Orphan Black - Season 3 Discussion

[Forbin]

Mrs. S involvement in this whole thing has never been a coincidence.

Having Sarah, hiding Duncan, her mom being involved... I think there is more to come.

Probably. Still, I'm not crazy about the tendency of so many shows to reduce all their big, sweeping storylines to the interplay among a few members of the same single family. It makes them feel rather smaller. I can understand wanting to keep plot developments centered around the established cast, but there are other ways to achieve that. And there are other relationships people can have besides familial ones.

I agree. I can't even think of all the shows that did that (Alias, Fringe...), but it does stretch believability at some point.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

I've actually been wondering about the show's title lately. Orphan Black. What does that mean?

I've thought about that myself. Perhaps each of the Leda "orphans" was given an identifier prior to their placement in surrogate families. A number, a letter of the alphabet, a color? Before she was Sarah Manning, she could simply have been Orphan Black.

Regarding these surrogate families, they all seem to have been troubled in some way. Mrs. S certainly did a bang-up job raising her foster kids: Sarah became a grafter, Felix a thief and prostitute. Granted, look at S's own mother, the loving Ma Malone. Maybe these people have been doomed from the start.

 

[Morpheus 02]

Teacake's video then led me to this one:
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f3WEZK1An4U[/yt]

Didn't realize how much Cosima uses her hands to speak...



The title can lead to several spinoffs...

So we've got Orphan Orange...so if Allison or Helena go to jail by the end of the show, we follow their adventures there



Orphan Green -- for Clone Club newbie Krystal

Orphan Red -- For an exclusive look at Helena's career


What else?


it would be nice to see files where the clones are color coded...

 

[Admiral2]

I've actually been wondering about the show's title lately. Orphan Black. What does that mean?

I've thought about that myself. Perhaps each of the Leda "orphans" was given an identifier prior to their placement in surrogate families. A number, a letter of the alphabet, a color? Before she was Sarah Manning, she could simply have been Orphan Black.

I never thought of color. I thought of it in terms of secrecy.

Until the start of the show not even the clones themselves knew of their existence as clones, and their existence is a secret to the general public, because the agencies that created them don't want anybody to know about it.

If the clones are "orphans", the name "Orphan Black" is a romantic form of "Covert Clone."

 

[Christopher]

I've actually been wondering about the show's title lately. Orphan Black. What does that mean?

I've thought about that myself. Perhaps each of the Leda "orphans" was given an identifier prior to their placement in surrogate families. A number, a letter of the alphabet, a color? Before she was Sarah Manning, she could simply have been Orphan Black.

That doesn't work, because most of the Leda clones were not orphans. Of the ones we know of, only Sarah and Helena were orphans. Most of the others were the children of women who underwent in vitro fertilization. We heard this from Alison's mother just recently. She told Alison how she'd gone behind her husband's back to get her own eggs fertilized with the sperm of a donor she deemed optimal -- without realizing that she'd actually been impregnated with a Leda embryo.

Here's what the OB Wiki has to say:

http://orphanblack.wikia.com/wiki/Clones

According to clues in the episode "Entangled Bank" & "Parts Developed in an Unusual Manner", Orphan Black refers to orphans "in the black", hidden during the restrictive regime of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In Sarah Manning's case, she was smuggled through the pipeline, to avoid being subjected to medical experiments.

I'm not sure how much credence to give that, though. It also says that the meaning of the title is itself one of the series' progressively unfolding mysteries.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

FYI, over on Maria Doyle Kennedy's website, she says her Twitter account exploded over the weekend following her real-life band's (and real-life husband's) performance on Orphan Black.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I think Orphan Black is a reference to their names being redacted in documents.

Orphan [black redacting line obliterating name]

 

[Aldo]

I pulled this dialogue off a weird transcript site that doesn't attribute a name to who's speaking. It's a conversation between Sara and Mrs. S from episode 8 of the first season:

That some of the kids we were hiding, the ones that came in Carlton's pipeline, like you, children in the black...

What do you mean, exactly, "in the black"?

You know, undocumented. Outside the system.

Based on that, I think the title of the series refers explicitly to Sarah.

 

[Christopher]

Based on that, I think the title of the series refers explicitly to Sarah.

Yeah, which is kind of my problem. The title worked for the show when it started out, when it was the story of Sarah Manning. But now, though Sarah is still the anchor of the show, it's become the story of a much larger group of characters. So the title doesn't feel like it fits anymore.

