Attack of the Clones: The beautiful weirdness of Orphan Black

 



Welcome to Clone Club: The clone sisters of Orphan Black

What would you do if you came face to face with someone who looks just like you? What if you found out that this person was not your long lost twin but was instead a genetic copy of you, one of many living all over the world? This mind melting concept is the basis of Orphan Black, which just recently began its fourth season. The show follows a British orphan named Sarah Manning, a punk rock street urchin and con artist with a shadowy past. After a year in London, Sarah returns to Canada with the intention of getting away from her shady past and starting fresh with her 8 year old daughter Kira and foster brother Felix. Arriving at the train station, Sarah sees a woman who appears to be in distress, taking her shoes off and leaving her purse and jacket on the ground. Sarah approaches the woman who then turns around to face her and Sarah comes face to face with herself. Before she can say or do anything, her mirror twin leaps in front of an oncoming train. Amidst the commotion, a stunned Sarah quickly grabs the woman's purse and flees the scene. This is how Orphan Black begins and it only gets more wonderfully weird as it goes on.
I have a bad habit of being a latecomer to many acclaimed phenomena, both in television and film and Orphan Black was no exception. I'd heard of the show and caught random episodes here and there, always intrigued but unsure how to get into it. Finally, I found all three seasons available On Demand and from the second I watched Sarah and her doppelganger on the train platform, I was hooked. What begins with Sarah stealing her dead doppelganger's identity in an attempt to get a clean start turns into a quest to solve the mystery of her origins after she discovers that she and her doppelganger (named Beth Childs) are just two of several genetic clones. She soon meets Alison and Cosima, two more clones who bring her into what is affectionately referred to as "Clone Club." Knowing that there are more clones out there, some of whom have been murdered in Europe and some who are dying of a mysterious illness, the three clone sisters attempt to get to the truth of how and why they were created.
The show is a terrific blend of thrilling Fringe-like Sci-Fi, creepy suspense, drama and dark humor. Playing these various and varied clones is the brilliant and beautiful Tatiana Maslany who so thoroughly embodies so many uniquely different clones that you continuously forget you're watching only one person. All told, Maslany portrays or has portrayed up to eleven clones, also including the feral and unpredictable Ukrainian Helena, the German Katja Obinger and the cold, calculating Rachel Duncan.  Maslany is a clone chameleon, disappearing entirely into each one she's playing and imbuing them with their own quirks, mannerisms and speech patterns not to mention very varied accents and tones of voice. Watching Maslany shift from one clone to another, often in the same scene, is like watching a master's acting class.
Despite Maslany's almost constant presence on the show, she doesn't take anything away from the supporting cast, all of whom manage to seem like fully realized and multi-dimensional characters off of whom the many clones play in very different and fascinating ways. Chief among the supporting characters is Sarah's cheeky but loving foster brother, Felix. Both raised by a woman named Siobhan Sadler or Mrs. S as they call her, Felix and Sarah have an unbreakable bond punctuated by biting humor. Felix is an artist and painter who lives in Galerie Rimbaud, his beautiful bohemian paradise that's often a safe haven for Sarah and her clone sestras (sisters). Being a devotee of Arthur Rimbaud's poetry, this reference was another immediate hook for me.
Being a Canadian show rather than an American show allows Orphan Black a freedom and frankness it otherwise might not have enjoyed on an American Network. Both Felix and Cosima are gay, but this fact is not the defining trait of either character; their sexually is depicted as openly and honestly as it should be, as just one of the many aspects which make them who they are. The themes of identity and the idea of self are crucial to the show and are represented by the extreme variations among the clones, particularly the idea of these concepts being fluid and dependent on perspective rather than being fixed and static. Identity exists on a wide spectrum containing an endless variety of forms. Orphan Black does a wonderful job of challenging and questioning our predisposed notions of identity and individual sense of self, showing how we're all composites of both our genes and our environments and therefore slave to neither entirely.
Given their often drastic differences, it's natural to at first play favorites with the clones, but the show does a great job of developing each of them and imbuing them all with their own motivations for doing what they do. Given their vastly different upbringings, each can be at least understood if not condoned for their actions, even those which might hurt the others. Each clone has at least one redeeming quality although it may not always be readily apparent. Most of this goes back to Tatiana Maslany and her total absorption in each character's motives. Over the course of three seasons, the show twists and turns and dives deeper into conspiracies and long buried secrets regarding the clones and the reasons behind their creation. Although still Science Fiction, the show's science basis does seem grounded in reality, especially given our real world advancements in the realm of cloning. The show's a treasure trove of scientific concepts sure to fascinate hardcore science geeks, but it's still grounded enough for regular viewers to understand the basics. Orphan Black is a weird and wild rollercoaster ride full of surprises and secrets and at the helm is the wonderful and versatile Tatiana Maslany whose clones continue to venture further down the rabbit hole to unravel the mysteries behind this thing we fans call "Clone Club."