Orphan Black Season 1 (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

It is amazing how well she pulls off so many different roles and makes them seem like legitimately different characters; different accents, different posture, different demeanor.. and she completely pulls that off. It's one of the most difficult roles I've seen for a woman on TV in a while because of that element.

It's pretty easy when the differences are showy like Sarah and Helena, but the ones that blow me away are the North American characters; Sarah's Canadian accent while playing Beth sounds different than Allison's Canadian accent sounds different than Cosima's American accent. There are honestly beats when I forget it's the same actress, because the speech and body language and posture as you say are all different.

 

[mattCR]

Really liked last nights episode. Now things are falling into place for the audience while it falls apart for the characters. I think she's very good in all the roles, the wife commented if Dushku had this kind of range there might still be Dollhouse.

 

[Stan]

Loving this show. Three episodes behind, but will catch up tonight. I think second to Doctor Who, one of the best shows BBC America has ever shown.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I was glad that what happened to Kira at the end of the previous episode was used to introduce some new questions about the nature of the clones rather than used as a tragedy to generate drama. I know it's fictional, but I don't like seeing kids get hurt.

I think she's very good in all the roles, the wife commented if Dushku had this kind of range there might still be Dollhouse.

TVLine labeled her their Performer of the Week for the previous week's episode and she was just received a Critics Choice Awards nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series. Everything with her in the ambulance and at the hospital as Sarah just shook me to the core. She made me feel a mother's terror that she's about to lose her baby girl for good. Just an amazing performance. And then to think she did the same scene again from a completely different emotional place as Alison while hitting very specific marks so that the second pass could be seamlessly composited into the first is just astounding to me. This is the kind of role actresses dream of, and she's making the most of it.
I also continue to love Jordan Gavaris as Felix. He walks a very camp line without ever breaking the reality of the character. He captures both the stereotype and the reality behind the stereotype.
And these sorts of roles are Matt Frewer's bread and butter: Wry and a little creepy.
It'll be interesting to see how the ratings hold up without "Doctor Who" as a lead-in.

 

[Hanson]

With most of the shows I watch having concluded their seasons, Orphan Black is the best thing on TV right now not based on George RR Martin novels. I just love this show -- I completely forget that it's the same actress in the the scenes between Sara and Helena. It's staggeringly convincing.

Matt, your wife was on the nose about Dushku in Dollhouse. She was wholly unconvincing in just about every episode. I still wonder how great the show would have been with Amy Acker in the lead.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

They must have been pretty damn confident that they'd get the second season pickup when they wrote the finale. If things had ended there I would have been pretty damn pissed. Things I liked:- The revelation that Mrs. S was actually one of the doctors/scientists that helped genetically engineer the clones before she had a crisis of conscience and ran off with one of the birth mothers.- That they actually had Sarah shoot Helena. I hope she's really dead, because they've played the angles they have to play with that one.- The reveal that the mastermind is another one of them, even though I saw it coming a mile away.- That Art discovered that Allison wasn't Sarah, meaning that he has to know it can't be a case of identical twins at this point. Things I didn't like:- Allison letting Aynesley die by garbage disposal. It's just one act too far, and it makes her pretty much unredeemable. Even if Aynesley had been the monitor, it still wouldn't have justified that.- Ending on a massive cliffhanger. I do like some of the real issues the show plays with. There's actually a case before the US Supreme Court right now, Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., where the justices will decide whether human genes are patentable. Should be decided in the next couple of weeks.

 

[mattCR]

Adam-

One of your negatives is one of my positives; I really thought that having Allison do something so horrible was a way to make the characters both more different and to continue to expand the idea that the clones are not entirely stable, which verifies a lot of the storyline we've received all season. Once something goes really wrong, there is some stability bit that is missing from them; whether they turn to suicide (Beth), are warped by monsters (Helena), etc.. part of the storyline is that the clones aren't stable enough to do for themselves.. so her turn to me made total sense with her baseline.

