The sestras are returning. BBC America’s sci-fi drama Orphan Black ran five seasons, wrapping in 2017, but the key cast members and creators will be back Sunday, this time online for a table read of two episodes of the series. Tatiana Maslany, who earned an Emmy for her role as several clones, is leading the effort, along with actors Maria Doyle Kennedy, Jordan Gavaris, Kristian Bruun, Kevin Hanchard, Dylan Bruce, Evelyne Brochu, and more. Based on the episodes selected, expect some great scenes with fan-favorite couples Donnie and Alison and Delphine and Cosima. And it’s all to raise money for charity.
So many books chronicle seasons of hit television series, but a new release for BBC’s Orphan Black takes viewers beyond the norm. Like the incredible behind the scenes access we saw in Firefly–A Celebration, Abbie Bernstein’s new book The DNA of Orphan Black shows how the unique science fiction series creates its magic. In 2013 we first saw Sarah Manning watch her doppelganger step out in front of a train. Who knew how many clones we’d meet in the series, and how many roles Tatiana Maslany, last year’s Best Actress Emmy winner, could play in a single scene? It’s not so difficult to wrap your head around the characters of the series because Maslany plays them all so well. But when you try to list your favorite characters on the series, you momentarily forget “they” are a single actress portraying so many incredible people, and none like anyone you’ve seen before.
In The DNA of Orphan Black fans get unprecedented access to the development process, as told by the show’s creators John Fawcett and Graeme Manson. We learn how Maslany sees each character and created the nuances of each personality. And we learn from the supporting cast, plus makeup designer Stephen Lynch, hair designer Sandy Sokolowski, costume designer Debra Hanson, art director Jody Clement, and production designer John Dondertman, and more. Wrapping up its series finale in only four weeks, Orphan Black doesn’t have anything left to hide. So we learn the tricks of the trade, and how the sleight of hand by the production team has created such complex scenes like Helena’s dream sequence and the clone dance party. How do viewers know we’re not seeing Maslany’s Rachel, but her Krystal posing as Rachel? Makeup designer Stephen Lynch explains how. You’ll learn great tidbits about the show, like how the hair designer created only one “hero” wig for each of Maslany’s characters (each cost $5,000 to $8,000).
The DNA of Orphan Black is not just another TV show souvenir book. It’s full of behind the scenes images, but it also includes surprisingly detailed interviews, thanks to author Abbie Bernstein (whose last book, The Great Wall–The Art of the Film, was one of the best film art books we’ve reviewed at borg.com). You’ll see from the table of contents (below) that not only does Maslany provide a few pages of content as lead actor, as found in many TV books, each of her characters gets separate discussion as they would if they’d been played by different actors on any other series. So as a fan you can get right to your favorite performance by Maslany. Equal to Bernstein’s handling of the sestra clones is her attention to the key secondary characters: Felix (Jordan Gavaris), Art (Kevin Hanchard), Donnie (Kristian Bruun), Siobhan (Maria Doyle Kennedy), Delphine (Evelyne Brochu), the Castor clones (Ari Millen), and probably most significantly, Maslany’s acting double, Kathryn Alexandre.
All good things come to and end, but endings to good things are rarely good.
That’s not always so as it comes to television, as is being proved out in this fifth and final season of Orphan Black. Three episodes in and Tatiana Maslany, Kristian Bruun, Jordan Gavaris, and Kevin Hanchard continue to deliver the best science fiction series in years, a sci-fi series cloaked as thriller, drama, and dark comedy.
You can’t say enough about Tatiana Maslany, last year’s Emmy winner for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama, and poised to be this year’s chief contender for the Best Actress Golden Globe award. Her series promotes female empowerment more than any show. The double, triple, quadruple, etc. message of a story about the bond among a small army of clone sisters is found in the singularity of a lead actress performing in every scene while also playing multiple parts in every other scene. Viewers can’t help but attach emotionally to each of her characters. Even last week’s exit of a minor character viewers barely got to know drove the show to a shocking halt.
As the series’s long-time protagonist, Maslany’s Sarah Manning, continues her battle to protect her daughter, the other sisters have broken out to reveal a key message of the show: In a future world of manipulated genetics, we’ll see many individuals with common traits but who are very much individuals. It’s still the environment that determines who the individual becomes.
If you had to pick one standout to represent the best of the series it is Maslany’s take on Alison, a character who would have lived out a normal existence in Bailey Downs had Maslany’s Beth Childs not have driven her into the sestra, turning Alison chemical dependent, then leading her to become a drug dealer, a killer, burying all the bodies in her garage, and who knows what next. But this weekend’s episode showed just how far Alison has come, with flashbacks to scenes that filled in the blanks of her past and told us ultimately you can’t take the quiet ones for granted as she positions herself as the best manipulator of them all.
