!!SPOILER WARNING!!

From the producers of the Ginger Snaps films and the writer of Vincenzo Natali’s Cube (1997), Orphan Black was an ambitious conspiracy thriller that followed the struggles of a series of clones (all of them played, brilliantly, by Tatiana Maslany) not only with their creators, a scientific movement known as Neolution, their public facing entity the Dyad Institute but also with a clone-hating religious group the Proletheans. Over 50 episodes, it rarely lost its grip on a complex and multi-layered narrative that twisted and turned almost right up to the last minute.

It all begins with British con artist Sarah Manning (the first of Maslany’s many roles) seeing a woman who looks exactly like her committing suicide by stepping in front of a train. Intrigued, Sarah assumes the woman, Beth’s, identity hoping to steal her money but discovers that was a police office and finds herself struggling with her new identity and life that comes complete with a new “boyfriend,” Paul (Dylan Bruce). But things get wilder still when she learns that she’s one of a large number of clones scattered around Europe and North America, the result of illegal human cloning program, Project Leda, and that someone is trying to murder them. With her foster brother, Felix Dawkins (Jordan Gavaris), and fellow clones suburban soccer mum Alison Hendrix, Ph.D student Cosima Niehaus and Ukrainian trained assassin Helena (all played by Maslany) she sets out to expose Neolution, uncovering a rival programme, Project Castor, to create male clones; tries to find a cure for the genetic condition that is slowly killing Cosima and threatens all of the clones; and struggles to keep her daughter, Kira (Skylar Wexler), the only known offspring of a clone, from the clutches of all parties ranged against them.

All this barely scratches the surface of what Orphan Black tries – and mostly succeeds – to do over its five short seasons. Themes of identity, bodily autonomy, and sisterhood run throughout the series, never overpowering the ongoing storylines, always growing organically from the narrative. Questions are raised about what counts as intellectual property (the clones all carry a genetic copyright warning), villains are not always as clearly “evil” as they first appear and even the “good guys” often act questionably or do things that make us feel uncomfortable. It’s a deeply satisfying narrative with so many layers and strands that (mostly) come to equally satisfying conclusions (we never find out how Kira can sense other clones). There’s a huge amount going on in Orphan Black and, unlike some shows we can all think of, it feels like everything was planned and mapped out from the start – indeed second viewings reveal all manner of foreshadowing, some of it subtle, some of it less so, that could only work if the creators knew that they were going to make good on it later.

To make any of this work required well-crafted characters to get us through the morass or moral intrigue and corporate chicanery. Creators John Fawcett and Graeme Manson did the groundwork, but the heaviest lifting was done by the extraordinary Maslany who ended up playing no fewer than 13 clones (her face also appears as several more in files and she also voiced, uncredited, an imaginary scorpion that accompanies Helena during a particularly difficult period of psychological torment) as well as becoming a producer later in the show’s run. Maslany quite rightly won an Emmy for her multiple performances, giving each of the clones a distinct personality which, with the help of hair and make-up, made it often easy to forget that what you were watching was an actress talking to herself a lot of the time. She often, right from the very start, played clones pretending to be one of her “sestra” (as Helena calls them), or sisters, requiring a sort of double acting performance that she pulls off effortlessly.

Maslany’s almost constant presence threatens to overshadow the work of the rest of the cast, but they all more than hold their own. Gabaris in particular is terrific as Felix, Sarah’s acid-tongued partner-in-crime, aspiring artist and some-time sex worker and Kristian Bruun has a ball as Donnie, Alison’s long suffering (physically and emotionally) husband. Along with Kevin Hanchard’s sympathetic cop Art and Josh Vokey’s Scott, Cosima’s fellow student, they represent a refreshingly non-toxic cabal of male allies who are always there in the thick of the action but never riding to the rescue – the “sestra” are all more than capable of looking after themselves. Credit is also due to Evelyne Brochu as the initially slippery Delphine, Cosima’s “monitor” (agents who secretly keep an eye on the clones for Dyad) but who becomes Cosmina’s lover and closest confidante, Maria Doyle Kennedy as ‘Mrs S’, Sarah and Felix’s highly protective step mother who seems to have a small private army at her beck and call, and Skyler Wexler whose relaxed, natural and entirely non-precocious turn as Kira inspired Maslany to hail her the best actor in the show. In truth, the acting honours clearly go to Maslany (off camera she is, apparently, always keen to shift praise to those around her) and why she didn’t become a major star on the back of these performances will always remain a mystery.

The show has a refreshing approach to its LGBT characters. Felix is a male prostitute but no-one around him cares that much, Cosima and Delphine’s relationship is key to their characters but never becomes a plot point and one of the clones is the transgender Tony, seen only briefly in one episode but again no-one bats an eyelid when he turns up. Orphan Black is full of LGBT characters just getting on with their lives – the show isn’t bothered about waving flags or making points, just having a full spectrum of sexual (and other) identities on show without them ever becoming the focus of the narrative.

