Orphan Black: Echoes

The original Orphan Black is one of my all time favourite series. I was delighted when this was announced but it is a terrible disappointment.

The basic storyline is sound. However, the connection to the original Orphan Black is tenuous and in my opinion this is not am Orphan Black story. Using Kira as the main character with an occasional nod to the original clones who never appear is a cop out.

That's not the main issue with this though. The main is issue is the terrible dialogue, which at best is clunky and at worst is cliche ridden nonsense. It's easy to say the acting is terrible but when reliable talent like Keeley Hawes has to try and deliver it and fails what chance does everybody else have? What have the writers got against Felix? In the original series he was an outrageous and fun character. They have turned him into a crushing bore who now affects a stilted posh English accent. Don't even get me started on the fake beard that any amateur dramatic troupe would be ashamed of.

Orphan Black had a bit of everything. This has taken the name, removed all the drama and fun of that series and left us with this drab affair.

If like me you loved Orphan Black and haven't watched this my advice is don't.

I'm another lover of the original Orphan Black - it had a fast pace, good character development, and some phenomenal acting. This sequel has none of those.

At best it could be said to be providing detail regarding the creation of the clones, but even that didn't make much sense or even spark some interest. It's just used as a platform for more tiresome melodrama.

While the lead is an experienced actress I've enjoyed seeing in other roles, she simply lacks the range to carry this show. And with such a weak script, that otherwise passable flaw becomes a major failing point.

After 6 episodes of boredom, I finally gave up after another soap opera rendition of attempted dialogue between several characters I simply couldn't care about.

Having watched Orphan Black I kind of knew this wouldn't be very good. Orphan Black was held together by the amazing performance.of Tatiana Maslany and some decent writing. This show has neither. The lead actors are decent enough. I don't think Krysten Ritter could put in a bad performance. Her character here is basically Jessica Jones without the alcohol tolerance and super human strength. There was a fight scene where I was kind of wondering why Jessica Jones was letting a guy win.

There are some pretty woeful supporting performances. One in particular is embarrassingly bad with ridiculous make up to match.

On the topic of that embarrassing character, Echoes' narrative connection to Orphan Black feels like a bit of reverse engineering. My guess is they had a show about clones, realised it would be dismissed as a poor man's Orphan Black, and went, "hey let's do this". The connection has no real influence on the plot and means characters from Orphan Black have to be shoehorned into the story for no particular reason.

The writing is wildly inconsistent in quality. Again I think this has to do with needing to constantly establish that this is an Orphan Black show. There are also bits of quite horrible writing. The one that really stood out for me was when two characters go for a ride to talk about something incredible and unbelievable (that one of them is a clone]. You then see the characters arriving at their destination having had the conversation. When you're relying on the audience to write the script for you then you're in trouble.

In the end the real problem is it's impossible to suspend disbelief. The clones simply don't look like each other. It's not unusual having different actors playing a character at different ages but they're never all on screen at the same time. Perhaps if the plotting wasn't a bit silly and the writing was better and the acting wasn't so occasionally awful, then maybe you could get away with it.

So why 3 stars. Despite everything I did enjoy it and I did finish it. There are enough good bits and good ideas to keep you interested. I binged it in two days and that helped. I didn't have long enough to dwell on the show's obvious flaws.

I started watching OBEs and was a little meh, it's not grabbing me the first episode. I was almost ready to ditch it. But the story starts to pick up speed and well it was an intruiging twist on the original OB.

Second half of the season I felt the story telling and actng was really starting to be on par at times with OB. OBE, I think it needed to find it's groove, but every now and then it doesn't quite hit it and that's okay because overall it's an enjoyable, exciting watch and the premise is a good one and stands alone in it's own right.

Great to see the OB universe expanded.

The really low reviews on here are a shame as I think a number of the reviewers have given up too early. But great to see it tempered with people seeing this show for it's own worth.

After the success and the creative ingenuity of Orphan Black they tried to catch lightning in a bottle. All they got was a lightning bug with a glowing butt. Kristen Ritter is good at times and the show drags when she is not on the screen which is a lot. Other times her character is relegated to be a secondary focus when she should be the main focus. The supporting cast of characters is weak outside of Jules. I didn't care about the other characters which drags the show down. Without the acting progress of Tatiana Maslany to drive things this show has no life. The writing and direction seem amateurish at times. Just an all around disappointing waste of my time.