adopted brother, Felix, voices all our thoughts on the likelihood of this going down easily.) But then a very-obviously-better-off woman, Beth, who looks just like her jumps in front of a train, leaving her purse behind, and Sarah steals her purse and identity, intending to do the latter just long enough to take every cent Beth had. Then she learns that Beth is only one of several women who look like her-the others including but not necessarily limited to a German woman named Katja, a scientist named Cosima and a suburban housewife named Allison-and that her lookalikes have been trying to find out who and what they are.
I wasn't particularly impressed by or interested in the pilot, despite the concept, with Beth and Katja being the only things to really hold my attention, and likely wouldn't have bothered watching more if not for the near-universal love for it that I've seen, and the only negative fan-reviews/reaction that I've seen were, IIRC, based only on the pilot. It does, however, quickly pick up in the second episode, and keep improving from there.
A lot of shows' successes depend on the strength of their leads, but I'm not sure I've seen another that does as much as this one. While others like Nina Dobrev or Anna Torv rightly receive praise for successfully portraying two separate characters in the same show, their characters ( at least in what I've seen of The Vampire Diaries- first 2 seasons and 1st episode of the 3rd season-and Fringe-first 4 seasons) they only play two characters, and those characters don't spend a lot of time in each other's company, and still only have to play one character in more episodes than not. Tatiana Maslany plays, if I'm counting right, 7 characters throughout the series, with 3 being the fewest characters she plays in any given episode. In addition, every episode has at least 2 of her characters interacting face-to-face at some point, most episodes have several scenes of this, and not always the same two characters, and each character is very distinctive by mannerisms, voice and speech patterns (not to mention accents) that the hard work of the show's hair and makeup department isn't always needed to tell them apart. And then she has to regularly play one of her characters impersonating another. This also probably happens at least once in most episodes, and that's not counting Sarah impersonating Beth for a lot of the season. There's also a lot of "Is there something in them that's inherently similar, personalitywise, and how much is nurture over nature?" going on, though mostly with three of the characters.
Which is not to say that it's a perfect show. To say the show doesn't seem to have much of an idea of what" informed consent" is is something of an understatement (I suspect the writers assume that when you reach a certain level of almost every character having an ulterior motive, wanting revenge, being blackmailed, acting out of self-preservation, keeping game-changing secrets, etc., you don't have to worry so much about that. If so, I disagree with them quite strongly.) and it's very much a "sea of white people" show. There are only 2 PoC to appear in multiple episodes throughout the season in major roles (and a couple in much smaller roles, and I think the writers forget about them at times), and one is Sarah's abusive ex, and the other, though usually a positive character, has a number of Angry Black Man moments. The only other living PoC of import in the show appears near the end and introduces a whole other set of potential issues. (ETa-ish: No, wait, there was one other dude in a minor role who gets used by Sarah to maintain her cover and then kinda vanishes). There are also various things throughout the series that make me think the lead role was originally meant for a WoC, though I can't always pin down why I think that. Then there's Felix. Love the boy, and there are a lot of times when his bitchiness and irreverent commentary are the only thing saving the show from taking itself 5000 times too seriously, but they really did go out of their way with the "flamboyantly gay stereotype" bit at times. (ETA: Interesting commentary on Felix by the actor here.)
Still, very worth watching overall, IMO.
SPOILERS!
-So, let's talk about Beth and Katja. Actually, lets just talk about Katja for now. I FIND IT SO SAD THAT NO ONE CARES ABOUT KATJA. LITERALLY NO ONE. Like, Allison and Cosima pretty much just find it inconvenient that she died? And I know that Beth is the only one who really interacted with her, but Katja is the one who figured out both that there were clones out there, and that someone was killing them off, and she's the one who contacted Beth, which is the only reason she, Allison and Cosima (and later Sarah) were able to meet. I know Beth's death is considered what kicked thins off, since that's what brought Sarah in, but really, it was Katja (or Helena, depending on how you want to look at it) who got the clone club rolling, which is also what led to Beth killing that woman to protect the other clones, which eventually led to her death.
-And then there's Beth. BETH, AT LEAST PEOPLE CARED ABOUT YOU! Well, mostly your girlfriend Allison and your mostly-maybe-fake boyfriend. (But he was apparently willing to kill anyone in his path when he thought you might have been murdered?) And probably Art. And I'm pretty sure Sarah was half-obsessed with you for a while there. But guys, not only was Beth somehow able to figure out some part ofthe conspiracy and take down someone involved in it (and make it look like a complete accident!) but she was also able to find out about Sarah (maybe by running her own fingerprints through the system?), and somehow not only knew she'd be at that train station, but also that Sarah would take over her life, which would take her to the other clones. like, the way she put her stuff down and made sure Sarah saw her seemed to make it pretty obvious (in my mind, at least) that it was all very deliberate on her part. I'm also very curious about her relationships with both Art and Paul. Like, at the beginning, Art didnt seem to like her much, but then later he seemed really fond of her, and apparently he didnt hesitate to risk his own career to cover for her. So I guess maybe it was just her instability that had him like that early on. Then there's Paul, who...seems to have cared about her in some way, even if not actual romantic love, but that's somewhat ambiguous.
