One of my favorite shows from last year, and certainly the newcomer I got most excited about, was BBC America’s sci-fi drama Orphan Black, a sharply written and brilliantly acted show about a petty thief named Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany, possibly the most talented actress working on television right now) who witnesses a woman who looks exactly like her committing suicide. As she investigates, Sarah uncovers a network of clones and learns that the shadowy scientists responsible for their creation are also more than willing to get their hands dirty if it means continuing their experiments.
Season one ended last June, and now BBC America is getting ready for the show’s sophomore outing (premiering next month) with a minute-long trailer. Check it out below:
The intense trailer focuses heavily on the battle between the main clones (Sarah, soccer mom Alison Hendrix and scientist Cosima Niehaus) and evil ‘Proclone’ Rachel, who works for the scientists who created the clones. At the conclusion of last season, Rachel orchestrated the abduction of Sarah’s daughter Kira (Skyler Wexler), which sends Sarah on the warpath in season two. “What are you gonna do — just start shooting people?” Cosima asks. “Yeah,” she replies bluntly.
Mixed in with that awesome exchange are sneak peeks at a brawl between Sarah and Rachel, a new love interest for Sarah named Cal Morrison (Michiel Husiman), the mysterious Project LEDA and – just what is that at the end? Are showrunners Graeme Manson and John Fawcett hinting that they’ll explore the “original” in season two, is this a new clone fresh out of the scientists’ laboratories, or is it something much scarier to contemplate? I just keep thinking about the fact that Alison, going out of her mind due to paranoia, signed away her body to the scientists at the end of the first run of episodes, and what that might mean for the character in this season is extremely worrying.
If you haven’t had the opportunity to catch Orphan Black yet, you won’t regret it. At just ten episodes, it’s a fast watch – especially because you’ll get hooked within mere minutes and probably blow through half of them in one sitting. It’s the smartest sci-fi I’ve seen on the small screen in a long while, and Maslany is absolutely riveting.
Orphan Black returns to BBC America at 9 p.m. on April 19.
