Orphan Black | |
---|---|
Genre | |
Created by | |
Starring | |
Theme music composer | Two Fingers |
Composer(s) | Trevor Yuile |
Country of origin | Canada |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 4 |
No. of episodes | 40 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Ivan Schneeberg David Fortier Graeme Manson John Fawcett |
Producer(s) | Alex Levine Claire Welland Tatiana Maslany Aubrey Nealon |
Location(s) | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
Cinematography | Aaron Morton |
Running time | 43 minutes |
Production company(s) |
Temple Street Productions BBC America Bell Media |
Release | |
Original network |
Space (Canada) BBC America (U.S.) |
Original release | March 30, 2013 | – present
External links | |
Official Space website | |
Official BBC America website |
Orphan Black is a Canadian science fiction thriller television series created by screenwriter Graeme Manson and director John Fawcett, starring Tatiana Maslany as several identical people who are clones. The series focuses on Sarah Manning, a woman who assumes the identity of one of her fellow clones, Elizabeth Childs, after witnessing Childs' suicide. The series raises issues about the moral and ethical implications of human cloning, and its effect on issues of personal identity.
The series is produced by Temple Street Productions, in association with BBC America and Bell Media's Space. It premiered on March 30, 2013, on Space in Canada and on BBC America in the United States. On May 7, 2015, a 10-episode fourth season was ordered, which premiered on April 14, 2016. On June 16, 2016, the series was renewed for a fifth and final 10-episode season, set to premiere on June 10, 2017. An aftershow, After the Black, began airing in the third season on Space and was acquired by BBC America for the fourth season.
The series begins with Sarah Manning, a con artist by trade, 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, Sarah discovers that she is a clone, that she has many 'sister' clones spread throughout North America and Europe, 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.