-So, really, while I'm not generally a fan of shows relying on flashbacks, I wouldn't object to lots of Beth and Katja-centric flashbacks.
-Allison is my favorite, for anyone who is curious. And, like Sarah thinks was the case with Beth and Paul, I wonder how many of her issues stem from the fact that her marriage seems to have been pretty much dead for a long time, but Donnie hung around in it for some inexplicable reason (and kept coming back) despite no apparent interest in the relationship. And I wonder how long Donnie has been her monitor. My assumption is that it's the reason they got back together after being broken up in college, and that while Delphine and Paul are relatively recent additions to Cosima and Beth's lives, they probably had monitors they weren't aware of before them.
-Did I mention how iffy the show's idea of informed consent is? IT'S REALLY IFFY GUYS. Only Cosima's' reaction to the confirmation that Delphine is her monitor really makes me think the show is really aware of it. But beyond that: Allison and Beth are/were living with people who's JOB it was to spy on them, report on them, and go out for a drink or whatever while people came in and illegally experimented on them (after letting the intruders in the front door, presumably). In Paul's case, there doesn't seem tohave been much choice involved, but who knows with Donnie. (And we can assume Katja and the other dead clones probably had something similar going on.) Then there's Sarah literally jumping Paul because he's weirded out by his girlfriend suddenly acting like another person. And this is not "spy/grifter/whatever about to be caught out and seducing someone" but a case of person A having sex with person B ONLY because they believe person B is person C, with whom person A has an established relationship. (Except person B is in that relationship with person C either partly or only because a secret organization is forcing them to, which person B-who atthat point knows she's probably going to jail forever if her impersonation is revealed-doesn't know, and informed consent got tossed out the car window about 5 miles back and is crying pitifully on the side of the road.) By the time Allison was having sex with her best friend's husband because she was convinced that her best friend was spying on her and letting people into her house to experiment on her, my brain was actively trying to ignore anything sex-related in the show out of self-preservation.
-That said, I DO think the show recognizes the monitor situation as violation and objectification, no real doubts about that, I just don't think they've really taken the idea of informed consent into account, or that it sees the connection between the two.
-Poor Aynsley. All you ever really did was be a bit too nosy and interfering.
-Also, I'm really glad the the early "Paul is kinda weird and creepy, isn't he?" vibe was apparently deliberate on the show's part, and not another in the endless stream of cases where creepy Nice Guys/douches are supposed to be Great And Supportive Guys. I actually started enjoying him as a character (though I wouldn't say I actually like him) once the "Paul the supportive boyfriend who won't give up on you" act went away.
-Cosima, no coughing for you, please.
-I swear the writers ship Beth/Allison. And Sarah/Helena. And yeesh, how do you actually have both sexual and platonic chemistry with yourself, depending on what two characters you happen to be playing at any given time. THIS IS NOT NATURAL, TATIANA MASLANY.
-I'm sorry, Matt Frewer, but after Generation X, Alice and Eureka, I just cannot take you seriously. It's not that you're a bad actor, it's just that I can't interpret a character played by you as one I should take seriously or consider a threat after most roles I've seen you in.
-Kira is seriously the calmest child ever. Like, I half wonder if she's drugged or something. IT JUST ISN'T NORMAL. (In another show, I'd say it was possible that she had ADD or something similar-it's a misconception that kids with ADD can't focus on anything, sometimes the problem with it's manifestation is that the kid gets TOO focused on one or two things and looks perfectly calm and obedient but you won't ever be able to get them in any mode but the one they're in right then, or get that focus for anything else-but I think she's supposed to be The Super special And Unique And Amazing child or something.) But really why does Kira call her "monkey"? LEAST MONKEYLIKE CHILD EVER.
-I dislike the idea of Siobahn having been spying on/using Sarah all this time, but I have a suspicion there might end up being something solid behind that. Not just because of the picture (because she could have "gone rogue," so to speak, when Sarah was very young) but because Dr. Leicke (or however it's spelled) only said they'd been looking for Helena for a long time, and neither Sarah nor Kira seemed to be news to him.
-I'd say "Show, what were you trying to say there with Amelia?" but I have a sneaking suspicion that the answer is along the lines of "But don't you think Tatiana Maslany looks 'ethnically ambiguous'?" or "But we'll reveal that Amelia was actually just the incubator."
