majesdane

ob is an utter disappointment. they never answered any of their questions (or the few times they did it was some BS last second handwave thing). why would the ob writers care about giving us anything good when they haven't for years now?

i'm honestly glad this show is ending. name a show that more consistently is a letdown than ob.

hopeless romantic

I can totally rationalize why Delphine needed to go back to Switzerland: the mere fact that Neolution was winding down with P.T. Westmoreland's exposure and subsequent death squads against all of the board members doesn't mean that he doesn't/didn't still have the allegiance of a guy who still isn't dead and still wields the power of a heck of a lot of money, which means that there's a really good chance that Interpol, which is headquartered in Lyon, France and could easily become just as corrupt, with effective application of that money, as all of the local jurisdictions of so many countries around the world if Delphine wasn't presumably controlling some of the centers of Neo power lines back in Geneva, would have given me a presumptive rationale for her absence.

If only they had made it concrete that it was a plot-based problem instead of the reason we all know explains her absence, which is that Evelyne Brochu's career is hot as heck, which means that OB can't command her, contractually, to only work for their show and have had to hide the reasons for her absence since early season three.

Just think of her as the female version of Michiel Huisman/Cal Morrison/Daario Naharis, whose red-hot career (even now that he's seemingly been written off of Game of Thrones) has left Kira without her daddy even being mentioned all season.

But heck, we can all have dreams, and mine involves a brief cameo of him coming back from wherever the heck he went to kiss Sarah and hug Kira, then maybe we can even get a brief scene of Helena introducing Jesse Towing to her "miracle bebies."

_____________________

One of the things I've seen quite clearly is that Orphan Black is still "just a little show, shot in Canada," -- and that budget constraints have only gotten bigger in this final season, since adding new people to the fandom relies heavily on existing members introducing it to new people, who will only ever feel "welcome to the trip" if they start with season one, since that's where we all first got to know all of the characters and their individual journeys.

When I take a "follow the money" approach, I realize that James Frain's salary can't have been cheap, Evelyne's was probably cost-prohibitive, despite her devotion to playing Delphine, as was Michiel Huisman's. All of the techno-dolly shots seem to have been incredibly expensive throughout the series, since they also involved 18-hour days from Tat and the crew to block each multi-clone scene, then film take after take after take after take, just so that her face/body could be coordinated via post-production by Intelligent Creatures (supposedly almost 1000 hours of post-production work went into the Clone Club dance party in Season Two!!!!).

This season, it seems like they spent quite a bit of money on building a set for the "Revival" town. Apparently they also spent quite a bit of money for Felix' show, since it took them three days to film it and it involved almost 100 extras, along with all of that glorious artwork. Hence, I'm guessing, all of the Skype calls between the sestras....

Heck, who knows, it might even explain how a child actress like the girl who plays Charlotte suddenly became "unavailable" so they had to imagine a reason for a substitute for 5x09, even though I still desperately hope for a scene with Cophine adopting Charlotte, who's playing happily with Kira and Art's daughter (and Gemma and Oscar -- although I suspect we all know that they're both logistically impossible since both of Alison's kids seem to have exploded into growth patterns that absolutely defy the supposed time frame within which the show has taken place) in the finale.

It's not like the visual distractions of Camp Revival and Fee's show were worth (to me, at least) the boredom of trying to feel like there was "chemistry" between the sestras via Skype, but I haven't seen the finale yet, so I don't have a clue about how much money they had to hold in reserve for me to get the privilege of watching Helena and Sarah try to partner Art in taking down P.T. with Helena having labor pains, then trying to get back to Clone Club alive, but we've only got a handful of days to find out.

Fingers crossed, with white knuckles showing.

MOOT

A little disappointing for the penultimate episode of the final season, I've watched it twice and got no more from it the second time. A summation of much of season 5, too pedestrian. Hey ho, maybe they'll pull it off with the finale.

On Delphine's absence; gone home to tell her parents the good news?

majesdane

agree.

anyways, lbr, we know the finale will be a letdown. it's going to be so rushed to wrap everything up. and series finales are always so hit or miss (usually miss) anyway.

Aurora Cormier

This is what doesn't make sense at all to me, you know? Why the hell would you waste that much time and money on stuff that isn't related to the clones when the show is ABOUT those clones?? I was reading that post-episode interview they have every week, and they were like "oh this woman kept asking why we were going back to the island, why we weren't using Sarah", etc, and I was like...did you only realize you weren't using your freaking protagonist when the second to last episode EVER came up, REALLY???

hopeless romantic

I get why they "went to the island" and stayed there.

This show has always had strong undercurrents of there being strange "islands"/pockets of civilizations out there that pose dangers to "nice normal people, living nice normal lives."

The mere fact that "normal" has been re-defined on the show to include people like Helena is simultaneously comforting and troubling, since the people at Camp Revival weren't revealed to be as/any weirder than the Proletheans....

Well, Tomas and Henrik and Bonnie Johanssen were definitely more evil than all of the people on the island put together, as long as we leave P.T. Westmoreland outside of the equation, if that's any standard of "weird but not necessarily evil, but doing that equation/making that sort of judgment is like saying that you can easily meet people who are down-right evil in the real world any day of the week (which should have you looking strangely at your local supermarket clerk, wondering if he/she might be a serial killer, or looking at your vetrinarian, wondering if he/she adopts kittens or puppies and rips out their teeth and claws before vivisecting them just for the pleasure of watching them squirm).

