Requiem: Z Nation

As the last season of Z Nation reached the finale it was revealed that there won’t be another –I saw the news on Nana’s twitter account. Honestly, part of me is shocked that such a gimmicky show lasted for five seasons – but I’m still going to look back on this surprising sharknado of a series…

The Good

It’s original, it’s new, it’s different. To bring such zaniness, so consistently to a long running zombie show was definitely surprising. It managed to maintain a level of comedy and weirdness that we rarely see. And yeah, sometimes it was annoying, sometimes it was silly, sometimes it really

doesn’t make sense. But still it’s different and I really appreciate that, Addie, Warren and Murphy (the relationship between Warren and Murphy has so especially when backed with a really strong core cast. Especially Warren who I both think made this show and is completely wasted on this show. But 10k, many levels, I really wish the show had continued just to see more of it)

  

The Bad

I think Z Nation has always suffered from something of a tonal dissonance. It is zany and that does make it unique. And equally if it was zany every episode it would become way way way way more annoying and I couldn’t stand it… but this contrasts a lot from other zany shows like, say, The Librarians or even Warehouse 13. Because Z Nation will not only bring the plot occasionally as well, but it will go all out for epic, heart rending angst and deep emotion and deep complex relationships like the one between Warren and binge watch this show as you’d be going along and then Warren will TEAR OUT Murphy and… it’s confusing. I  can’t even imagine what it would be like to

YOUR HEART with utter grief.

And then the next episode we’ll have a giant ball of zombies taking out the liberty bell neither half realises the other half exists. No matter how serious Warehouse 13 or The Librarians got, they always remembered what show they were. It’s like two shows mashed together and

And I’m not saying the serious elements are bad because they’re really really not. Z Nation can bring the acting and pluck the heart strings… but it feels out of place.

The Diversity

Z Nation attracted our attention in the first season when we saw Obvious Designated Protagonist Straight White Male die. It may be the most stunned I’ve ever been watching a show - they killed the protagonist! Already!

And then Warren stepped up and made the show her’s and I didn’t have a second of regret. Warren was such an awesome character for so long, yes strong but still having scenes of grief and vulnerability, inspiring, positive while not being naive, caring and charismatic. Warren has always been excellent.

Of course Warren being excellent meant occasionally it was tempting to look past some of the more problematic portrayals in the series. The sexualised, servile treatment of Cassandra was appalling, their forrays among the Native Americans have been pretty cringeworthy and their jaunt to Mexico was fraught with stereotypes… but then it also has Vasquez and Escorpion, two definite complex, layered characters.

Sun Mei as an Asian stereotype pretty much ticks every trope box but she was a character despite that and the only word of criticism I could ever have for Kaia (and Nana) is there’s not enough of them. The show has always had a number of female characters alongside Warren and Addie, Red, Sun Mei, Kaia, George and that is always good to see in so many male dominated shows… but I do have to note that none of them are constants in her life like Murphy, Doc and 10k are.

LGBTQ wise we have virtually nothing for five seasons. Two recurring bit characters are revealed as possibly gay for pure homophobic comedy reasons and then never seen again. And Addie is bisexual - and if you just blinked and say “wait, she was?!” you may have missed it as this was referred two once in one episode and then never touched on again. Unlike both her male love interests. We’ve mentioned this trope so often - of course it’s not a problem that a bisexual character is in opposite sex relationships but it’s telling how often the only LGBTQ representation on a show will be That One Episode where a bisexual character briefly mentions their bisexuality for it never ever ever to raise again.

Requiem: The Originals

After five seasons The Originals has finally come to a close; after coming back from he dead over and over again this show has finally died for the new season of Legacies to drag itself from the ashes.

The Originals was one of those shows that actually managed to pull off a spin off - it made it work and managed to create a unique entity that both had all of the connections it needed to the Vampire Diaries while still being its own unique creation. And that kept going for five seasons

Whether or not that was a good thing is… debatable.

The Good

The acting. There has always been some top notch acting on this show. Even with these often terrible storylines, even having to force all of these endless angst and drama scenes over and over and over. They were not given a lot to work with but damn they worked it well.