The gist of things is that a grifter, Sarah, returns to town after running off a year ago, and hopes to reclaim custody of her daughter, Kira, from her adopted mother, Siobahn, with whom she left Kira for a few hours and then never came back. (Her adopted brother, Felix, voices all our thoughts on the likelihood of this going down easily.) But then a very-obviously-better-off woman, Beth, who looks just like her jumps in front of a train, leaving her purse behind, and Sarah steals her purse and identity, intending to do the latter just long enough to take every cent Beth had. Then she learns that Beth is only one of several women who look like her-the others including but not necessarily limited to a German woman named Katja, a scientist named Cosima and a suburban housewife named Allison-and that her lookalikes have been trying to find out who and what they are.
I wasn't particularly impressed by or interested in the pilot, despite the concept, with Beth and Katja being the only things to really hold my attention, and likely wouldn't have bothered watching more if not for the near-universal love for it that I've seen, and the only negative fan-reviews/reaction that I've seen were, IIRC, based only on the pilot. It does, however, quickly pick up in the second episode, and keep improving from there.
A lot of shows' successes depend on the strength of their leads, but I'm not sure I've seen another that does as much as this one. While others like Nina Dobrev or Anna Torv rightly receive praise for successfully portraying two separate characters in the same show, their characters ( at least in what I've seen of The Vampire Diaries- first 2 seasons and 1st episode of the 3rd season-and Fringe-first 4 seasons) they only play two characters, and those characters don't spend a lot of time in each other's company, and still only have to play one character in more episodes than not. Tatiana Maslany plays, if I'm counting right, 7 characters throughout the series, with 3 being the fewest characters she plays in any given episode. In addition, every episode has at least 2 of her characters interacting face-to-face at some point, most episodes have several scenes of this, and not always the same two characters, and each character is very distinctive by mannerisms, voice and speech patterns (not to mention accents) that the hard work of the show's hair and makeup department isn't always needed to tell them apart. And then she has to regularly play one of her characters impersonating another. This also probably happens at least once in most episodes, and that's not counting Sarah impersonating Beth for a lot of the season. There's also a lot of "Is there something in them that's inherently similar, personalitywise, and how much is nurture over nature?" going on, though mostly with three of the characters.
Which is not to say that it's a perfect show. To say the show doesn't seem to have much of an idea of what" informed consent" is is something of an understatement (I suspect the writers assume that when you reach a certain level of almost every character having an ulterior motive, wanting revenge, being blackmailed, acting out of self-preservation, keeping game-changing secrets, etc., you don't have to worry so much about that. If so, I disagree with them quite strongly.) and it's very much a "sea of white people" show. There are only 2 PoC to appear in multiple episodes throughout the season in major roles (and a couple in much smaller roles, and I think the writers forget about them at times), and one is Sarah's abusive ex, and the other, though usually a positive character, has a number of Angry Black Man moments. The only other living PoC of import in the show appears near the end and introduces a whole other set of potential issues. (ETa-ish: No, wait, there was one other dude in a minor role who gets used by Sarah to maintain her cover and then kinda vanishes). There are also various things throughout the series that make me think the lead role was originally meant for a WoC, though I can't always pin down why I think that. Then there's Felix. Love the boy, and there are a lot of times when his bitchiness and irreverent commentary are the only thing saving the show from taking itself 5000 times too seriously, but they really did go out of their way with the "flamboyantly gay stereotype" bit at times. (ETA: Interesting commentary on Felix by the actor here.)
Still, very worth watching overall, IMO.
SPOILERS!
-So, let's talk about Beth and Katja. Actually, lets just talk about Katja for now. I FIND IT SO SAD THAT NO ONE CARES ABOUT KATJA. LITERALLY NO ONE. Like, Allison and Cosima pretty much just find it inconvenient that she died? And I know that Beth is the only one who really interacted with her, but Katja is the one who figured out both that there were clones out there, and that someone was killing them off, and she's the one who contacted Beth, which is the only reason she, Allison and Cosima (and later Sarah) were able to meet. I know Beth's death is considered what kicked thins off, since that's what brought Sarah in, but really, it was Katja (or Helena, depending on how you want to look at it) who got the clone club rolling, which is also what led to Beth killing that woman to protect the other clones, which eventually led to her death.
-And then there's Beth. BETH, AT LEAST PEOPLE CARED ABOUT YOU! Well, mostly your girlfriend Allison and your mostly-maybe-fake boyfriend. (But he was apparently willing to kill anyone in his path when he thought you might have been murdered?) And probably Art. And I'm pretty sure Sarah was half-obsessed with you for a while there. But guys, not only was Beth somehow able to figure out some part ofthe conspiracy and take down someone involved in it (and make it look like a complete accident!) but she was also able to find out about Sarah (maybe by running her own fingerprints through the system?), and somehow not only knew she'd be at that train station, but also that Sarah would take over her life, which would take her to the other clones. like, the way she put her stuff down and made sure Sarah saw her seemed to make it pretty obvious (in my mind, at least) that it was all very deliberate on her part. I'm also very curious about her relationships with both Art and Paul. Like, at the beginning, Art didnt seem to like her much, but then later he seemed really fond of her, and apparently he didnt hesitate to risk his own career to cover for her. So I guess maybe it was just her instability that had him like that early on. Then there's Paul, who...seems to have cared about her in some way, even if not actual romantic love, but that's somewhat ambiguous.
