The plot lines of the series revolve around Sarah and Kira's efforts to avoid capture by the clearly sinister Neolutionists and Proletheans, as well as around the efforts made by each clone to give sense to her life and origin. Sarah and Helena share a surrogate birth mother and are twins both genetically and with respect to their early maternal environment.Įventually, the Dyad Institute and the Proletheans learn that Sarah has a daughter, Kira, the only known offspring of a clone all other clones are sterile by design. A faction of the Proletheans carries out the clone assassinations, because they believe clones are abominations, and they use Sarah's biological twin sister, Helena, to kill the other clones. Sarah eventually discovers that she's also wanted by the police and by a secret religious group, the Proletheans. It also seeks to profit from the technology the clones embody and has thus placed "monitors" into the clones' personal lives, allegedly to study them scientifically, but actually to keep them under surveillance. The Dyad Institute conducts basic research, lobbies political institutions, and promotes its eugenics program, aided by the clone Rachel Duncan. The movement has an institutional base in the large, influential, and wealthy biotech corporation, the Dyad Institute, which is seemingly headed by Dr. The movement believes that human beings can use scientific knowledge to direct their evolution as a species. During the first season, in episode 3, Sarah discovers that she is a clone, that she has many "sister" clones spread throughout North America and Europe that are all part of an illegal human cloning experiment, and that someone is plotting to kill them and her.Īlongside her foster brother, Felix Dawkins, and two of her fellow clones, Alison Hendrix and Cosima Niehaus, Sarah discovers the origin of the clones: a scientific movement called Neolution. Sarah assumes Beth's identity and occupation (as a police detective) after Beth's death.
The series begins with Sarah Manning, a British con artist residing in Toronto, witnessing the suicide of a woman, Beth Childs, who appears to be her doppelgänger. The series won a Peabody Award in 2013 and has been nominated for, and won, several Canadian Screen Awards.
Throughout its five seasons, the series received critical acclaim and various accolades, particularly for Maslany's performance, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award, two Critics' Choice Television Awards and two further nominations, one TCA Award and one further nomination, two Satellite Award nominations, and a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Orphan Black built a loyal online fandom across social media platforms who identify as #CloneClub, a reference to those who are in-the-know in the story. An aftershow, After the Black, began airing in the third season on Space and was acquired by BBC America for the fourth season. On June 16, 2016, the series was renewed for a fifth and final 10-episode season, which ran from June 10 to August 12, 2017. The show premiered on March 30, 2013, on Space in Canada, and on BBC America in the United States. The series was produced by Temple Street Productions in association with BBC America and Bell Media's Space. The series raises issues about the moral and ethical implications of human cloning and its effect on identity. The series focuses on Sarah Manning, one of several genetically identical human clones, and later on some of the other clones. Orphan Black is a Canadian science fiction thriller television series created by screenwriter Graeme Manson and director John Fawcett, and starring Tatiana Maslany.