TV Series Review: Orphan Black

Chris Kneipp reviews the show everyone has been raving about.

Coming to SBS free to air TV at last, is the Canadian series Orphan Black, starring Tatiana Maslany. The series has received rave reviews overseas and rightly so, with a great storyline and brilliant acting, especially from the show’s star, who plays multiple characters.

Now it’s hard to tell you about the show without giving too much away, but sit’s so good that a few spoilers shouldn’t hurt your enjoyment of the show (If you’re really worried, go now and stream it. In Australia the first two eps are on SBS’s online site now.)

From the opening scene the questions start coming. Maslany first appears as the main character Sarah, a streetwise nomad with a messy past, who’s barely managing to stay ahead of her violent, criminal past. When she witnesses the suicide of a woman who looks exactly like her, Sarah decides to steal the dead woman’s identity, at first just to clean out her accounts, but later to escape her violent ex, Vic. She soon discovers that stealing this woman Beth’s identity is fraught with its own problems and dangers. For a start, Beth was a police detective and keeping her real identity hidden from her fellow cops is a dance that’s a pleasure to watch.

She slowly discovers more women who look just like her and realises with horror that she is a clone, one of an unspecified number of copies, all unaware of each other’s existence until Sarah/Beth begins to bring them together.  It’s playing these different characters that really marks Tatiana Maslany as an exceptional actor. Whether it be the self absorbed and slightly psychotic soccer mum Alison, the vaguely hippy nerd Cosima or the religious-fanatic assassin Helena, each character is played like a totally different person.

As the show progresses more is revealed and the writers have done a fantastic job of balancing teasers with real answers to the unravelling mystery. The supporting cast fill their roles well, though it’s Sarah’s gay foster brother and best friend Felix who nearly steals the show in his scenes. I say nearly, because it’s impossible to ignore Maslany’s talent as she imbues each character with a life of its own.

This series is filmed in Toronto, Ontario by BBC America and they do a splendid job giving us something refreshingly new and different to watch. Visually, the series is beautifully shot, giving a grungy, backstreet feel to the city scenes and a plastic sterility to the ones set in suburbia.

If you’re in Australia, try to catch up with the first two eps on SBS Online.  They are airing double episodes every Tuesday night on SBS 2 at 8:30PM.

If you’re elsewhere in the world, find it and watch it. You won’t be disappointed.