"The first rule of Clone Club is you do not talk about Clone Club..."
A few days ago, some friends finally got me to watch a Canadian scifi series called Orphan Black. I spent the following few days, when I wasn't working or asleep, watching ("marathoning" might be more accurate) the season and a half that is currently out.
I have not regretted it. This show is excellent.
The story begins when Sarah Manning--drifter, grifter, petty thief, orphan and often-absent single mother--encounters a woman who looks exactly like her. Soon she's discovered that there are many more identical women out there, all living different lives under different names, all unaware that they are clones. A few of them--a cop, a biologist and a soccer mom--have banded together to try and find out where they came from, but they've got a more pressing problem: someone is hunting down clones and killing them off.
This series is riveting. The twists are surprising, but make sense. The pace is relentless. After the first night of watching, I couldn't believe how much had happened in only three episodes. The Canadian format of ten-episode seasons serves them well here, eliminating the need for filler to stretch things out. And yet they make time for lots of great character scenes in addition to the plot-driving ones. There's some good bits of humor and some poignant moments.
Given the premise, lead actress Tatiana Maslany has to play about a half-dozen different roles at any given time, and she really pulls it off. Each of the clones is very distinct in terms of voice and mannerisms. This only goes double when she has to play one of the clones pretending to be another, and you can see a bit of one character showing through the façade of another. And they make good use of technology and camera tricks to have the various clones interacting with each other on-screen look completely convincing.
There are a few mistakes in here, however. Most teeth-grindingly, the writers don't seem to know that identical twins don't have the same fingerprints, and clones wouldn't either. (And if somehow they did, a criminal and a cop who had the same fingerprints would have been screwing up each other's lives constantly.) And our ostensible protagonist, Sarah, can sometimes be a pretty awful person, but she's trying to be better. (Most of the other clones are quite likeable, which helps.)
I had loads of fun watching this show, and now that I'm caught up I'm eager for more new episodes. It's definitely worth checking out.
I have not regretted it. This show is excellent.
The story begins when Sarah Manning--drifter, grifter, petty thief, orphan and often-absent single mother--encounters a woman who looks exactly like her. Soon she's discovered that there are many more identical women out there, all living different lives under different names, all unaware that they are clones. A few of them--a cop, a biologist and a soccer mom--have banded together to try and find out where they came from, but they've got a more pressing problem: someone is hunting down clones and killing them off.
This series is riveting. The twists are surprising, but make sense. The pace is relentless. After the first night of watching, I couldn't believe how much had happened in only three episodes. The Canadian format of ten-episode seasons serves them well here, eliminating the need for filler to stretch things out. And yet they make time for lots of great character scenes in addition to the plot-driving ones. There's some good bits of humor and some poignant moments.
Given the premise, lead actress Tatiana Maslany has to play about a half-dozen different roles at any given time, and she really pulls it off. Each of the clones is very distinct in terms of voice and mannerisms. This only goes double when she has to play one of the clones pretending to be another, and you can see a bit of one character showing through the façade of another. And they make good use of technology and camera tricks to have the various clones interacting with each other on-screen look completely convincing.
There are a few mistakes in here, however. Most teeth-grindingly, the writers don't seem to know that identical twins don't have the same fingerprints, and clones wouldn't either. (And if somehow they did, a criminal and a cop who had the same fingerprints would have been screwing up each other's lives constantly.) And our ostensible protagonist, Sarah, can sometimes be a pretty awful person, but she's trying to be better. (Most of the other clones are quite likeable, which helps.)
I had loads of fun watching this show, and now that I'm caught up I'm eager for more new episodes. It's definitely worth checking out.