Orphan Black

Orphan Black is a Canadian science fiction thriller television series created by screenwriter Graeme Manson and director John Fawcett, and starring Tatiana Maslany. The series focuses on Sarah Manning, one of several genetically identical human clones, and later on some of the other clones. The series raises issues about the moral and ethical implications of human cloning and its effect on identity.

The series was produced by Temple Street Productions in association with BBC America and Bell Media's Space. The show premiered on March 30, 2013, on Space in Canada, and on BBC America in the United States. On June 16, 2016, the series was renewed for a fifth and final 10-episode season, which ran from June 10 to August 12, 2017. An aftershow, After the Black, began airing in the third season on Space and was acquired by BBC America for the fourth season.

Orphan Black built a loyal online fandom across social media platforms who identify as #CloneClub, a reference to those who are in-the-know in the story. Throughout its five seasons, the series received critical acclaim and various accolades, particularly for Maslany's performance, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award, two Critics' Choice Television Awards and two further nominations, one TCA Award and one further nomination, two Satellite Award nominations, and a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. The series won a Peabody Award in 2013 and has been nominated for, and won, several Canadian Screen Awards.

Plot
The series begins with Sarah Manning, a British con artist residing in Toronto, witnessing the suicide of a woman, Beth Childs, who appears to be her doppelgänger. Sarah assumes Beth's identity and occupation (as a police detective) after Beth's death. During the first season, in episode 3, Sarah discovers that she is a clone, that she has many "sister" clones spread throughout North America and Europe that are all part of an illegal human cloning experiment, and that someone is plotting to kill them and her.

Alongside her foster brother, Felix Dawkins, and two of her fellow clones, Alison Hendrix and Cosima Niehaus, Sarah discovers the origin of the clones: a scientific movement called Neolution. The movement believes that human beings can use scientific knowledge to direct their evolution as a species. The movement has an institutional base in the large, influential, and wealthy biotech corporation, the Dyad Institute, which is seemingly headed by Dr. Aldous Leekie. The Dyad Institute conducts basic research, lobbies political institutions, and promotes its eugenics program, aided by the clone Rachel Duncan. It also seeks to profit from the technology the clones embody and has thus placed "monitors" into the clones' personal lives, allegedly to study them scientifically, but actually to keep them under surveillance.

Sarah eventually discovers that she's also wanted by the police and by a secret religious group, the Proletheans. A faction of the Proletheans carries out the clone assassinations, because they believe clones are abominations, and they use Sarah's biological twin sister, Helena, to kill the other clones. Sarah and Helena share a surrogate birth mother and are twins both genetically and with respect to their early maternal environment.

Eventually, the Dyad Institute and the Proletheans learn that Sarah has a daughter, Kira, the only known offspring of a clone; all other clones are sterile by design. The plot lines of the series revolve around Sarah and Kira's efforts to avoid capture by the clearly sinister Neolutionists and Proletheans, as well as around the efforts made by each clone to give sense to her life and origin.

The attempt to control the creation of human life is a dominant theme that drives various story lines. A second key theme forms around the intrigues made by the Dyad Group and the Proletheans, along with the earlier intrigues made by the authors of Project Leda (an allusion to the Greek myth Leda and the Swan), Mrs. S., Sarah's foster mother, and her political network.

Both themes intersect in the effort to control the creation of human life. Sarah, who matures because of her struggles, defends the bond between parent and child against the Neolutionists and Proletheans.

