Sometimes its hard to articulate what you like about something. Ask me why I think Breaking Bad's so great and I just shut down, I mean where do you even start with a question like that? But sometimes a show makes it easy. Sometimes when someone asks me "What the hell are you watching?" I can pause, point to the screen and say that woman is playing three roles in a single frame. Tatiana Maslany is a once in a generation kind of actor. Even if the light sci-fi caper plot of Orphan Black turns you off, I promise you (like, totally pinky swear) her performance of all three principle characters will keep you in your seat.
I've been burned by interesting up start BBC shows before. I wanted to wade through more of Misfits than I did (its still pretty good) and Being Human was just...kinda lame. But Orphan Black is different, and I'm not talking about it being on BBC America. I can see the version of this show that's mediocre quite clearly. At a glance, it's absolutely nothing special, aside from spearheading the ethical quandaries of the future of genetic research.
On paper it looks like the half baked progeny of one of Abram's disciples. Like Alcatraz. Seriously, I loved that show only for the drinking game I made up for it. A shot of gin every time Sam Neill looks like he wants to kill either himself or his co stars*. Orphan Black could have turned into something like that. A soulless procedural that may have had a spark of originality at some point, but assumed audiences wouldn't have time to care about it's characters and never bothered to develop them.
But OB knows what it's working with, it knows Maslany is dynamite, it knows it has to put it's characters first and it's conspiracy second, and it knows it has to pay off cliffhangers eventually. OB succeeds in spite of it's occasionally trite plotting because you come to care about Sarah and her..."sisters." If you can make it through the rough patches you are gonna be in for such a treat, man you don't even know. But I guess I could tell you.
Sarah Manning is not an anti-hero, she's actually just plain awful. A product of the foster care system, she's a mother who hasn't seen her daughter in over a year, and her latest scheme to see her again involves stealing cocaine from her drug dealer boyfriend (Micheal Mando, who does a spectacular job with a character that goes absolutely nowhere...and he was Vaas). But just before she goes through with her plan, she sees a woman in a suit taking off her shoes and putting her purse down on the train platform next to her. She looks exactly like Sarah, and gives her one hell of a look before throwing herself onto the tracks.
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| Of all the train stations in all the world... |
She runs to her foster brother Felix to tell him what she saw. Together they conspire to figure out who she was, to get into her apartment, and to empty her bank account. Things get exponentially more complicated when she's forced to pretend to be a homicide detective and begins to see just how many of "her" there are.
I could go on to ruin the differences between the other Sarahs and how easily I forgot the same actor plays them all, but I think that's best left un-discussed. The good news is how spoiler proof this show can be as the twists themselves aren't ever as impactful as the character's reactions to them are. In fact, my favorite parts are in the down time between earth shattering revelations, where the Sarahs are off stewing in their respective lives. Its here the show's character building skill is strongest and it's humor shines though. This can be a damn funny show, in fact, the finale has the funniest murder I've ever seen.
The real question is, where can you find this if you don't have BBC America? So glad you asked. I dipped my toe into Amazon instant because I really wasn't sure about it. But I would have saved 3 bucks if I had jumped in with both feet. So please, check it out if you have another free weekend, its less than the price of two movies. Think about it, get on board before Maslany inevitably drowns in her collection of Emmys and Oscars.
But before you go, check out it's jaunty opening theme:
So JAUNTY!!!
*To be fair, the flashbacks to the prison's last year were stupidly good. $50 says that's what the original pitch was about.
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