Orphan Black: Season 1

Orphan Black rarely missed a beat during its 10 episode first season. It’s the poster child for quality being more important than quantity when it comes to serial television. There’s a lot of moving parts to it, and naturally a lot of characters, but it never feels like it’s misusing any part, whether those parts be characters or plots alike. It’s carried further by a strong actress who not only anchors the show with a strong protagonist, but manages to encapsulate every other character she takes on. [Minor spoilers ahead]

Tatiana Maslany’s probably the greatest thing about Orphan Black, and considering how strong other parts of this show are, that’s saying a lot. When we first meet Sarah she’s this rough, unrepentant brat who, when presented with the opportunity to ransack some dead girl’s life, takes it without thinking. I didn’t like her. It’s strange how quickly Tatiana managed to make me fall for her over the first 40 minutes of the series.

Suddenly I found myself being pulled into her world. You can see every layer of Sarah, even as she impersonates Beth. And then you see every layer of each of the other characters Maslany plays, as well. Part of the success of each of the clones as individual characters is down to her performance, but obviously the character groundwork needs to be there to start with, and each of them is given appropriate development, with their circumstances explored accordingly.

Allison’s uptight nature and her desperation to keep her life together is part of her seemingly perfect suburban image. Cosima’s intellectual ability has been fostered by her impressive education. And Helena’s background is enough to make your skin crawl before you even realise what actually happened to her.

The story itself is just as developed. Though it hardly slows down at all during the season, every aspect is explored as it’s introduced, and nothing is left dropped or forgotten. The mythology is explored piece by piece, before it all comes together by the end of the season. We get almost all of the answers we spend the entire season chasing, but are left with a nice chunk of story to explore next season.

There’re only a few low points for the show. Despite a few moments of questionable direction the majority of the supporting players are well played, and really likable. Felix is one of the least offensive stereo typically driven gay characters out there. When we’ve got hack set pieces like Kurt Hummel being set loose on society, it’s nice to see someone like Felix who’s equally admirable as he is funny and relatable. Jordan Garavis takes lines like “fetch me something gay” and makes them sound funny, silly and super-cool all at the same time.

But then we’ve got Paul, whose lack of presence on screen pulled the show down a bit. It’s made even more painful by the fact that he’s supposed to be the big romantic lead. But it’s hard to imagine a traffic cone that could have much in common with him, let alone someone as complex and fascinating as Sarah.

And she really is fascinating, even beyond her shady past and complicated relationship with her daughter. The history of the clones is surreal and wacky, but it’s also dark and intense. Orphan Black pulls on a number of sensitive issues when it explores the “sisters” and how they came about, which serves to make their whole ordeal even more extreme.

It’s hard for me to remember being this taken by a newbie show in a long time. It’s even harder facing into a long few months before the second season starts. It’s fulfilled its brief and beyond, but I’m still certain that there’s a lot more left for the series to accomplish, and if it’s been this much fun already, I can’t wait to see where we’re taken next.

8/10

Best Episode: ‘Unconscious Selection’, ‘Endless Forms Most Beautiful’.

Worst Episode: Not worst, per se, but 'Natural Selection' is definitely the least great of the bunch. It only gets better as it goes along.

Best Character: Sarah, Allison, Felix.

Worst Character: Paul.