Orphan Black is a Canadian science-fiction thriller television series created by screenwriter Graeme Manson and director John Fawcett and starring Tatiana Maslany. The series focuses on Sarah Manning, one of several genetically identical human clones , and later on some of the other clones. The series raises issues about the moral and ethical implications of human cloning and its effect on identity. Orphan Black developed a loyal online fan base across social media platforms who identify as CloneClub, [ 11 ] a reference to those who are in-the-know in the story.
Throughout its run, the series received critical acclaim and various accolades, particularly for Maslany's performance, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award , two Critics' Choice Television Awards and two further nominations, one TCA Award and one further nomination, two Satellite Award nominations, and a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. The series won a Peabody Award in [ 12 ] and has been nominated for, and won, several Canadian Screen Awards.
Sarah assumes Beth's identity and occupation as a police detective after Beth's death. During the first season , in episode 3, Sarah discovers that she is a clone, that she has many "sister" clones spread throughout North America and Europe that are all part of an illegal human cloning experiment, and that someone is plotting to kill them and her. Alongside her foster brother, Felix Dawkins, and two of her fellow clones, Alison Hendrix and Cosima Niehaus, Sarah discovers the origin of the clones: a scientific movement called Neolution.
The movement believes that human beings can use scientific knowledge to direct their evolution as a species. The movement has an institutional base in the large, influential, and wealthy biotech corporation, the Dyad Institute, which is seemingly headed by Dr. Aldous Leekie. The Dyad Institute conducts basic research , lobbies political institutions, and promotes its eugenics program, aided by the clone Rachel Duncan. It also seeks to profit from the technology the clones embody and has thus placed "monitors" into the clones' personal lives, allegedly to study them scientifically but actually to keep them under surveillance.
Sarah eventually discovers that she's also wanted by the police and by a secret religious group, the Proletheans. A faction of the Proletheans carries out the clone assassinations because they believe clones are abominations , and they use Sarah's biological twin sister, Helena, to kill the other clones. Sarah and Helena share a surrogate birth mother and are twins both genetically and with respect to their early maternal environment.
