bud-morans

Like the original Orphan Black, Orphan Black:Echoes deals with a community of artificially created humans and the people around them. In Orphan Black, these were clones; in Orphan Black:Echoes, they're "4-D printouts" (why the extra dimension?) of people's body scans. But while the original quickly establishes one overarching threat for all the clones and different serious dilemmas for each of them, Orphan Black:Echoes barely creates a single clear threat for one of the printouts until several episodes in. This is a serious flaw, but it could be mitigated by taut dialogue and solid acting, but the dialogue is repetitious and flat, with clearly established plot points being repeated again and again ("They're printing people!") and except for Krysten Ritter and Amanda Fix, the acting rarely indicates any sense of urgency among the characters.

To make matters worse, the subplots involve highly talented and educated adults doing some remarkably stupid things, for example, the creator of the printout technology printing out a copy of her dead spouse after the near disastrous failure of a prior printout. Never mind the first printout failed: who could reasonably be satisfied with such a simulacrum of a dead loved one? This is not a moment of overwhelming emotion cancelling out sound judgment, but a dumb act performed with calm deliberation, the sort of thing to drive a viewer to shout at the screen. I know I did.

Then there are peculiarities of production: everything here seems sleek and artificial and homogeneous, even the exterior shots. The varied locales of the original, from gritty streets of the anonymous city, to a risibly monotonous suburb, or a bohemian artist/hustler's loft, all helped sell the world and plot(s) of the original as real and realistic. Orphan Black:Echoes sleek homogeneity only makes it seem completely unrealistic and uninvolving. The sound is also peculiar, with the actor's voices seeming to come from some reflection-free recording booth rather than the particular indoor or outdoor environments they're in.

In sum, unless you want to hate watch something, don't waste your time on Orphan Black:Echoes, particularly if you're a fan of the original.