Send in the clones for final season
Orphan Black, Season 5 Available today, 10 episodes
ORPHAN Black was always one of those shows that seemed unlikely to succeed — a female driven sci-fi drama.
The series, which airs in the United States on BBC America, is filmed in Ontario and set in a world where doctors surgically remove the eggs from women, freeze them, defrost them, and implant them in the bodies of other women, or, sometimes, of the same women.
It stars the incredibly talented 29-yearold Tatiana Maslany as a small population of clones. As revealed in the show’s first two seasons, the characters played by Maslany are the product, or maybe it’s better to call them the progeny, of Project LEDA, a series of experiments conducted in a laboratory in the UK in the 1980s by a pair of geneticists.
The last season of the series saw everything coming full circle. Through the heavy use of flashbacks, characters galore were brought back from the dead, including the clone that set Sarah off on her journey.
The chief writer has said that this will be the last season, and freedom for the clones is going to be one of the big themes. And expect a lot more flashbacks.
You, Me, Her, Season 2 Available from Thursday, 10 episodes
THE honeymoon in this three-way marriage is over, it would seem. In the first series, what begins as an impulsive ‘date’ between suburban husband Jack (Greg Poehler — Amy’s brother) and newbie escort Izzy spins into a whirlwind three-way affair that includes Jack’s wife Emma, who’s been keeping secrets of her own.
Their arrangement soon breaks free of its financial bonds to evolve into a meaningful romance with real consequences, posing the question to viewers: What if the romantic life you really want for yourself looked nothing like you imagined? Would you be brave enough to live it?
In this series everything becomes a bit more official and the stakes are heightened as the ‘throuple’ have to face the judgment of their friends, families and co-workers. Can they prove their happiest lives really are together, even when more conventional alternatives beckon? Interestingly for a premise that sounds like a male sexual fantasy, this story is actually told very much from a female perspective.
The Ranch, Part 3 Available from Friday
IN some ways this is a brave return for Ashton Kutcher and the gang. Seldom has a Netflix show received such a rough ride from audiences and critics, and that it’s back for a third outing is in itself a tribute to the star power of its leading man. The comedy follows Colt (Kutcher), a struggling semi-pro footballer who returns to his Colorado home to help run the family farm with his dad, Beau (Sam Elliott) and older brother Jameson aka ‘Rooster’ (Danny Masterson who co-starred with Kutcher on That ’70s Show).
The series was written by Two and a Half Men alumni Don Reo and Jim Patterson. The previews for the third season reveal a new depth for some of the leading characters, leavened with the same inoffensive humour.
Whether the recent news that Masterson has hired an attorney to battle rape claims which he strenuously denies, will cast a bit of a pall over this premiere remains to be seen.
El Chapo, Season 1 Available from Thursday, 9 episodes
THIS is a crime drama that is unfolding in real time. A Mexican mobster with a beauty queen wife will stand trial in April next year for allegedly smuggling billions of dollars worth of drugs to American users. The proposed date prompted Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s lawyers to protest that it will take much longer to prepare for such a landmark case, which stretches back decades and involves multiple prison escapes, cross-border smuggling tunnels, murder and bloodshed.
Interestingly, while this drama is being played out in court, its backstory is being relayed to an audience of millions. This series traces El Chapo’s criminality since the 1980s, and already it’s a massive hit on the Spanish language Univision channel. Adding to the dizzying intermingling of fact and fantasy, it mixes real news footage of Guzman’s arrests and escapes along with a dramatisation of events, in which the drug lord is played by Mexican actor Marco de la O. It’s one of the most eagerly-awaited releases of the year.