Cast/ Characters

 * Tatiana Maslany (and Kathryn Alexandre) as Leda Clones
 * Sarah Manning: Con-artist who replaces Beth Childs to escape her abusive boyfriend, Vic, and drug money problems.
 * Beth Childs: A cop who goes on suspension for accidentally killing Maggie Chen before committing suicide by jumping in front of a train.
 * Katja Obinger: A german who was communicating with Beth and trying to meet up with her but meets with Sarah instead before quickly being assassinated.
 * Cosima Niehaus: Scientist who enters a close relationship with the dyad institute in order to help the other clones
 * Alison Hendrix: Wife and mother who becomes paranoid about her possible monitors.
 * Helena: Separated at birth twin sister of Sarah who was raised by Proletheans who say she was the original and push her on a religious crusade to kill the clones.
 * Rachel Duncan: High up manager in the Dyad Institute who was raised by Susan and Ethan Duncan.
 * Jennifer Fitzsimmons: A 28-year old high school teacher and swim coach. She was among the clones seemingly affected by the same respiratory illness that struck Katja Obinger and Cosima Niehaus.
 * Tony Zwickey: A transgender clone who briefly turns to "Beth" after being told to by his dying monitor.
 * Other: Krystal Goderitch, MK, Camilla Torres, Leda Clone in Church
 * Dylan Bruce as Paul Dierden, an ex-military mercenary, who is Beth's monitor and boyfriend
 * Jordan Gavaris as Felix "Fee" Dawkins, Sarah's foster brother and confidant. He identifies as a modern artist and moonlights as a prostitute. He is the first person Sarah confides in about the existence of clones.
 * Kevin Hanchard as Art Bell, a detective and Beth's police partner.
 * Michael Mando as Vic Schmidt, Sarah's abusive, drug-dealing ex-boyfriend.
 * Maria Doyle Kennedy as Siobhan "S" Sadler, Sarah and Felix's Irish foster mother. She acts as guardian to Sarah's daughter Kira while Sarah is away.
 * Evelyne Brochu as Delphine Cormier, Cosima's monitor, girlfriend, and fellow scientist.
 * Ari Millen as Mark Rollins, a Prolethean; Ira, Susan Duncan's adopted son; and a number of other male Project Castor clones.
 * Kristian Bruun as Donnie Hendrix, Alison's husband and monitor.
 * Josh Vokey as Scott Smith, a fellow student of Cosima at the University of Minnesota, who later joins her and Delphine at the Dyad Institute.

In-universe
Both stories explore topics of nature vs nurture and bio-engineering. Part of the Neolutionist movement includes body modification in the name of self-directed evolution in the spirit of Dr. Moreau's vivisection or H. G. Well's individual plasticity. Most clones are infertile from a special gene like how the beast-folk can't have similar children. The clones may develop a chronic respiratory disease as a side effect from the same gene that needs slowing down through surgery like how the beast-folk need treatment to stop retrogression. The Proletheans use a clone to attack other clones similar to how Moreau, Montgomery and Prendick use the Law to keep beast-folk watching each other to send to the house of pain. At the end of season two, Helena sets fire to the Prolethean farm and kills Henrik Johanssen similar to how the beast-folk, Montgomery and/or Prendick kill or burn Moreau, Montgomery and/or the farmhouse (depending on the version).

Sub-universe
Ethan Duncan has a reoccurring copy of The Island of Dr. Moreau which holds the key to decrypting the clones' DNA. These notes include striked out or circled letters, molecular or biological diagrams, annotations, line and dot symbols, etc.

Season Two
In episode eight, Ethan Duncan reads to Kira Manning from Doctor Moreau explains: "You cannot imagine the strange, colourless delight of these intellectual desires! The thing standing before you is no longer a fellow-creature, but a problem!" Ethan Duncan later meets Rachel Duncan and references the themes at the end of How the Beast-Folk taste Blood. "Do you remember I used to read you The Island of Doctor Moreau?… How does it go… um, the bit about how he'd be forgiven for hate but not for irresponsibility." At the end of the episode, Kira reads from the book herself which is littered which molecular diagrams and annotations. In episode ten, Ethan Duncan watches a video of him reading to Rachel as young girl from The Evil-looking Boatmen: "Half way up was a square enclosure of some greyish stone, which I found subsequently was built partly of coral and partly of pumiceous lava. Two thatched roofs peeped from within this enclosure. A man stood awaiting us at the water's edge. I fancied while we were still far off that I saw some other and very grotesque-looking creatures scuttle into the bushes upon the slope; but I saw nothing of these as we drew nearer." Later Kira Manning asks Cosima to read her The Island of Dr. Moreau so Cosima sees the notes.

Season Three
In episode one, Cosima shows Scott, Duncan's copy of The Island of Dr. Moreau in hope that it holds the key to decrypt the clones' DNA.

In episode three, Cosima continues to search for answers in Duncan's copy of The Island of Dr. Moreau.

In episode six, Scott takes a watercolor painting from Rachel after noticing its symbols similarity to ones found in Duncan's copy of The Island of Dr. Moreau and tells Cosima he thinks Rachel knows the code. At the end of the episode Rachel resumes painting symbols while crying and looking at a picture of Ethan Duncan and herself as a girl in the same bedroom he would read her The Island of Doctor Moreau.

In episode seven, Scott meets with Rachel who draws lines connecting letters on a print copy of two pages from Duncan's copy of The Island of Dr. Moreau from Montgomery's "Bank Holiday": ''The eastward sea... Then, cutting like'' [a knife]

Out-universe
In 2015, Orphan Black had a lottery giveaway with a copy of The Island of Dr. Moreau as a prize.