Orphan Black

Utopia

Utopia

I read an online review of Orphan Black the other day from a source in England, they are just getting it shown over there now, and the biggest complaint he had was the crummy British accents. They sound just fine to me and I watch a lot of British TV, but I’m not from there so…

The reviewer compared OB to a show called Utopia which I had never heard of. He said the way they were similar is that it put seemingly ordinary persons in extra ordinary positions and watched how they reacted. It had a six episode series run earlier this year on Channel 4 and after watching half of them I see that similarity, but that is the only one.

It is beautifully shot in very wide screen with a bright palette. The top image is from the opening shots of episode 2, click to see it full size to appreciate it. After episode one you see that there are two parallel story lines that will intersect sometime. The soundtrack is kind of quirky, but fits the show to a T.

If Orphan Black was a movie it would be rated PG, Utopia on the other hand would be rated R. While I have been busy spreading the word and coercing my co-workers to watch OB, the violence in Utopia is so Quentin Tarantino-esque that I don’t know who I would recommend the show to.

Simpsonized Clones

Clone Clip

The Simpsons is still running on FOX in its 25th season and tonight’s Treehouse of Horror XXIV is episode number 532 overall. There are a couple of folks out there that are drawing other characters in the style of that show, Dean at Springfield Punx and Adrien Noterdaem on his tumblr/Flicker page who did the one above of Cosima, Alison, Beth, Helena & Katja.

At one time there was a site on the web that would let you “Simpsonize” yourself, sadly it is no more, but not before I had a chance to make up one of myself:

Simpsonized Brian

Spoiled?

Orphan Black is coming back for a second set of shows next spring, but they are already casting for filming…and as such I can now be spoiled as to what may or may not happen next season.

Here is one from this morning:

[spoiler]In casting sides for Orphan Black season 2 (episode(s) not specified), Sarah and Kira are hiding at Cal’s cabin in the woods (Cal is a new recurring role being cast). A policeman who is a friend of Cal’s stops by asking about shoplifters he’s looking for (a little girl, her mother, and a man) but Cal says he hasn’t seen them. Cal and Sarah become lovers. Later, Cal kills someone in order to protect Sarah and Kira, and the three of them go on the run. Paul wasn’t specifically mentioned in these scenes involving Cal/Sarah/Kira, and neither was Mrs. S. (Sarah’s foster mother Siobhan) or Felix, so I don’t know whether the “man” seen with Sarah when she was shoplifting was either Felix or Paul. The casting sides also didn’t reveal how Sarah gets Kira back.[/spoiler]

I used to devour spoilers for TDTVS back in the day, but I’m not too sure if I want to be spoiled for this show. Lost was such purposely deeply layered show so that if you were spoiled in one area it still wouldn’t affect the other 90% of an episode. Part of the excitement of watching OB was you never knew where the heck it was going to take you. But because I do read the Morning Spoilers section of io9 and I know I can’t be trusted to not read an Orphan Black spoiler if it is there, so I might have to live with ’em.

Right beneath this spoiler io9 cited their source, Spolier TV. For grins I clicked on the link and in place of where the spoiler used to be was – Info removed at the request of Temple Street Productions. I’m betting that means the spoiler was too right on the money. Of course they might be taking a ploy from TDTVS’s producers by leaking something that is false as a misdirection and then denying it to add authenticity.

Well I hope the Queen of the Clone Club, Tatiana Maslany, doesn’t get spoiled by all the attention she is getting. I see where she has booked a two-episode arc on NBC’s Parks & Recreation as Tom Haverford’s love interest for next season of that show. And she also signed up to do an unspecified voicing role in the five-episode Captain Canuck animated web series about the iconic Canadian superhero.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1248

The Church Of Orphan Black

The Church now has two acolytes, the Accounting Manager and the Payroll Clerk of the Valve Store(TM). Both have finished watching all of season one and have asked for their own copy of the show so they can re-watch it. In trying to grow my little religion I have had the digital copies of season one placed in the hands of six other folks at work for a while now, but none of them has actually watched any of it except for the clip of the first 3 minutes of the first episode.

The two that are hooked are female, the six that are not are male. Are the guys not watching it because of the female protagonist? Did the ladies dig it because of her?

Having run out of men to try and convert and with my previous success with the ladies, this afternoon and gave a set of DVDs to a woman who works in engineering department out back in the same offices as I do.

As I handed Cathy her the discs I thought to myself, maybe it has nothing to do with the sex of my prospective converts but the media applied. So if she comes back on Monday having watched all 10 episodes and loves it, I’ll have to try and pass along the DVDs to one of my hesitant male prospects.

How Was Your Day Dear?

There was a decent sized piece of the crust (the best part) missing off of my Coffee Cake Muffin at DD this morning. Donna said it looked like someone or thing had taken a bite out of it, but I could see it on the shelf, so it must have fallen off when the counter person grabbed. I wanted to ask for it, but felt that might have come off as a little bit weird.

There were ZERO chicken pieces in my container of General Tso’s Chicken. I should receive a full response via email from the Windsor Foods people within three business days…

Tatiana Maslany was robbed by the Emmys. She was not nominated for lead actress in a drama series. Nor was she nominated for any of the 6 supporting actress roles she played in a drama series.

The new Real Yellow Pages AT&T phone book was on our front door step when we got home. I wonder how long they are going to keep producing these things? A three quarter of an inch thick book can be reduced to a small post-it note on the fridge. We need like two numbers out of it, the SCE&G power outage hotline and customer support for our internet service provider.

Filled up the Sonata with gas this evening and I accidentally selected Supreme instead of the required Regular fuel, thereby negating 30 of the 50 cent savings we had accrued at Kroger.

Late Update: The paper towels were back in the remodeled men’s restroom. Donna said they never disappeared in the remodeled women’s restroom.

I Got It Bad

EW-1268-COVER-ORPHANBut I’m not the only one. The little sci-fi show that could from BBC America is getting its own panel at the upcoming Comic Con and now Entertainment Weekly has given the show one of the bonus covers for this week.

I have now watched the first season of Orphan Black 2.4 times* and thought maybe I’ll buy the DVDs that came out today. I did some searching for a DVD review site to see if anyone had a list of any extras that might be included and found one at DVD Talk*On Sunday Donna asked to finish watching the last four episodes she hadn’t seen yet, in spite of any possible “gory” moments, because I wouldn’t stop talking about and/or trying to hook my fellow co-workers on the show.

Watch This

I feel like an evangelist in the Church of Orphan Black. I have now have converted the Accounting Manager from work and her family. I may have the Payroll Clerk interested. There are still a couple more people at work I want to preach to about the gospel of Tatiana Maslany.

But first, you’re next, take about three minutes and watch the opening scene from episode one:

If you want to watch the rest of the series, and why wouldn’t you, it may be still available On Demand somewhere or you can get it digitally from iTunes, Amazon, etc or pre-order the DVD – Linkage