Orphan Black: Echoes

I loved the original Orphan Black. It's one of my favourite series. I was quite excited to see where this new one was going to take the story. Unfortunately I was so let down.

There is no grit. There is no real mystery to uncover or bad guy to take out. There are no deep onion layers to dig through. Or cool exciting characters to find. It's so fluffy and boring compared to the original series.

The writing is so bad. The show could have been summoned up in one episode and yet somehow they manage to drag it out for 10 by adding in too many empty filler scenes that it gets boring fast. They had a great cast, but no real story to act out. What's even more disappointing is that this is supposed to be the future. And yet there is no future tech. No cool costumes. Everything is the same, except everyone has an electric car, and there's less violence. Where is the creativity? Where is the cool tech? To make it even worse they have Kira looking like a sixty year old. Which means Sarah and the other clones would be in their eighties. And yet they talk like they are young and spry and out saving the world. To top it all off, they didn't do one episode with Tatinan Maslany.

In the original Orphan black, cloning was bad. You got people playing god and making armies of clones. Everyone wanted power... it's understandable. But in this new series, remind me again what is so bad about printing a dead loved one? No one is making clone armies here. No one is selling prints for money or personal gain. The answer that they give you in the series is that, it's heartless to bring a teenager into the world that has no past memory of who they are. We need to stop this and rescue them so that they aren't confused about who they are... what is so evil about this?

Another thing that makes no sense is why the richest man on earth only has three body guards to do his biding. These three people better bring down the bad scary prints and if they can't do it... no one can.

To top it all off, I made it through all ten episodes hoping the end would end with a bang of some riddled plot that makes you finally feel like you've found out a secret and uncovered evil. It's a let down.

The writing and editing is so bad, it is distracting.

My "favourite" scene is where a doctor is helping a character with regaining her memories, literally having her repeat information about her life. And when the person asks whether she can now go live with somebody, the doctor scolds her that she can't: "I thought you knew that!". You literally explained TO HER that she lost *all* her memories! YOU would have had to give her that information!

The choices are so perplexing!

Having it set in the future, with everything basically looking the same, minimal differences in technology and clothes (oooh, self driving cars, how "futuristic"). Adults walking into a night club in office clothes (and getting IN!). The weird cheap wigs. Having a 33-year old playing a 70-year-old. Having a Canadian doing a weird over-the-top 1940s British accent, while the British actress does an American Accent (I get why. But it's very distracting). Having characters explain and explain after we just saw what they are explaining (two kids talking about their parents and their strained relationship). It is all quite tedious and boring.

Which is sad. Because we know these actors are capable.

I'm another lover of the original Orphan Black - it had a fast pace, good character development, and some phenomenal acting. This sequel has none of those.

At best it could be said to be providing detail regarding the creation of the clones, but even that didn't make much sense or even spark some interest. It's just used as a platform for more tiresome melodrama.

While the lead is an experienced actress I've enjoyed seeing in other roles, she simply lacks the range to carry this show. And with such a weak script, that otherwise passable flaw becomes a major failing point.

After 6 episodes of boredom, I finally gave up after another soap opera rendition of attempted dialogue between several characters I simply couldn't care about.

Having watched Orphan Black I kind of knew this wouldn't be very good. Orphan Black was held together by the amazing performance.of Tatiana Maslany and some decent writing. This show has neither. The lead actors are decent enough. I don't think Krysten Ritter could put in a bad performance. Her character here is basically Jessica Jones without the alcohol tolerance and super human strength. There was a fight scene where I was kind of wondering why Jessica Jones was letting a guy win.

There are some pretty woeful supporting performances. One in particular is embarrassingly bad with ridiculous make up to match.

On the topic of that embarrassing character, Echoes' narrative connection to Orphan Black feels like a bit of reverse engineering. My guess is they had a show about clones, realised it would be dismissed as a poor man's Orphan Black, and went, "hey let's do this". The connection has no real influence on the plot and means characters from Orphan Black have to be shoehorned into the story for no particular reason.

The writing is wildly inconsistent in quality. Again I think this has to do with needing to constantly establish that this is an Orphan Black show. There are also bits of quite horrible writing. The one that really stood out for me was when two characters go for a ride to talk about something incredible and unbelievable (that one of them is a clone]. You then see the characters arriving at their destination having had the conversation. When you're relying on the audience to write the script for you then you're in trouble.

In the end the real problem is it's impossible to suspend disbelief. The clones simply don't look like each other. It's not unusual having different actors playing a character at different ages but they're never all on screen at the same time. Perhaps if the plotting wasn't a bit silly and the writing was better and the acting wasn't so occasionally awful, then maybe you could get away with it.

So why 3 stars. Despite everything I did enjoy it and I did finish it. There are enough good bits and good ideas to keep you interested. I binged it in two days and that helped. I didn't have long enough to dwell on the show's obvious flaws.

The original Orphan Black is one of my all time favourite series. I was delighted when this was announced but it is a terrible disappointment.

The basic storyline is sound. However, the connection to the original Orphan Black is tenuous and in my opinion this is not am Orphan Black story. Using Kira as the main character with an occasional nod to the original clones who never appear is a cop out.

That's not the main issue with this though. The main is issue is the terrible dialogue, which at best is clunky and at worst is cliche ridden nonsense. It's easy to say the acting is terrible but when reliable talent like Keeley Hawes has to try and deliver it and fails what chance does everybody else have? What have the writers got against Felix? In the original series he was an outrageous and fun character. They have turned him into a crushing bore who now affects a stilted posh English accent. Don't even get me started on the fake beard that any amateur dramatic troupe would be ashamed of.

Orphan Black had a bit of everything. This has taken the name, removed all the drama and fun of that series and left us with this drab affair.

If like me you loved Orphan Black and haven't watched this my advice is don't.