 

[Morpheus 02]

Based on that, I think the title of the series refers explicitly to Sarah.

Yeah, which is kind of my problem. The title worked for the show when it started out, when it was the story of Sarah Manning. But now, though Sarah is still the anchor of the show, it's become the story of a much larger group of characters. So the title doesn't feel like it fits anymore.

They were going to rename it next season "Sestra Black", but then Rachel Dolezal happened....

 

[Christopher]

I think they should rename it Clone Dance Revolution.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

^ EXCELLENT SUGGESTION

 

[Admiral2]

^Hear Hear!

 

[Morpheus 02]

Hmm...i see an interactive game spinoff opportunity. WHo wants to start the Kickstarter Campaign?

(And Scott's RPG...is that real, or another one that could be developed?)

 

[Christopher]

(And Scott's RPG...is that real, or another one that could be developed?)

Apparently Agricola is a real game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricola_(board_game)

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Siobhan said something about "orphans in the black" relating to how she got Sarah.

That was at the end of S1 I think.

 

[Christopher]

Wow, that was pretty awesome. Not so much for the usual plot twists and violence and all that predictably shocking stuff, but for the moments of warmth and humanity. I loved how Cosima handled Kendall, getting this bitter, suspicious woman to cooperate just by being nice and matter-of-fact and decent and, well, being Cosima. Cosima is the best.

And it was so sweet that Donnie (and Alison?) actually tracked down Jesse as a gift for Helena. And charmingly corny that he actually does like her, that there's some truth to what seemed like a childish fantasy Helena had spun. (I also loved the "science baby" line.) And Helena lying down on the floor with Rudy and comforting him at the end, even after being the one to kill him... she's, err, complicated. Interesting how that paralleled the ending with Sarah and Kira lying in the snow together, which was another awesomely sweet moment.

Plus we do actually get an answer for how Sarah ended up adopted by her biological, err, niece, and it's also sort of heartwarming and helps heal the rift between Kendall and Siobhan.

And I'm relieved that Krystal was rescued, though I wonder where she goes from here. She's got tons of questions, and it was left hanging how they're going to be addressed. Meanwhile, it looks like Shay will stick around for next season, which is cool.

Plotwise, honestly, it felt like kind of an anticlimax. Coady and the whole Castor thing seemed to be dealt with far too easily, although I did like it that it was Sarah's skill as a con artist that let them catch Coady in a sting. And Alison's election arc didn't really have much payoff, it seemed. It finally tied into the larger plot, but only incidentally. I guess its various payoffs came along the way rather than building to a single climax in the finale.

The big reveals didn't do much for me either. Neolution is back? They were the real masterminds behind Leda and Castor all along? Okay, whatever. And Mrs. Duncan is alive? Of course she is. The important dead parental figures who are key to the mystery always turn up alive eventually. Even Delphine's death didn't evoke much emotion in me, since she's totally lost any sympathy through her behavior this season. Oh, and Nealon had a freaky worm thing in his mouth? What's that about?

Rachel's bionic eye is neat, though.

Instead of a clone dance party this time, we get a clone dinner party, a subtler sequence but still quite an elaborate VFX exercise. I'm not sure if having all those other people in the scene sitting between them would've made it easier or harder to pull off. Probably both, depending on what aspect of the shot they were working on. Still, it looked like there were relatively few split-screen shots and a lot where they faked interaction with body doubles and cuts. So probably less VFX work here than in the dance party.

Oh, gods, I just realized... Alison is now on the school board. I shudder to think what will happen once the power goes to her head. There will be blood. So much blood.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Jesse as a gift for Helena

That poor man. Probably gonna die.

 

[Christopher]

^I don't know about that, but anyone who threatens Jesse's family is probably gonna die.

 

[Admiral2]

Instead of a clone dance party this time, we get a clone dinner party, a subtler sequence but still quite an elaborate VFX exercise. I'm not sure if having all those other people in the scene sitting between them would've made it easier or harder to pull off. Probably both, depending on what aspect of the shot they were working on. Still, it looked like there were relatively few split-screen shots and a lot where they faked interaction with body doubles and cuts. So probably less VFX work here than in the dance party.

In a way it's cooler, because it's pretty much the culmination of the dream Helena started the season with, all the sisters together sharing dinner. We have symmetry, people!

Oh, gods, I just realized... Alison is now on the school board. I shudder to think what will happen once the power goes to her head. There will be blood. So much blood.

That alone is reason to come back next season.