 

[Joe_H]

I watched all ten episodes from my DVR this weekend (which I hadn't even really intended on doing), and was very surprised at how good this was. There's a bit of cheesiness at times (not a fan of the whole 'Neolution' club, for example, and why do all of these monitors fall in love with the person they're watching? one would be believable, but two is stretching it), but the main actress blew me away each episode with how well she showed a different persona for each clone. The twin thing was telegraphed from a mile away, but otherwise I enjoyed the twists and turns each episode.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Tatiana Maslany wins Best Actress in a Drama Series at Critics Choice Awards for "Orphan Black"

 

[Citizen87645]

My wife and I pretty much binged on the series this week. My review of the BD will be up in a few days, and I too couldn't help thinking of Dollhouse and how things would have played out with an actor of Maslany's caliber filling the role of Echo. Amy Acker might have done well in Orphan Black, but after seeing what Maslany can do, I have no second thoughts they picked the right actor.

By the end of the season, I thought things got a bit parodic (a la Desperate Housewives) with Allison, which made it seem a little off-task compared to the rest of the show. But that's a minor quibble, as even within Allison's little sub-story it was consistently entertaining with Maslany doing an amazing job (the high strung soccer mom is probably one of my favorite clones). And I agree the path she's taken is more about showing the inherent instability of the clones, whether biologic or psychologic.

One other reiteration:

It was a good choice to have Sarah shoot Helena and I hope she is truly out of the story as I think that thread is played out. The interesting stuff will be seeing Sarah deal with the aftermath, both emotionally and in respect to Thomas' fanatical organization.

 

[Simon Massey]

Just finished Bluray. Well worth it , great show though the lack of answers could get old fast. What impressed most about the main actress was just how well she plays all the parts that after a couple of episodes you kind of forget there is only one actress playing all these roles. And equally impressive was when she was playing one of the characters pretending to be one of the other characters.Glad it has been renewed and would recommend it to others. Only 10 episodes means u can burn through it pretty fast

 

[mattCR]

I think what worked for this is that they answered quite a few questions, they just raised other questions along the way. That's what makes this work.. you start out looking for one set of answers: "who's my mom?!" then they find her, and it's not what they were expecting, and that leads them somewhere else..

Orphan Black did that very well, I thought.

 

[Stan]

I think this show is great, glad it has been renewed.

I was completely fooled by the different orphans, took me many episodes to finally realize it was the same actress playing all the parts. Very talented, amazing she could pull it off.

 

[joshEH]

By the end of the season, I thought things got a bit parodic (a la Desperate Housewives) with Allison, which made it seem a little off-task compared to the rest of the show. But that's a minor quibble, as even within Allison's little sub-story it was consistently entertaining with Maslany doing an amazing job (the high strung soccer mom is probably one of my favorite clones). And I agree the path she's taken is more about showing the inherent instability of the clones, whether biologic or psychologic.

There needs to be a spinoff show focusing just on Alison's near-psychotic character. She could "play football" with married hockey-dads in parking lots on a regular basis during their kids' practices, and go around sociopathically threatening to feed her neighbors clothing-first into their sink-mashers.

Seriously, I would totally watch this show.

 

[joshEH]

Also, here's hoping Matthew Bennett's character sticks around a bit next season -- was glad to see him show up in the finale; he's not on TV enough, in my opinion.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

After being snubbed by the Emmys and the SAG awards, the Golden Globes nominated Tatiana Maslany for Best Actress in a TV Series, Drama. My opinion of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association just went up slightly.

 

[DaveF]

Watching Season 1 on blu-ray. Plan to get S2 and get caught up in time to watch S3 on AMC!

I had unusually high expectations coming in, because of the tremendous, universal praise. And at first, I liked it but didn't love it. But two-thirds through, I'm appreciating Orphan a Black ever more.

I've been flummoxed by the utter lack of superpowers, beyond-human capabilities, or general mutant behaviors. Sarah Manning, and her friends, are terribly normal. They're so average, flawed, and breaking under the stress. I didn't get it to start. But now that I'm letting go of expectations and accepting OB for what it is, it's very sharp.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Dave, I struggled with the slow burn as well when I started watching. It really does take a few episodes to rev up into gear.


New Season 3 trailer from Space, the Canadian broadcaster that pays for the show with BBC America:

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n6pAhHWlPo&list=PLSfh3ypxDMaHGPO0O357PMvOjbxVVdw2q&feature=player_detailpage[/media]

 

[DaveF]

Thanks, glad to know I'm not the only one.
It's starting to hurt my head the way time travel stories do

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Thanks, glad to know I'm not the only one.
It's starting to hurt my head the way time travel stories do

This is where Tatiana Maslany's immense talent really comes into play. By the end of the first season, each clone "feels" different, so you know which one you're watching even when they're impersonating one of the other ones.