BBC Three seems to be a channel of extremes. They either show
absolute dross or complete genius. This is a channel that can show in the same
night Snog Marry Avoid and In The Flesh (which I fangirled all over
when I still had just the one blog). The latest thing they’ve come up with to
prove their good for more than Seth McFarlane cartoons is Orphan Black.
I wanted it to be good. The adverts made it look good and I
liked the premise, so I really wanted it to be good. This is often a set up for
a fall but that hasn’t been so in this case. I thoroughly enjoyed the first two
episodes and I think this will be something I see through to the end and not
get bored of part way through. It is, however, not completely what I expected.
I thought it would be more stylised for one thing and more plot driven. But I
kind of like what they’ve done with it.
The main character, Sarah (Tatiana Maslany), sees a woman who looks exactly
like her kill herself and steals her identity to help herself get back
on her feet. But that wouldn’t stretch to a full series so complications ensue.
It turns out there are several women all identical to Sarah and they all have
their own lives and problems to sort out. The role of Sarah carries the whole
show. It is a very demanding one, but I think done well by Maslany. She certainly
looks perfect for it. Even as she plays the different identities her facial
expressions stay pretty constant (her shocked face is excellent). I don’t know
if that was intentional but I like how it links the different ‘Sarahs’
together.
There’s an interesting background to Sarah, and it looks like
the writers have done a good job with the other ‘Sarahs’ as well. You do
genuinely believe that these women have their own lives and aren’t just plot
devices. I also think the balance Sarah strikes between investigating why there’s
seventeen of her and her own life is struck pretty much perfectly. Throughout
the two episodes I’ve seen Sarah’s story remains interesting, as does Beth’s
(the woman who kills herself at the start of episode one). But, despite these
various threads running through the story it hasn’t felt crowded. The
breadcrumbs are dropped at the right points to keep you interested in all the
storylines.
Sarah’s the right kind of screw up as well. She has a
troubled past and it’s neither a closely guarded secret or held up as the only
interesting thing about her. I think she’d be a fantastic character had she
never discovered she was part of a matching set. There’s also not even a hint
of victim about her, which is a pitfall often fallen into when writing troubled
characters (especially female ones). She also has a daughter that she’s lost
custody of but things haven’t got too mushy with that subplot. I have a big
soft spot for Sarah. I like her quiet steeliness and her eyelined eyes. I think
I’ll always automatically like a punky looking complex woman. I’m going to
start calling it Lisbeth Salander Syndrome.
It looks pretty good too. There’s a run down, urban goth
aesthetic to a lot of the sets and costumes which I find very appealing. I thought
it would go further with it and have a much more stylised feel, perhaps with
all of the characters having ripped fishnet somewhere on their body, but it
doesn’t. This wouldn’t feel so strange to me if it had a definite setting, but
it doesn’t. The city is never named, even being omitted from written addresses.
The accents are all over the place as well. There’s nothing anchoring the
location. I’ve found it a little frustrating not being able to place the
action, but the story is so compelling and has moved fast enough for me not to
be too bothered by it. It makes it feel unreal, but they haven’t used the
unreality for much. I think that if I was going to create something rootless I’d
use the opportunity to go all out and take the gutter punk aesthetic as far as
it can go.
But the stylistic nitpicking isn’t enough to take away from
the story. The script’s good, the acting’s good and the plot is involving and
watchable. A definite win for BBC Three.
