Carumba! Our masters in the executive suites are at it again, fixing things that aren’t anywhere near broken. Why, you morons? Why…?”
What’s that? You think we’re being too harsh? Well, let’s look at another way:
by Ken Levine
As many of you loyal readers of this blog (who pay attention) know,I’ve praised ORPHAN BLACK to the heavens. This little underground thriller/sci-fi on BBC-America (and now on AMC as well) introduced us all to the wondrous Tatiana Maslany – a luminous actress who plays multiple clones, each one distinctive and memorable.
In the pilot, Tatiana, as character Sarah, has a chance encounter with an identical clone… who commits suicide. That gets your attention. If we started BIG WAVE DAVE’S that way we might still be on the air.
Anyway, from there the series is off and running… and chasing and hiding. Sarah discovers other clones and a delicious mystery unfolds. Who is behind all of this, why is someone is trying to kill her, who, and why aren’t they targeting the Kardashian girls instead? The plotting swept you along and you enjoyed the twists, turns, and occasional flashes of humor. And just watching Tatiana was a treat.
Season two wasn’t as good. The conspiracy started becoming unwieldy. There were sinister research labs, a weird cult (Scientology in a barn), and fragments of backstory that go back to England or perhaps Middle Earth. Lots of characters from season one who you wondered – were they good guys or bad guys – this year they started flip flopping so much you stopped caring. Like I said in a past review, just assume everyone is a bad guy and enjoy the ride.
Fanboy geek that I am, I was really looking forward to season three.
But alas, four weeks into it I have concluded the show is now a fucking mess. The plotting is so confusing you need to build another Enigma machine to decipher it. And even then there’s no guarantees.
This year there are also maleclones. They have their own conspiracy, one of Tatiana’s clones is held captive in a trunk by some other evil organization that may or may not be affiliated with the evil research lab, or the cult, or Enron. Meanwhile, one of Tatiana’s clones has nothing to do with the central plot. She’s a housewife selling drugs to other housewives so can she win an election to get on the school board. I know – HUH??? And for good measure, she has a dead body in her garage that doesn’t smell and no one is looking for the guy.
I’m still with Orphan Black, but I haven’t figured out the origin or purpose of the religious cult.
Probably because there isn’t any. ORPHAN BLACK seems to me to becoming more and more like LOST. Just because something looks like it has a plan doesn’t mean it really does.
LYMI
LB
The ending of LOST was such a disappointment that I have felt wary of getting involved in any show after that. I have heard that the writers purposely made up random stuff that they knew they could never connect together. I hope Orphan Black is not going that way.