Orphan Black

[mallorys_camera]

The other thing I did this week was binge-watch all four seasons of Orphan Black.

Not during the day. In the hours between 9pm and 2am.

All that binging made me somewhat sleep-deprived and left me feeling horribly guilty.

Why, if I had any discipline at all, were I not an endlessly distractible mental grasshopper, I could have written an entire chapter of a zeitgeist-changing novel with that 40 hours, right? Or enriched my coffers through mindless work for the Scut Factory! Or laid the groundwork for a Cory Booker Presidency in 2020!

I guess it’s a little too late to cure cancer.

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Orphan Black is a really interesting show in terms of its science fiction premise: In an indeterminate future, body mods are taken to their logical extreme as people begin to tamper with their genetic codes. Naturally, big corporations want a piece of the pie. Shadowy, malign for-profits called Dyad and Topside attempt to corner the genetic engineering market with help from the military. Dyad hides behind a progressive scientific organization called Neolution. Neolution has considerable pop culture cred.

For decades, Neolution has been working on two top-secret human cloning projects: Project Leda (female clones) and Project Castor (male clones.) The Leda clones have been fostered out into society at large so that Neolution’s scientists can study how well they’re able to assimilate, but two of the clones – Sarah and Helena, identical twins – are smuggled out of the research program by their surrogate mother.

Sarah, the series’ main protagonist, goes into the foster care system. By her early 20s, she’s become a consummate grifter.

One night, in a train station, she catches sight of a woman who looks just like her! The woman is in obvious psychic distress. The woman takes off her jacket, folds it very precisely, places it on top of a handbag. The two women lock eyes for a prolonged moment, and then the woman throws herself in front of an oncoming train. Sarah is shocked but not so shocked that she doesn’t immediately steal the woman’s handbag…

Let the games begin!

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Of course, Orphan Black in large measure owes its seamless artistry to the acting talents of its female lead, Tatiana Maslany who is simply phenomenal in the role(s). But the alternate universe is tight and cohesive. No rabbit holes that make me think, Duh! As a fiction writer who strives for seamlessness, this is something I admire a great deal.

I’ll also note the presence of two actors in supporting roles who starred in Showtime’s alternative Tudor universe. Possibly because Orphan Black is a drama about clones, I find it mildly disconcerting to see Sarah interacting with clones of Catherine of Aragorn and Thomas Cromwell.

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In other news, I continue to be very, very, very, very sad, which I attribute to Seasonal Affective Disorder. And, yes, Orphan Black-related sleep deprivation. Sunny and bright today and only moderately cold, so yes, I’m gonna drag my sorry ass on to the running trail.

I’m thinking, too, that some of what I’m feeling are the effects of that oh-so-exact transiting Jupiter-Uranus opposition. Major flakitude going on at Dutchess County Literacy Connections with respect to the Intermediate English class I’ve been teaching. If I didn’t love my students so much, I’d walk. Some logistical hiccoughs, too, with my attendance at the Women’s March on Washington the day after the inauguration, though those look to have been ironed out.