The special effects are mostly seamless, helping Maslany sell the illusion that there are different characters interacting with each other, a process that meant she and the crew had to film the same scene over and over again, depending on how many clones were on screen at any given moment (it would be remiss not to credit Kathryn Alexandre who worked tirelessly as Maslany’s acting double). A decade on from the first series on 10 episodes, Fawcett told the Radio Times website that “we almost killed Tatiana” such was the workload. “I think Graeme and I were naive,” he went on. “Tatiana was naive, production was naive, no one really knew how much we could pull off. We were ambitious and wanted to do as much as we could. In season 1, we literally almost, we all almost died, the days were super long and they were hard.”

But the hard work paid off. The show became more ambitious as it went along, Maslany taking on more roles, chiefly ice-cold Dyad executive and fellow clone Rachel Duncan, as the special effect team pushed themselves further with each series to see just how far they go, most famously and most beloved in the “clone dance” that brings series two to a close – in a rare moment of calm and quiet, the clones are gathered at Felix’s loft apartment when Cosima starts to dance. Soon the rest of the clones are joining in (it’s not really clear what that is that Helena’s doing, but it looks like dancing…) along with Felix and Kira as the camera whirls around and between them. Fawcett later admitted that the scene made no difference whatsoever to the ongoing narrative – they just had some budget left and the effects people wanted to see how far they could go.

The show is full of moments like these, quieter and often very moving moments of domesticity and joy that act as a foil to the carnage and heartbreak of the main narrative (not everyone makes it to episode 50 alive). There’s a dinner party at the end of season three that again gathers the clones and their chief allies for a triumph of special effects and in the final episode a moment guaranteed to break even the flintiest of hearts as Cosima collapses weeping in Delphine’s arms having just sent the evidence that will finally destroy Dyad and Neolution, freeing the clones to live their own lives free from fear and pursuit. Indeed the last episode is an interesting one in many ways. So many shows would have extended the struggles of the protagonists right up to the last minute, but Orphan Black takes a different tack, finishing the main narrative early to focus on the fallout of the exhausting events on the clones and their family and friends.

There’s humour too. Lots of if, unexpectedly. Felix’s barbs are often note perfect. Helena eating, talking (“I got refund”) or pretty much doing anything has a grim, dark humour to it and the misadventures of Alison and Donnie (he accidentally shoots the character being set up as the chief bad guy, Dr Leakie (Matt Frewer), she takes time out to stage cheesy amateur musicals) are often flat out hilarious. The programme never loses sight of the seriousness of the situation the “sestra” find themselves in, but it also teases out those moments of silliness in everyday life, the moments that, no matter how grim things are becoming, are hilarious in their sheer absurdity. It’s a tricky balance but one that the production team – which also includes Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps co-creator Karen Walton as executive producer and occasional writer) – manage perfectly.

Some have complained that after everything they’d been through, in the final episode the clones simply settle down to lives of quite domesticity in the suburbs but that’s missing the point on an epic scale. After everything they’ve been through, after all their struggles with identity (who are they, where do they come from, who made them and are they anything more than just corporate “property”?) a bit of the “normal” life that’s been robbed from them is probably all they wanted and needed. Sarah struggles with the fact that there’s no more struggle, nothing left to fight for and threatens to revert to her old ways, simply running away and looking for some impossible lifestyle that was never going to work for her or Kira. In the end she, Kira and Felix form an unusual but loving family unit and, perhaps significantly, the last time we see her is the first time we see her dressed in anything but black. Elsewhere, Alison and Donnie finally work out their marriage issues for a  fun-filled life of suburban lust and desire; Cosima and Delphine roam the world administering the cure to 270+ Leda clones for the genetic disorder that almost killed Cosima; and Helena, brutalised as a child and raised as a damaged, murderous psychopath in the service of clone-hating religious nuts, gives birth to the twin boys forcibly implanted in her (after initially calling them Little Orange and Little Purple, she eventually settles on Donnie – he let her live in the Hendrix’s garage – and Arthur – Art helped deliver them) to become an eccentric but clearly very loving and devoted mother (though she worries about where all the sand is coming from that the babies like to eat…)

In many ways it’s the perfect ending, the clones reflecting on their experiences, coming to terms with what they are. The plot of Orphan Black (it’s revealed that Helena has been writing the story of the clones under the title Orphan Black, “an embroidery with many beginnings and no end”) had raced through five seasons like a runaway express train, barely giving us time to draw breath and for it to suddenly stop and focus on the main characters this way was a bold move. It worked and the show went out on a high. Online fans adopted a phrase used by Cosima to describe the “sestra”, hailing themselves the Clone Club and while viewing figures were never spectacular, they were good enough to keep it alive for three seasons before Netflix picked up broadcast rights for the final two (some have complained that the show went off the boil during those last couple of seasons but they’re wrong…)

It remains hugely popular too, kept alive by comic books (one series of which, Helsinki, fleshed out a massacre of clones discussed in the series and featured Veera Suominen, aka M.K. a sole survivor who would then turn up in the series itself), a series of podcast follow-up episodes, Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, narrated by Maslany and a short-lived Japanese television remake, Orphan Black – 7 Genes (2017-2018). In March 2019, a spin-off series, Orphan Black: Echoes was announced, due to be broadcast in late 2023. Set in the year 2052, it’s set in the same “universe” but whether it features a return of any of the clones remains to be seen. It has big boots to fill and one can only hope that it’s up to the job…