I also think the underlying world setting of this series is good. The Original Vampires, the different kinds of witches, the werewolves and their curse - at its core it was a fascinating world setting I would love to explore. It actually makes me a little angry that the writers cared so little about continuity that they ruined this one element I liked

The Bad

When The Originals first spun off from the Vampire Diaries the writers had two major problems. Firstly, The Originals were the worst. Oh Rebekkah and Elijah had been shown with some redeeming features - but Klaus and Kol were definitely irredeemably awful. It was hard to think of how these characters could be sympathetic protagonists unless you’re going to outright run with “audiences will tolerate any evil so long as the guy is hot.” While this is true, it’s unusual to outright openly rely on that

The second, and bane of any writer, is that they are ridiculously powerful. For much of Vampire Diaries they were figures of almost legend. The founding vampires, the first, hundreds of years old and more powerful than anything in the world. Which works for a mighty antagonist your cast is afraid of - but as a protagonist?

This scenes encapsulates the problem:

Each Original is quite capable of massacring entire armies - and we KNOW they have no moral qualms about killing since pretty much all of them has slaughtered people on occasion. One alone is pretty unbeatable - get any number of them actually working in tandem and the writers are faced with trying to think of a convoluted reason WHY Klaus/Elijah/Kol/Rebekkah don’t just unleash a massacre. Several seasons of Marcel challenging Klaus? Massacre. Nazi vampires? Massacre. Angry witches? Massacre. The Stricts? Massacre. The return of Lucien and their oldest children? Massacre. Angry werewolf pack? Massacre. Massacre, massacre, massacre.

This led to the writers either continuing and exacerbating The Vampire Diaries habit of changing the various powers and abilities of the creatures based on what is narratively necessary with mighty Original vampires either massacring armies or being brought down with a convenient magical item or not that impressive witch in between

Requiem: Once Upon a Time

So after six seasons, Once Upon a Time desperately tried to fend off the inevitable with a seven season reboot. Sadly for the show, it wasn't enough and ABC finally gave up on the show. After following this from the beginning there's always a bitter sweet element to letting it go - even when there are several elements we certainly don't miss - there's still a lot there that still could have been

Which, of course, means it's time for a Requiem

Good

I think it’s hard to remember how original and interesting this show was when it first started all those many years ago. I think we need to give praise to that even as it has become more normalised in the years the show run. The whole concept of taking these fairy tales and mixing and mashing them up was really fun for me to see. Simple things like Rumplestiltskin being, obviously, the titular deal-giving monster, but also the Crocodile from Peter Pan and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast is the kind of mash up that I really really love.

The show has also brought some really iconic characters - Regina first and foremost, of course, but Emma, Maleficient, Cruella De Ville were some of my favourites. Throw in some really nice plot twists - the weirdness of how King Arthur fit into the show, Peter Pan as Rumple’s father, the complicated Cora/Regina/Zelena family tree. It had some gems.

Also Killian’s eye-shadow.

Bad

The Charmings. The problem with the Charmings is they’re probably the characters that have most held onto the fairy tale origins of the show. So while everything else is bring a sometimes-gritty but often more eye-open reality take to the world, the Charmings are there being kind of flabby and soggy and grossly PASSIVE. These two are repeatedly held up as heroes but, despite occasional past flashbacks of action, they generally did nothing to earn that. They only ever react to what the bad guys do - and then not often. In fact, even their claim to heroism seems to be far less because they champion the little guy or help people or hunt down evil - they’re heroes because EVIL COMES FOR THEM. If Regina didn’t devote so much effort to actually squishing Snow then she’d probably not do anything at all, no matter what kind of reign of terror was unleashed on the actual kingdom.

And this pervasive passivity followed through to everything they did. They never planned anything - just rested on this soppy “good will find a way” “love will find a way” “good is rewarded” “evil never prospers” twee philosophy which ruled out them actually having to do ANYTHING. If they are “good” then good never succeeded or triumphed -good twiddled its thumbs ineptly until evil collapses under its own evilness. And they’re central characters, they’re heroes, they’re leaders of their people for crying out loud! Words can’t express how frustrating I found their smug, pointless, passive, purity.

Good and Bad: The Season 7 Reboot

I know I’m almost a broken record on the final season of Once Upon a Time but it’s because I’m so twisted up about it as being both a perfect example of why we need Reboots while similarly being a text book example of how reboots can be badly done

I praise season 7 being a reboot - because after 6 seasons, Once Upon a Time was done. The fairy tale ouvre just doesn’t have enough big bads to both match up to the last big bads AND to be able to assail the amazing force that Team Good Guy had finally mustered. The core characters had hashed out every single last emotional family drama possible at this point. Emma had love and family and it’d be ridiculous to sunder this AGAIN. The Charmings after 8,000 plots keeping them apart were now together. Everyone believed, Henry was the author and if Rumple turned evil just One More Damn Time or Regina had ANOTHER tragic love affair I was just going to scream. It was done. Stick a fork in it.

