Thursday, August 11, 2016

Orphan Black (Season 1)

I've seen the first three episodes of the twisty suspense series Orphan Black on Amazon Prime.  It has been on my radar for a long time, but I never took the time to watch it.



We're in a real television doldrums for the sort of science fiction/suspense/horror shows I watch.  Thank heavens for Netflix and now Amazon Prime for offering some good things I haven't seen.

The basic premise is that our protagonist Sarah sees a woman who looks exactly like her walk in front of a train.  Her moral compass is a bit off, so she steals the woman's identification and identity, hoping to get what she can from the hapless train victim.

The woman was a police detective, on administrative leave for shooting an innocent woman armed with nothing but a cell phone.  The detective's partner and shrink try to help her as she digs herself in deeper in the impersonation.

To complicate things, she begins getting demanding calls and texts from a woman desperate to get in touch with her.  When the woman tracks her down, Sarah sees she is also identical in facial features to herself, something she can barely register before the woman is shot in the head before her eyes.

There are at least two more of these women in the city, who grudgingly tell Sarah they're all clones, and someone is killing them (the series of clones) off.

Tatiana Maslany does an astonishing job of portraying multiple characters with the same face and completely different mannerisms and personalities.  I used to marvel at actors playing identical twins, but this goes way beyond that.  She's just fascinating.



Each episode is so suspenseful and fast moving.  Great for science fiction and mystery lovers.

6 comments:

  1. Sounds fun! That isn't my usual fare, but this does sound good. I'm loving The Tunnel, although I can't figure out what's going on. I just like the story of the main characters.

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    1. I haven't heard of the Tunnel at all, what is that about? We're still about a month from the return to Prime Time, so I wouldn't mind another good show to watch :)

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    2. It's another version of The Bridge. Pretty weird stuff. They both open with a body left on the border of two countries. In The Bridge, it was Sweden and Denmark. In The Tunnel, it's England and France. So they both start out with a territorial dispute for the murder investigation and continue to play on the two main personalities involved. One of a woman who is, in The Bridge, called austistic, but in The Tunnel, is less so, more borderline--the other character is a loosey goosey bend-the-rules guy. I love it. It's on PBS.

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  2. That does sound good. Perhaps it is available On Demand so I could catch up on missed episodes.

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  3. I have to watch it with subtitles on because of the accents, and they speak so softly sometimes!

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    1. I don't do subtitles, but I make sure it's quiet when I watch Doctor Who or Grantchester.

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