Sci-fi series wraps debut
In just nine weeks Orphan Black has taken the impossible and made it seem almost plausible. In the March 30 opener, a young drifter on the skids assumed the identity of a dead woman who looked exactly like her, only to learn the woman in question was not her missing twin but a clone. Not just one clone, either, but part of a whole series of clones, all harbouring secret identities and all the product of a malevolent scientific scheme gone wrong.
Subsequent episodes were wildly uneven, but made watchable by some brave, bravura acting by Tatiana Maslany.
Maslany, a relative unknown from Regina, has taken what could have been a cheap gimmick – one actor playing multiple roles – and made viewers believe these people could actually exist, each with a different personality, with a differing life outlook and varying degrees of knowledge about what’s really going on.
Orphan Black ends its debut season Saturday with one of the clones, soccer mom Alison, meeting her maker, played with an oily obsequiousness by Max Headroom’s Matt Frewer – aptly cast – and telling him she doesn’t want answers; she just wants her life back.
“I want you out of my life, and I want things to be normal again,” she tells him – but of course that’s unlikely to happen. Too much has happened, and if blood is thicker than water, cellular biology is what holds the blood together. When the scheming man-of-science says “I’m so glad you said so,” you don’t need the background music to tell you this isn’t going to end well.
As a performer, Maslany has a natural, easygoing vibe that manages to be both chameleon-like and disarming in its simplicity. There’s Sarah, the con artist who assumes the identity of the suicidal Beth, seen in flashbacks. There’s Cosima, the doctoral student in molecular biology who, alone among the clones, understands the science – and lack of ethics – behind a program that’s being run off the books.
There’s Helena, the daft-punk assassin with ice in her veins, convinced she’s the one true original, that the others are impostors who must die, and Janika, Aryanna, Danielle, Katja – all presumed dead, and buried in the past.
In science fiction, though, no one stays dead for long and everyone lives forever, in the next world if not this. Watching Orphan Black can be a maddening experience, in part because it could be so much better than it is, but Maslany can make even a dull scene seem interesting.
Orphan Black has proven to be a ratings success for both CTV-owned Space and the U.S. cable channel BBC America. A second season is assured. Orphan Black’s world will not end with Saturday’s finale, in other words. (Space – 7 p.m.)