Requiem: Lucifer

The Good

The whole concept of Lucifer has always been good: the devil living it up in LA, making deals is fun. But therapy - actual useful therapy rather than the hot mess it became? Therapy to deal with his issues, throwing in Maze and Amenadiel’s own sessions and Linda bouncing awesomely between them? It worked. Charlotte and Linda’s world shattering revelations worked (how many urban fantasy shows us the existence of gods and angels and the supposedly ignorant human is so blase over something that should rock their world to the core?). It has so much immense potential

Throw in Tom Ellis. Because he is PERFECT in this role. Honestly perfect. His Lucifer is A class combination of sinister menace and grade A charm with a hefty layer of sexy to finish it off. In fact all the characters, when allowed to be, are excellent: Amenadiel, Maze, Chloe, Linda, Ella, Charlotte, even Dan. When given the chance all completely ruled their roles. They just needed more of a chance.

The Bad

The problem I have with Lucifer is that I’m sad about it leaving because of what it could have been rather than what it actually was. I can’t say I look forward to this show, certainly not in the later season. There’s so much I really really wanted from Lucifer, so much that Lucifer could have actually been. But instead we just got episode after episode of the same annoying pattern: Lucifer would make some random decision, usually due to his daddy issues. He then obsesses over this particular facet to the point of utter irrationality while the rest of the characters manage to limp the plot along. It reminds me a lot of the worst iZombie episodes when Liv gains some weird brain tropes and annoys everyone while everyone else gets on with things

It doesn’t mean good stuff doesn’t happen on Lucifer but it tends to happen around him - Lucifer is actually getting in the way of the actual plot line of this series. Interesting stuff happens despite him, or around him: he is an obstacle to the interesting stuff. And he’s the protagonist. Your protagonist cannot be the least interesting person there; but Charlotte, Maze, Linda and Amenadiel all have more interesting conflicts and development and more meaningful storylines.

On top of that we seemed to get far and far less of the supernatural element. In season 1 Lucifer was a terrifying even sinister force. His deals were near supernatural, his charisma magnetic ensuring a following everywhere, he could throw people through walls, his desire power unearthed all secrets: he was the devil and he oozed the power of that. By the last season he occasionally pulls out his desire power - which backfires most of the time - and that’s it. The whole supernatural oomph of him is completely missing; same with the depowered, wingless Amenadiel.

It becomes only more bitter when we have the season finale teasing us with everything it could have been and will now never be. We needed more of this. So much more: more Lucifer, more Linda and Maze, more Amenadiel with his wings, more Lucifer showing his satanic might, more Chloe into the secret, even more Dan being something other than the one note comic relief he became.

I've said it before but I'll say it again - I hate the whole depiction of criminal defence as evil or corrupt. Criminal defence is vital for our justice system, an already flawed system that hurts minorities especially. Police shows on TV repeatedly demonise defence lawyers while lauding law enforcement for ignoring the rules: those rules that protect innocent people, those rules we need in a world where the police don't always flawlessly find the guilty party. This demonisation has real world consequences as we continually view legal defence as an impediment to justice, rather than its last stand

Requiem: Zoo

Absolutely no-one who has been following our reviews will be even remotely surprised that we greeted the cancellation of Zoo with no great despair. Honestly I was split between quiet dread before a new season - or kind of looking forward to it just for the ridicule. Yes, I was watching this for snark.

The Good

the original concept: normal animals rising up is a terrifying concept. Never mind the lions and tigers; the fear is the common creatures all around us. The horror of family pets rising up against us. Of rats swarming from the sewers, of birds bombing us from the skies, how how different nations with their own wildlife have to react. Places which are surprisingly vulnerable to intelligent, malicious animals. How does this affect agriculture when meat farming effectively becomes near impossible? The implications are enormous and the first season did quite a good job of addressing that.

The Bad

The ridiculousness. The utter, nonsensical ridiculousness. I mean, as I said above, the original concept is terrifying. So why did we need electric ants and earthquake sloths? Even the plot lines twisted so bizarrely that it became almost impossible to follow: remember the Mother Cell? Reiden Global? The Victorian X-rays? And this is before the hybrids & sterility. Throw in the deeply implausible elements - like governments deciding to wipe out all animal life (like we could even do that - if we could rats and wasps and pigeons would no longer be a thing we had in our cities) or the US building a wall across the entire west coast (and not even trying to show the implications of that!). Then we had Jackson’s magic powers, Clem and the miracle baby, the whole Mr. Duncan/Mitch bizarreness and every week turned the whole thing into a confusing rambling Madlib. Did anyone even know what was happening at the end?

