TV Review: Clever ‘Orphan Black’ Joins BBC’s Supernatural Saturday

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CHICAGO – “Orphan Black” joins “Doctor Who” and the new program “The Nerdist” for a night of genre fun on BBC America every weekend that is known as “Supernatural Saturday.” “Who” is still the gem here but “Black” starts promisingly enough with an engaging, sexy lead performance and clever, high-concept hook. Have you ever been mistaken for someone else? Has a friend told you they saw someone who looked JUST like you on the bus? It’s happened to us all. But what if your doppelganger was more than just a coincidence?

Television Rating: 3.5/5.0

Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) is on the run. She’s led a strange, difficult life and is trying to get her daughter back from a mysterious woman known as Mrs. S. (Maria Doyle Kennedy), the adoptive mother who took her and her foster brother Felix (Jordan Gavaris) across the pond years ago. Now, Sarah and Felix are back in the U.K. and Sarah has gotten in with some violent, drug-dealing types, including a boyfriend named Vic (Michael Mando). Sarah is struggling one night in a train station when she looks across the platform and sees her mirror image, a girl named Beth. Beth drops her purse and then drops herself in front of a train.

Orphan Black
Photo credit: BBC America

Sarah gets over the shock of essentially seeing herself commit suicide quickly enough to make the most crucial decision of her life — she steals Beth’s identity. Why not? She needs a way out and it was Sarah who died on that train track not the seemingly wealthy, happy, stable, and in love with a cute guy named Paul (Dylan Bruce) girl who looked just like her. Sarah copies Beth’s accent, wears her clothes, and then learns that Beth was into a weird world. Beth was a copy investigating something revolutionary — that it’s no coincidence that Beth & Sarah looked identical.

“Orphan Black” took a litle while to work on me, in no small part because Sarah/Beth and Felix aren’t the most likable of characters to start. It’s hard to root for this girl who the writers give us almost no background on. I get that the idea is to unwrap new secrets about both Beth & Sarah’s pasts as the show goes along but it makes for tough going at the start when there’s no emotional hook to give us a reason to care what happens to them.

With that in mind, it’s remarkable how well Maslany carries the show. She’s in nearly every scene and will be forced to play multiple characters throughout the show. She’s an engaging, beautiful lead and her charismatic performance is the best thing about the premiere. Some of the cheesy dialogue does her no favors but Maslany makes this incredibly complex character (more than one of them actually) engaging enough to keep me interested in what happens to her next week.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com