Orphan Black

Orphan Black was a science fiction series, produced by BBC America. The series centres around clones, all played by Tatiana Maslany, who were separated at birth.

The clones personalities have become wildly divergent. Most of the clones are being clandestinely monitored by the Corporation that spawned them.

Episode one begins with a clone, a con artist, one of a pair of twins, who was smuggled out of the program, observing a woman who looks just like her, commit suicide by walking in front of a commuter train. She decides to assume the well dressed dead woman's identity, only to discover she was a police officer.

During the series five seasons Maslany portrays thirteen different clones, and was widely praised for her ability to portray thirteen different characters so well, that viewers could distinguish between them merely through her acting, and makeup and wardrobe choices.

Maslany told interviewers she prepared a different mix-tape of songs to listen to, to prepare for performing as each clone, that she listened to in the makeup chair.

Film historians compared her performance to that of Alec Guiness in the film Kind hearts and coronets, where he portrayed a distant relative to a peer, in the United Kingdom, who slowly murders multiple relatives, also played by Guiness, so he can assume the title. At the time the film was made technology allowed several versions of Guiness to appear in the same room, by having him appear, in different costumes, before multiple cameras. But Guiness was not able to move around these rooms, the cameras had to remain in fixed locations.

By the time Orphan Black was made technology enabled cameras to repeat exactly the same movement and tracking, so Maslany could move around rooms. Maslany had another actor, who was the same height and build as her, who would be used in shots where two clones were fighting or otherwise in close proximity to one another. These scenes would be filmed multiple times with the two actors switching places, and switching costumes, so the faces of both clones could appear in the fight.

A spinoff series, Orphan Black: Echoes, with a new cast, set in 2052, is scheduled to premiere in 2024.