Today, BBC America presented a panel for the Television Critics Association on their popular series “Orphan Black.” Series stars Tatiana Maslany and Jordan Gavaris, and co-creator Graeme Mason gave a few hints about what we can expect. When we last left Sarah Manning (Maslany), she was ditching Rachel Duncan’s (Maslany) offer to cooperate, Cosima (Maslany) was coughing blood and Alison (Maslany) witnessed her neighbor’s death by garbage disposal.
Maslany expressed how much deeper the characters go in season two. “I love these characters so much and Graeme and all the writers have continued to deepen it, flesh out the worlds of each of the clones,” said Maslany. “That’s what was so exciting. I know these women now so it’s just about going deeper with it, challenging them, stretching them and not getting stuck in I’m just going to do the Alison thing. What about Alison going that direction? What happens when she’s thrown in this situation? We left them in high tense situations so there was so much to work with.”
Suburban housewife Alison thinks she found the operative assigned to spy on her, but the audience now knows more. “Alison certainly, she’s a tense person to begin with,” related Mason. “The secret that she’s keeping is really going to eat at her in an interesting way. Alison’s got some explosions coming up so that’s really great.”
Mason hinted heavily that we might meet more clones in the coming season. “The number of clones, we haven’t said how many are out there so we can [introduce more],” explained Mason. “Part of the wonderful process of this is when John [Fawcett] and I are coming up with new ideas and pushing the story forward and who can we meet without exhausting the concept, we take a lot of time developing our clones. The first thing we do is go to Tatiana and have really deep conversations about that character coming up. We went to Tatiana about episode 5 or 6, ‘So we’ve got this Rachel Duncan character’ to give Tatiana enough time to prepare.”
When a journalist asked if he’d explored introducing clones based on another actor, Mason ruled it out for the time being. “We like Tat,” said Mason. “It’s not that we haven’t thought of that, but it’s not territory we’re writing in the near future. We’re really enjoying this season digging deeper into their lives. We’re shooting episode 8 of 10 already and it feels we still have a long way to go with all of these characters. We’d like to keep on exploring this as long as we don’t exhaust Tat. As for Felix, everyone would love a Felix clone. Everyone should have one.”
While there is a lot coming up for Sarah’s friend Felix (Gavaris), even Gavaris didn’t seem eager to play multiple clones. “I think the world can only handle one Felix,” Gavaris said.
As deep as the clones are getting in season two, so is Felix. “Hugely deeper,” added Gavaris. “That was something I think we talked about back in July. We were on the plane to Comic-Con. I think season one Felix was an integral cog in the mystery, in the conception of the story, in Sarah’s journey. Now we establish him outside the clones, with his own identity, as a multi-faceted human, not just a plot device and someone who’s there to facilitate whatever Sarah’s crazy idea is that day or be the person she calls when she’s in trouble. He gets an identity outside of that.”
The further Sarah gets in the clone conspiracy, the more it tests her relationship with Felix. “His relationship with Sarah is tested this season,” noted Mason. “He creates new friendships and allegiances with other clones. We liked the Alison/Felix dynamic in season one. He still gets all the best lines.”
“Orphan Black” was a technical marvel, seamlessly integrating Maslany as three unique characters in a single take. Mason teased more technical developments in season two as well.
“We are going to take some risks with our premise in the second seasons and we are going to push technically what we’ve done in the first season,” Mason said. “Our actors are really pushing the limits as well.”
“Orphan Black” returns April 19 at 9PM on BBC America, and we’ll bring you a full interview with Maslany before the premiere.