And if it’d owned it? I’d be right there. If it had gone full on Z-Nation fully aware of its own ridiculousness I would have jumped right on board, giggling along with it! Invisible giant snakes! Wooly Rhinos! Volcano sabretooths! But by all accounts it legitimately took itself seriously right up to the end. And, honestly, I am freaking impressed the actors kept a straight face managing that.

Requiem: Teen Wolf

I will admit to not exactly being enthused when I first learned that an updated version of Teen Wolf would be hitting the airwaves. To be clear, I didn’t anything good could come of updating Michael J Fox’s cult hit Teen Wolf. Honestly before the first couple episodes aired I’m sure many had the same doubts.  Thankfully while the television series was at times filled with glorious cheese, it added a level of seriousness to the narrative and to the story in directions I could not have predicted based upon its inspiration. The characters may have been teenagers but the audience was absolutely meant to take them seriously.

The Good

Ok… I’m going to say something nearly everyone is going to call blasphemy…  but I like how Teen Wolf evolved.

I know, general commentary is how Teen Wolf was a cute, not-too-serious, campy with lots of eye candy fun show as it started in season 1 and then it went all down hill. I can’t follow that - yes, it started well - but fluff doesn’t last for 6 seasons. It would have been fun and light but it had the chance to become more and I think it actually ran with it - especially since it was backed by some really excellent acting. By moving to more than fluff we had the plot lines of the Nogitsune, the Alpha Pack. It got serious, it got dark and it even got epic and it was awesome because of that - it became way more than it originally looked and I applaud that

Of course the story wasn’t always coherent per se - but it was backed by an excellent cast and some really perfect core characters. Scott McCall, Stiles, Lydia and, as it developed, Malia and Melissa McCall were excellent characters, extremely well acted and a joy to watch. Watching Scott in particular grow through these seasons was something I loved - and why the last season annoyed me with them trying to replace the main cast with the painfully dull B team.

I liked the plot, loved the story, the cast and damn this show could sell atmosphere at times!

The Bad

Awesome characters and epic storylines are great… but the number of times those characters were dropped in the plot box, wandered off the show or never realised their potential was sadly equally common. Especially since, as we’ll get to, most of them were minorities. A lot of characters also just kind of drifted round the edges - why was Parish around when he seemed so little involved. Did we need to bring Theo back? Did Peter Hale need to return? These felt clumsy, out of place, especially since they lacked the epic character connections everyone else had. While the show developed more and more epic storylines (which, again, I say was good and really did highlight the acting chops of the cast), we lost more of the relationships between the characters. Scott and Stiles, Scott and Deaton, Melissa and Scott, Stiles and Lydia - these all became less and less important as the seasons went on. Worse from season 4 onwards we saw more and more of the show trying to push the B team: Liam, Alpha heir-apparent (for some reason never really explained). I think the writers became more obsessed with setting up a potential spin off series than actually continuing the main plot with the main characters.

Requiem: The Mist

It’s time for another requiem - yes another show we follow has come to an end.

Sometimes a show ends and we mourn. We see the loss of Class and Dark Angel and Almost Human and grieve. We see the loss of Sense8 and we scream our rage to an unfeeling cruel world.

Some we’re conflicted about like Orphan Black but generally were positive. And some we see with a nostalgic sigh but acknowledge it’s time was done like True Blood, Vampire Diaries and Supernatural- ye gods why is this still being renewed?

And sometimes we’ve wanted to dance on it’s grave so much we’ve hired choreographers.

The Good

We actually debated this category because quite honestly we are extremely hard pressed to find anything good about the Mist, at least as it concerns characterisation and plot.

I will however throw The Mist a bone and admit that some the special effects were interesting. Mia’s interaction with her mother’s ghost was somewhat compelling and so was Nathalie and Father Romanov’s little field trip into the mist. Who doesn’t enjoy horsemen of the apocalypse suddenly appearing out of nowhere?

The Bad

I could write a book.

I mean the truly nauseating homophobia we’ve spoken about and will go into when we discuss the diversity.

