*SPOILERS AHEAD*
When talking about science fiction shows on Netflix, people tend to mention the modern “classics” such as “Dark,” “Sense8,” “Stranger Things” or “Love, Death & Robots.” But Netflix has recently added a long-loved science fiction show that can stand out among the best science fiction shows currently on Netflix.
“Orphan Black,” featuring award winning actress Tatianna Maslany, is about a troubled mother, Sarah Manning, who witnesses something unbelievable: a woman who looks exactly like her committing suicide in a train station. The sight sparks a lot of questions for characters and audiences alike: is this woman a secret relative, a twin hidden at birth? Is Sarah just horribly mistaken at the resemblance? What follows is a rabbit hole of science, conspiracy and illegal experimentation.
The uniqueness of “Orphan Black” lies in its approach to the show’s main topic of human experimentation. Specifically, the show tackles cloning, and while this is not anything particularly new within the realm of science fiction, “Orphan Black” makes it work in a way that I have never seen before. Whereas you would expect a story about clones to be extremely unrealistic, “Orphan Black” does not take the high science fiction route and instead keeps itself grounded in reality. There are no superpowers or anything of that nature, just a more believable approach to how human cloning could actually take place and how the subjects of such cloning could be affected by the knowledge of the true nature of their existence.
What makes “Orphan Black” amazing is not only its highly intriguing plot, but also the performance of its lead actress. Canadian native Maslany is most known for her role as hulked up attorney Jennifer Walters in the 2022 Marvel show “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law;” nevertheless, she was making waves almost a decade before she debuted She-Hulk’s story.
“Orphan Black” first aired on March 30, 2013. Throughout the course of the show, Maslany plays a total of 17 different clones on screen. Each clone has their own distinct personality and, at times, she even plays a clone impersonating another clone, adding levels to what was already a complicated enough performance of over a dozen different personalities.
These career-defining performances are what earned Maslany an Emmy Award in 2016 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. This achievement also made her the first actor in a Canadian series to earn a major Emmy award, making history in her own right.
The complexities of “Orphan Black” are easy to see when watching on screen but actually understanding the lengths that it would take to write such a show is not as easy. The show is not a mind bender on the level of Netflix’s “Dark,” but it still offers a compelling view into the essence of human nature, what it is that makes us human and how truly different from one another we are or are not.
“Orphan Black” offers a philosophical perspective on the concept of identity. Particularly, what it means to take your life into your own hands, rather than having it be determined by individuals who could not care less about you as a person. It is a truly intricate show that explores so many different routes and as I am on my second watch of the show, I find myself finding so many new things that I never noticed before. More than anything, the show never fails to convince me of its nature as a science fiction masterpiece.