But behind Alison was always the giant bundle of energy and over-the-top antics of Kristian Bruun’s Donnie. Alison’s husband, despite his initial collusion with Dr. Leakey’s people, tried to prove his loyalty to Alison in every appearance. And Bruun must be the ultimate good sport as the writers put him into bizarre situations again and again.
Will we see Alison again this season, and if she returns, will she return as a warrior, a ninja, something else? We’re thinking the writers can’t keep a great character away for long.
On a personal note, and speaking of sestra, our own four-legged support team member Jade, who you may have met on her 16th birthday two months ago here, passed away this weekend after a stoic battle with several old age issues. Jade was one of six sisters and three brothers, and their genetics as coonhound and German Shepherd came through to reflect many similarities especially in their youth. But each also showed a profound individuality as they grew into their own personalities–as varied as the differences between any people you know, and as varied as the sestra of Orphan Black, a show Jade watched along with us for the past four years (Jade’s favorite character was Helena). Jade’s family and friends will miss her love and fierce loyalty.
If you haven’t climbed aboard the Orphan Black train now’s the time to binge watch the first four seasons and be part of what is turning out to be a banner, final, season for the series. New Orphan Black episodes air Saturday nights at 10 p.m. Central following Doctor Who on BBC America.
C.J. Bunce
Editor borg.com
In her 1995 view of the future, Remake, Connie Willis predicted a future where anything could be digitally created on film, where modern-day actors could be digitally stitched into scenes with long dead actors in films like Singing in the Rain or Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the living and the dead could intermingle effortlessly. But it’s the “effortlessly” that she got wrong, as becomes very clear from the special features on the DVD and Blu-ray release of Orphan Black Season Two, which will be released today across the U.S.
It’s rare when the best television series stands so far apart from the rest of the crowd, but Orphan Black is that series. Ignore the Emmy nominations. If you only could watch one series from 2014, this is that series. Playing nine characters* and counting, star Tatiana Maslany has scored Golden Globe and People’s Choice Award nominations, a Canadian Screen Actor Award for Best Performance in a Dramatic Role, a TCA Award for Individual Achievement, a Critics’ Choice Best Dramatic Actress Award, and the Young Hollywood Award for breakthrough performance, all for her work on Orphan Black.
Even more than Season One, which we reviewed here at borg.com last year, in Season Two creators John Fawcett and Graeme Manson delved deeply behind the several characters that populate the world of Orphan Black, most played by Tatiana Maslany (or just “Tat” according to the other actors on the show). In addition to Maslany’s always on-the-run Sarah, suburban mom Alison, free-wheeling scientist Cosima, and crazy but strangely innocent Helena, Season Two showed us the dark side of the sestra with the cold-as-ice Rachel, and the far side with transgendered Tony.
The season also featured the return of Jordan Gavaris as Sarah’s foster brother Felix, Dylan Bruce as the dubious Paul, Matt Frewer as the Dyad experiment scientist Dr. Aldous Leekey, Evelyne Brochu as Cosima’s partner Delphine, Kristian Bruun as Alison’s husband Donnie, and Kevin Hanchard as Detective Art Bell. It also introduced Michiel Huisman as Kira’s father Cal, and Michelle Forbes as Marion Bowles, a new player sure to play a key role in Season Three.
Not yet watching Orphan Black? Here’s your chance to get caught up before the season finale on Saturday. BBC America will be recapping the entire 10-episode season in a pre-finale marathon, starting at 11 a.m. Central. It might be a bit much to digest in one sitting, so I recommend jumping in around episode 6 or 7, when the storylines start to converge and the major series questions are being answered, one by one—only to raise new ones. BBC announced earlier this month that the Canadian-made sci-fi clone drama has been renewed for another 10 episodes, to air in 2014. We introduced borg.com readers to the pilot earlier this year.
And why aren’t you watching? It’s only the smartest and most gripping show on TV right now, not to mention boasting the hardest working star, possibly, in television history. At last count, Tatiana Maslany (Sarah, Beth, Allison, Cosima, Helena, Katja, and at least two others yet to be revealed) has acted beside herself in eight (eight!) roles as clones trying to sort out their past, present, and future. Maslany’s brilliant performances are bolstered by top-notch dialogue that clearly distinguishes every character, along with makeup, wardrobe, movement, and supporting cast that keep all the clones (or “Orphans” in fan parlance) utterly impossible to confuse—and easy to forget they’re all Maslany.
But if you’re just tuning in, here’s a Who’s Who of the Orphan Black Clones & Co.:
, Connie Willis predicted a future where anything could be digitally created on film, where modern-day actors could be digitally stitched into scenes with long dead actors in films like Singing in the Rain or Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the living and the dead could intermingle effortlessly. But it’s the “effortlessly” that she got wrong, as becomes very clear from the special features on the DVD and Blu-ray release of Orphan Black Season Two, which will be released today across the U.S.
