Tatiana Maslany plays several genetically identical clones in Orphan Black. That is the pitch, and it is the reason the Canadian sci-fi thriller lasted five seasons. The show premiered on Space on March 30, 2013, and on BBC America in the United States. It ended on August 12, 2017, after 50 episodes. It is a drama about cloning, identity, and a conspiracy that keeps growing. It is also a showcase for one actor doing work most television never asks for.
Trailer, via IGN.
Sarah Manning Watches a Woman Die
The series opens with Sarah Manning, a con artist of British origin living in Toronto. She watches a woman jump in front of a train. The woman, Beth Childs, looks exactly like her. Sarah takes Beth’s identity and her job as a police detective.
That is the hook, and it is a good one. By the third episode of season one, Sarah learns she is a clone. There are others across North America and Europe. They are part of an illegal human cloning experiment, and someone is trying to kill them.
Graeme Manson and John Fawcett created the show. Temple Street Productions made it with BBC America and Bell Media’s Space. The premise sounds like a B-movie. The execution is not.
The Women Maslany Plays
Maslany’s roles are the reason to watch. She plays Sarah, the hustler. She plays Cosima Niehaus, the scientist. She plays Alison Hendrix, the suburban mom. She plays Helena, the assassin raised by a religious cult. She plays Rachel Duncan, the corporate clone who works for the people running the experiment.
Each one is a distinct person. That sounds like a low bar. On most shows with a clone premise, it is not. Maslany gives each woman a different walk, a different way of holding her mouth, a different way of being tired.
The supporting cast does real work too. Jordan Gavaris plays Felix Dawkins, Sarah’s foster brother. Maria Doyle Kennedy plays Siobhan Sadler, known as Mrs. S. Kevin Hanchard plays Detective Arthur Bell. Ari Millen plays Mark, Rudy, Miller and Ira. Josh Vokey plays Scott Smith.
The show’s fan base called itself #CloneClub, a reference to the people in the story who know what the clones are. That is a fan name that actually fits the show’s concerns. The series is about who gets to know the truth and who gets to be a person.
Dyad, the Proletheans, and the Monitors
The conspiracy has layers, and the show mostly keeps them straight. The clones come from a scientific movement called Neolution. Its followers believe humans can use science to direct their own evolution.
Their institutional base is the Dyad Institute, a wealthy biotech corporation. Dr. Aldous Leekie appears to run it. Dyad does basic research, lobbies political institutions, and pushes a eugenics program. Rachel Duncan, a clone, helps.
Dyad also plants “monitors” in the clones’ personal lives. The monitors are supposed to study them. In practice, they keep the clones under surveillance.
Then there is the Proletheans, a secret religious group. A faction of them carries out the clone assassinations because they believe clones are abominations. They use Helena, Sarah’s biological twin, to kill other clones. Sarah and Helena share a surrogate birth mother. They are twins genetically and in their early maternal environment.
That is a lot of machinery. The show earns most of it. The Dyad material gives the series a corporate villain that feels modern. The Proletheans give it a fanatic one. The monitors give it paranoia inside the home.
What the Show Gets Right
The best thing Orphan Black does is refuse to make the clones interchangeable. Sarah is not Cosima. Cosima is not Alison. The show builds scenes around the fact that these women share a genome and almost nothing else.
That choice pays off in the quieter episodes. Alison’s suburban life is a comedy of manners with a body count. Cosima’s lab work is a slow-motion tragedy. Sarah’s cons keep her moving. Helena is the wild card, and the show knows it.
The series also raises the questions it says it will raise. Human cloning, identity, consent, who owns a body. It does not always answer them well. It does ask them in concrete terms. A monitor in a marriage is a better argument than a speech about ethics.
The pacing is the weak point. Five seasons and 50 episodes is a long time to sustain a conspiracy. The show adds factions when it should tighten. Some middle seasons spin their wheels before the endgame arrives.
After the Black and Orphan Black: Echoes
Orphan Black did not end cleanly in the sense of disappearing. An aftershow, After the Black, began airing in the third season on Space. BBC America picked it up for the fourth season.
In April 2022, a spin-off called Orphan Black: Echoes was announced. It premiered in June 2024 on AMC. A comic book series started in 2015 and was cancelled in 2018 before the end of its contract.
The original show was renewed for a fifth and final ten-episode season on June 16, 2016. That season ran from June 10 to August 12, 2017.
Hard Numbers
- Title: Orphan Black
- Created by: Graeme Manson and John Fawcett
- Network: Space (Canada), BBC America (US)
- First aired: March 30, 2013
- Last aired: August 12, 2017
- Seasons: 5
- Episodes: 50
- Genres: Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
- Lead: Tatiana Maslany as Sarah, Cosima, Alison, Helena, Rachel
- Metacritic: 70/100
- Our score: 7.0/10
Orphan Black Against Orphan Black: Echoes
| Element | Orphan Black | Orphan Black: Echoes |
|---|---|---|
| Premiere | March 30, 2013 | June 2024 |
| Network | Space, BBC America | AMC |
| Seasons | 5 | Not stated in source |
| Episodes | 50 | Not stated in source |
| Lead concept | Sarah Manning and the clone experiment | Spin-off |
| Aftershow | After the Black | None stated |
The comparison is not close on the facts we have. The original ran 50 episodes across five seasons. The spin-off arrived eleven years after the first premiere. That gap is the story of the franchise, not the story of the show.
What 7.0 Means Here
Orphan Black is a 7.0/10. That matches the published critical score of 70/100 on Metacritic, and it is the right number.
The case for it is Maslany. She carries a show that asks her to be five regular characters and more, and she never lets the seams show. The case against it is the conspiracy. Five seasons is too many for a plot that keeps adding factions, and the middle stretch loses the tightness of the first year.
What matters most is the choice to treat the clones as people rather than a gimmick. That is why the fan base called itself #CloneClub and why the show got a spin-off and a comic. The premise could have been a stunt. The performances made it a character study.
The score is a compromise, and an honest one. Orphan Black is not a great show start to finish. It is a very good show with a great performance at its center, and that is worth 7.0.
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