Then there’s the central plot line of Alex’s rape. First of all… why? When the series started it looked like this would be relevant - there even looked like maybe exploring how rape is treated and rape victims are poorly served by the justice system. Instead it became another way for the town to hate her, seeming to be mixed with how the Misty Monster apparently doesn’t want to eat her, a vehicle with which to indulge in a lot of sex shaming of Eve (and my gods the treatment of Eve - the evil dirty slutwhorejezebel who was redeemed by a Nice Guy), and serve almost like a romance obstacle between Alex and Jay. The convoluted misunderstanding tope so often used to draw out the will-they-won’t-they of love interests. And, of course, a tool to further the homophobic hot mess

At no point was it treated as an important or integral plot line in and of itself - it was a tool to advance other plot lines and something to distract us with while everyone cowered inside with nothing to do.

These elements are so nauseating it’s almost redundant to mention anything else - but there’s also a major problem with the writing

There’s that annoying fast lane dystopia nonsense where people have been locked in the mall or police station for 5 minutes and are already discussing stocking supplies. Or the weird madlib mystery show trope where everyone seems to grasp the rules of the Mist disturbingly quickly (they’re more afraid OF the mist than the idea that there’s something IN the mist). Or how the people in the church were happy to jump on the murder train. Or how people in the mall were happy to banish people to their deaths. These people went from normal to serial killer so quickly the cast of Lord of the Flies would call foul.

And why were Bryan and Mia even there? The show managed to make them both main characters while simultaneously making them utterly pointless...

The Diversity

The main source of Diversity on The Mist unfortunately was Adrian. Given that there are few LGBT characters on the shows we watch we are normally excited to when a new show has an LGBT character but in the case of The Mist, I think we would have been happier with complete and utter erasure.  It became clear early on that Adrian would be a problem when it was suggested that he (a bisexual male) was using his male privilege to gawk at football players. Say what now?  If only this had been the worse thing that happened with Adrian.

By the end of the first and thankfully only season of The Mist, the writers had turned Adrian into a mentally ill rapist who killed people when they discovered just what a monster he is. If that were not enough, Adrian himself was repeatedly subjected to homophobia and the only sex scene he had, began with a gay bashing.  

There were several people of colour but other than Gus Bradley, the manager of the mall and Bryan Hunt, the military officer with amnesia, none of them were particularly memorable. Race isn’t a subject that The Mist chose to work with  but given the treatment of its only LGBT character, I can only say that I am relieved. Beyond being physically present as people of colour none of the characters had a specifically racialised identity or spoke about any fears they may have being in this particular situation as people of colour.

Random stuff

Honestly here we’d say something like “most awesome death” or “favourite clone” or something unique and special about the show. Not here.

I’d like to nominate Morgan Spector in the category of worst mean mug ever. Was I really supposed to take that expression seriously? Did Spector really think that look was supposed to inspire anything other than laughter?

I’d also like to offer some serious kudos to Frances Conroy who seemed to be the only actor capable of selling the ridiculous writing with any kind of convincing portrayal (which is an almost oscar-worthy achievement).  As bad as The Mist was, it would have been infinitely worse without Conroy.

Requiem: Orphan Black

It’s said all things have to come to an end. This was said by someone who has never seen Supernatural (I also heard that Last Man on Earth has been renewed for a fourth season - proof that there is no loving god). However, in most cases it is true and many of our shows, beloved, hated and, most often, a bit of both.

So we come to our first Requiem - the Requiem for Orphan Black which has ended after five fascinating series.

I have to admit that I had my doubts about Orphan Black in the first season. The first few episodes seemed very confused and the writers had difficulty committing to something as simple as a location for the show.  I can chalk that up to the ambivalence regarding Canadian television but that didn’t make it any less irritating.  Look, a Canadian show can sell abroad, particularly when it has a talent like Tatiana Maslany at the helm.  Not every Canadian show has to be like Corner Gas or the Beachcombers (shut up, I know I’m aging myself).  Five seasons later, the finale of Orphan Black is a loss of Canadian broadcasting and it will most certainly be missed.  

The Good

Tatiana Maslany. She. Is. An. Acting. Mutant. I am still not convinced she ISN’T a series of clones. Honestly this show only worked because of Tatiana Maslany. We have been in awe of this amazing woman’s unprecedented talent. I think I’ve never seen anything as impressive as Sarah pretending to be Alison pretending to be Sarah…. How? How does an actor even do that? How does an actor have a 3 way conversation with herself? How does she have actual, palpable chemistry between characters she plays? The relationship between the Sestras (especially Helena and Sarah) was deeply, powerfully moving. Tatiana Maslany needs a Scrooge McDuck style vault in her house, only instead of gold it should be just full of award statues.

