Orphan Black, Space – season premiere
Sarah (Tatiana Maslany, Picture Day), a streetwise hustler on the run from a lifetime of bad decisions, witnesses the suicide of a stranger who looks just like her. She assumes her identity hoping that cleaning out the woman’s bank account will solve all of her problems. Instead, after taking on the new identity, Sarah quickly finds herself caught in the middle of a deadly conspiracy and must race to find answers.
From Tim Goodman of the Hollywood Reporter:
Orphan Black: TV Review
It’s addictive and compelling — you want the next episode mere seconds after the previous one has ended, which is always a fantastic sign. But even beyond that, there’s little doubt that Orphan Black is more than just a thrill ride or some guilty pleasure. It is, flat out, one of the most intriguingly entertaining new series of the year, and it’s so much more than pure entertainment. For a sci-fi series, there’s some real heft to it. Read more.
From Bill Harris of QMI Agency:
‘Orphan Black’ compelling
Orphan Black has one of the best opening scenes I’ve witnessed in a long while. A young woman played by Tatiana Maslany sees a couple of things that would shake anyone when she gets off a train. The first three minutes are spooky and mesmerizing and artistically shot. Read more.
From Brad Oswald of the Winnipeg Free Press:
Familiar feeling
Poor Sarah just isn’t herself today. In fact, she’s someone else altogether. Or perhaps several someone elses, all rolled into one. Sarah, as sci-fi fans are about to learn, is the perplexed sort-of heroine in the new Space network series Orphan Black, which premières Saturday, March 30, at 8 p.m. She’s a troubled soul, a disenchanted loner and a directionless orphan, right up until the moment she watches a woman commit suicide by stepping off a railway platform into the path of a moving train. Read more.
From Kate Taylor of the Globe and Mail:
Meet Tatiana Maslany: a small-town Canadian ‘salivating, starving for’ her latest TV role
Tatiana Maslany is a nice girl from Saskatchewan. In person, the rising actress is cheerful, friendly, free of attitude and blessed with a sweet face that makes her look younger than her 27 years. On-screen, she is a chameleon who has played roles as lofty as the Virgin Mary, but who more often gets down and dirty, cast as the anarchic street tough with a leather jacket and plenty of eyeliner. Read more.
From Bill Brioux of the Canadian Press:
‘Orphan Black’ a compelling thriller starring Tatiana Maslany in many identities
Talk about a dead ringer. Late one night, standing on an otherwise empty subway platform, a street-smart orphan named Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) watches in horror as somebody jumps in front of a train. She looks down the platform and notices the dead woman left behind her purse. She grabs it and finds cash, keys to an apartment and a startling ID photograph: the woman’s name was Beth, and she looked exactly like Sarah. Read more.
From Mark Leiren-Young of the Vancouver Sun:
Hollywood North: Former soap star Dylan Bruce takes on sci-fi
Orphan Black, the new sci-fi series on Space, features a mind-bending premise with Canadian It Girl Tatiana Maslany (Picture Day) playing multiple clones of the same character — but while some actors might find this concept complicated, improbable plot twists and twins are nothing new to Vancouver-born actor Dylan Bruce, who kicked off his career on the soap opera As the World Turns. Read more.
From Rick Mele of Huffington Post Canada:
‘Orphan Black’: 10 Things You Need To Know
And while good science-fiction always grounds its more out-there elements in something familiar, like a shared personal experience or universal theme, “Orphan Black” takes the idea of identity crisis and multiplies it. That’s because the series star Tatiana Maslany doesn’t just play one leading role in the new show, she plays enough to necessitate the use of a cheat sheet. Read more.
From Variety:
‘Orphan Black,’ ‘Spies of Warsaw’
While this isn’t made explicit in the pilot, after a couple more hours it’s explained (vaguely) that the whole thing has something to do with cloning, with a lot of women who share Sarah’s face running around. But other than enjoying Maslany in multiple characters, wigs and accents, there’s nothing so distinctive about the plot as to provide an incentive to hang around long enough to sort out all the gory details regarding who might want to eliminate them. Read more.
From Diane Werts of Newsday:
‘Orphan Black’ review: Thrill ride
MY SAY What else do you need, people? “Orphan Black” is a spiraling tale whose plot, through the four episodes I’ve seen, just gets thicker and thicker. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Which is essentially the story right there. Read more.
From Chris Jancelewicz of Huffington Post:
More Than Just A Sci-Fi Show
Before you read that Orphan Black is a sci-fi show and click away, give me a chance to sell it to you. It’s so much more than simple sci-fi. It’s mystery, it’s action, it’s drama and it’s as sexy as hell. Read more.
From Scott Stinson of the National Post:
Identity crisis: Tatiana Maslany takes on the multiple roles of Orphan Black
“I never wanted anything like I wanted this part,†Maslany says, sitting across a table on Orphan Black’s Toronto studio set. “But then when I got it, it was like, ‘oh, s–t.’†Read more.
From People:
Orphan Black’s Characters Revealed
In Orphan Black, Tatiana Maslany plays Sarah, a woman who finds herself in that very situation when she witnesses a suicide and then decides to empty the bank account of the deceased (who happens to look just like her). But that’s when the trouble begins for Sarah, an orphan turned hustler, who discovers that she and the dead woman are actually clones – and there may be more of them. Read more.