-So, really, while I'm not generally a fan of shows relying on flashbacks, I wouldn't object to lots of Beth and Katja-centric flashbacks.
-Allison is my favorite, for anyone who is curious. And, like Sarah thinks was the case with Beth and Paul, I wonder how many of her issues stem from the fact that her marriage seems to have been pretty much dead for a long time, but Donnie hung around in it for some inexplicable reason (and kept coming back) despite no apparent interest in the relationship. And I wonder how long Donnie has been her monitor. My assumption is that it's the reason they got back together after being broken up in college, and that while Delphine and Paul are relatively recent additions to Cosima and Beth's lives, they probably had monitors they weren't aware of before them.
-Did I mention how iffy the show's idea of informed consent is? IT'S REALLY IFFY GUYS. Only Cosima's' reaction to the confirmation that Delphine is her monitor really makes me think the show is really aware of it. But beyond that: Allison and Beth are/were living with people who's JOB it was to spy on them, report on them, and go out for a drink or whatever while people came in and illegally experimented on them (after letting the intruders in the front door, presumably). In Paul's case, there doesn't seem tohave been much choice involved, but who knows with Donnie. (And we can assume Katja and the other dead clones probably had something similar going on.) Then there's Sarah literally jumping Paul because he's weirded out by his girlfriend suddenly acting like another person. And this is not "spy/grifter/whatever about to be caught out and seducing someone" but a case of person A having sex with person B ONLY because they believe person B is person C, with whom person A has an established relationship. (Except person B is in that relationship with person C either partly or only because a secret organization is forcing them to, which person B-who atthat point knows she's probably going to jail forever if her impersonation is revealed-doesn't know, and informed consent got tossed out the car window about 5 miles back and is crying pitifully on the side of the road.) By the time Allison was having sex with her best friend's husband because she was convinced that her best friend was spying on her and letting people into her house to experiment on her, my brain was actively trying to ignore anything sex-related in the show out of self-preservation.
-That said, I DO think the show recognizes the monitor situation as violation and objectification, no real doubts about that, I just don't think they've really taken the idea of informed consent into account, or that it sees the connection between the two.
-Poor Aynsley. All you ever really did was be a bit too nosy and interfering.
-Also, I'm really glad the the early "Paul is kinda weird and creepy, isn't he?" vibe was apparently deliberate on the show's part, and not another in the endless stream of cases where creepy Nice Guys/douches are supposed to be Great And Supportive Guys. I actually started enjoying him as a character (though I wouldn't say I actually like him) once the "Paul the supportive boyfriend who won't give up on you" act went away.
-Cosima, no coughing for you, please.
-I swear the writers ship Beth/Allison. And Sarah/Helena. And yeesh, how do you actually have both sexual and platonic chemistry with yourself, depending on what two characters you happen to be playing at any given time. THIS IS NOT NATURAL, TATIANA MASLANY.
-I'm sorry, Matt Frewer, but after Generation X, Alice and Eureka, I just cannot take you seriously. It's not that you're a bad actor, it's just that I can't interpret a character played by you as one I should take seriously or consider a threat after most roles I've seen you in.
-Kira is seriously the calmest child ever. Like, I half wonder if she's drugged or something. IT JUST ISN'T NORMAL. (In another show, I'd say it was possible that she had ADD or something similar-it's a misconception that kids with ADD can't focus on anything, sometimes the problem with it's manifestation is that the kid gets TOO focused on one or two things and looks perfectly calm and obedient but you won't ever be able to get them in any mode but the one they're in right then, or get that focus for anything else-but I think she's supposed to be The Super special And Unique And Amazing child or something.) But really why does Kira call her "monkey"? LEAST MONKEYLIKE CHILD EVER.
-I dislike the idea of Siobahn having been spying on/using Sarah all this time, but I have a suspicion there might end up being something solid behind that. Not just because of the picture (because she could have "gone rogue," so to speak, when Sarah was very young) but because Dr. Leicke (or however it's spelled) only said they'd been looking for Helena for a long time, and neither Sarah nor Kira seemed to be news to him.
-I'd say "Show, what were you trying to say there with Amelia?" but I have a sneaking suspicion that the answer is along the lines of "But don't you think Tatiana Maslany looks 'ethnically ambiguous'?" or "But we'll reveal that Amelia was actually just the incubator."