Which of course made the relationships on this show amazing.

The Bad

I feel as though at times, the story become needlessly complex and got lost in its own mystery.  This lead to a less than satisfying ending in terms of cloning.  Were we really supposed to be happy that after spending all of that time watching the sestras fight Neolution that Sarah managed to easily dispatch Westmoreland?  I understand that the point is that the Clones were able to form their own sort of family at the end of the day but I certainly felt short changed in terms of Neolution and genetic experimentation.  For crying out loud, they had Kira go all mystical, introduced the Castor Clones, human augmentation that involved tails and of course monitoring. By the end, there were so many moving parts it’s as though the writers just wanted to wrap them up quickly and forget that there was supposed to be some kind of context for all of this.

Diversity

Here Orphan Black had a lot of peaks and valleys… and, let’s face it, more valleys than peaks. Over 5 season and with an enormous number of characters we have five recurring POC characters (I’m not including the Hendrix’s children in this because I bet half of you can’t remember these kid’s names without google and certainly can’t remember what they looked like). Simon Frontenac was an obedient Black assassin and… that’s summed up his character. Evie Cho was an evil Asian scientist. Which pretty much sums up her’s. We had Vic, a Latino drug dealer and… ok even writing this list is beginning to feel like “match the trope to the minority.” We had detective Angela… but I feel any storylines involving her kind of swirled into the morass.

Which leaves us with Art… I’m pretty sure he had a family at some point, I’m sure someone threatened them to make him co-operate. Did we ever actually meet his daughter? The sad thing is that Art has been part of this show since Season 1, Episode 1 and by Season 5, Episode 10 I don’t think we know any more about him than we did then. He had no real storylines of his own, was tangentially pulled into the plot because of a relationship with Beth who started the show already dead which is a somewhat convoluted and weak motive. Many times Art felt less like a character and more a useful tool, a classic token, the police contact. For a character this involved this was flat

Which applies equally to Felix. Again, present from the first episode and from day 1 he has been an overwhelmingly stereotypical Gay Best Friend (or brother in this case). He exists not just to support his sister, but ends up being the GBF to the clone club in general, especially Alison who never hesitates to push the call button and summon her gay supporter. He’s comic relief, lacks any real storylines of his own (or any development - even his art was some vague thing almost until the show ended- and even then Sarah couldn’t stay focused for five minutes) and his entire life revolved around Sarah and the Sestras. Again, this is classic tokenism and this is not positive. Similarly I would have liked to have seen more of Tony rather than just the single entry.

Thankfully we have Cosima, who is definitely one of the four most prominent clones and the core cast. She had her own definite storylines, her relationships - yes, there were issues with her and Delphine and tropes of love and deception are fraught in LGBTQ portrayals, though this was a heavy trope across the relationships. And when Delphine seemed to be murdered and the unfortunate social media response from the stars, I was ready to break things. But Delphine and Cosima came through it, rose up and were excellent; even if their plot line was closely intertwined with the really confusing science plots.

What We Would Change

The relationship between the sestras was absolutely wonderful and I loved how they worked together each offering their own strength to the whole.  Whether it’s Helena, who kept busy killing God’s creatures, or the very domestic Allison selling drugs to finance their resistance, or Cosima with her scientific research, everyone had a role to play.  Where Orphan Black fell down was in the inclusion of Krystal. Yes, I said it. That’s one clone that felt extraneous even if she did become a fan favourite.  Krystal more than any other clone simply screamed of running out of ideas.

Then we had clones like Tony which could have provided an interesting perspective but never got any real characterisation. Tony was distinct from all of the other clones and could have had a nuanced individual storyline. There’s the added bonus that expanding Tony’s character would have added to the GLBTQ inclusion. Though, yeah, I know that a cis person playing trans* is not ideal it’s complicated with the nature of the clones.

I honestly think I’d prefer more clone focus and less science leda/caster/neo-lution focus

I don’t recall seeing anything quite like Orphan Black on television before and I think that it’s because it required an actor of extreme caliber. Even though Orphan Black sometimes got in its way and become needlessly drawn out and complicated, it was never boring. It gave us sestras and clone dance parties. The writers always knew when to pause and celebrate and to remind us that no matter where we come from we all of something to offer and along the way, all of us in our time will make compromises. For a show a science fiction show, there was a lot of humanity in Orphan Black.

Favourite Clone:

Renee

Helena

Paul

Alison