Which is to say that comforting yourself that OB is "just a show about Clones" is an understandable way of comforting yourself that the world you know is peaceful and predictable -- until it isn't -- is a "normal" coping strategy, when exposed to the idea that the world is deeply creepy when you see all of its hidden enclaves, except that when you look at most of them, most people still have "normal" urges to better theirs and their children's lives, but that there are always people with hidden agendas that are profoundly selfish and deeply evil (hence the very creation of the pain that the clones have lived with throughout the show) and that "normal" people get played by such on a regular basis and eagerly offer allegiance for just a little bit of hope....

majesdane

honestly the island was 50000% under utilized.

Aurora Cormier

Alex Levine: Returning to DYAD | Orphan Black | BBC America

They started wondering about all that by episode 9.

Um, no. All I meant was that the clones are the protagonists of the show and should have been the focus of this season, instead I feel (and I know I'm not alone in this) like we've barely seen them, and there were times where they weren't even necessary. And that, to me, was a waste, since this was the last time we were going to see them. And now there's no time to fix that.

majesdane

literally tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about this show.

hopeless romantic

That citation is interesting (especially given how expensive I get the sense that it was, both financially and in terms of the "real estate" of how little time was available in this, the final season to spend so much money and time on developing the citizens of Camp Revival).

And yeah, of course I prefer a world in which interactions between the members of Clone Club somehow managing to save each other dominate the show. I love the whole "overlooked people manage to survive and thrive" nature of that plot-line.

But I've alluded to this before and didn't want to be so specific now: OB is a show that's filmed in a world that we've all been living with since the surprise of Trump's election, and the people who write and embody the voices on the show have made absolutely zero pretense that they weren't completely and totally shocked that someone who makes good old P.T. seem like everyone's favorite uncle is, as of today, threatening global thermonuclear war against a tiny country just north of the industrial powerhouse that is South Korea, who declared that trans people could not "serve in the military" in any position whatsoever because kicking trained, able, and willing troops out of their positions somehow makes our military stronger, and who warned the country that he wanted to expel/criminalize people wanting to enter our country legally has actually been proven to have told the truth (as in, deportations of peaceful, law abiding non-citizens began the day he took office and have been a steady fact of reality, with criminalization of anyone attempting to re-enter the country and KKK style "lynchings" of huge numbers of people who are "colored" people but are unquestionably "citizens" are happening everywhere I look).

And when I think of the clones I love most (and I love them all), just imagine a world in which Sarah could live in the U.S. safely, let alone Cosima (did you notice that she's a... gay person?!?, I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that, but you can kinda tell that she's into deviant behavior, what with the smoking pot, and what's with her hair?!? does she really think that's attractive to men?!?) and then there's Allison, who's a murderer, a drug dealer, and lives with other murders and drug dealers. I don't even want to think about Helena, a who is an actual serial killer -- I mean, she kills people I don't like, like drug dealers, so what's wrong with that, but she also kills people I might like to have sex with, since they came from parts of the former Soviet Union, but I'm already married and I'm not ready to divorce Malania....

I don't like getting this political about a show, but I'm quite clear that a large part of my fascination with the Cloneverse is that the women on the show push all of my knee-jerk reactions against "the establishment," but the reality of what "the establishment" is doing to God-fearing women, just in general, in terms of denying access to healthcare (let's ban Planned Parenthood as a way of keeping sl*ts from getting gynecological exams that might allow them to prevent cervical and/or breast cancer, since to be born with the propensity to grow breasts and a cervix is all that's needed to disqualify Mike Pence from eating a meal with me.... -- because it's God's purpose to subjugate me for the crime of having ovaries!) has become a "legitimate" governmental function."

So, to a large part, I see all of the time spent in Camp Revival as an attempt to return to the "easier world" of The Island of Doctor Moreau, for a bit.

I know that it was plotted and that scripts were submitted before that date on November 8th, but I sincerely can't imagine that everyone wasn't precisely as shocked as I was, waking up on November 9th and finding out that fighting against "the establishment" meant that finding out that our p*ssy-grabber in chief was going to become a hero to many and a villain of P.T. Westmorland doesn't need to feel a bit... anti-climactic... but that's probably what you get when you have a President who seems to think that having the keys to the nuclear launch codes is power equivalent to what I would have described on November 7th, 2016 as being the plot for an Austin Powers movie.

______________

Note to mods: I apologize for any and all reasons I've violated "the rules" in this post. Please don't ban me outright, but please think about what I'm saying, allow Aurora Cormier to think about what I'm saying, then, if necessary, just delete this post.

hopeless romantic

Aurora Cormier,

Thanks for citing that article!

I have to admit, however, that I think it says what I felt before (which was that 5x09 wasn't part of the original scripting:

didn't match the rest of the series, but that the earlier time spent in Camp Revival did.

I'll be interested to find out what more we learn after the series has wrapped!!!

I've had a smidge of time to devote to research, and want to encourage any and all to read the full text of:

Especially for the following:


An Oral History of ORPHAN BLACK from the Women Who Brought It to Life
Posted by Alicia Lutes on August 9, 2017
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Television

Orphan Black was no TV Themyscira, having been brought to life like most things in show business: with two guys at the helm and a smattering of women populating a more traditional sea of men. Sure, it told the story of a sisterhood of clones upon that life-altering realization, but for all the representation happening in front of the camera thanks to Tatiana Maslany‘s riveting work, there was only one woman director ever in the series’ history, and the writers’ room was largely men until season five. But in creating a series about a sisterhood like no other, Orphan Black‘s men developed a space for the women that worked on it to bring their own stories and ideas and visions to life, and to make a more diversely characterized and nuanced show with women at the front of it.

Orphan Black, over the course of its five seasons, has told the story of a series of clones who’ve recently come to the realization that they are part of a shady science experiment with dire consequences. Through the plight of deadbeat Sarah, science genius Cosima, soccer mom Alison, angry vigilante Helena, and self-aware boss Rachel (and so many more, all played deftly by Maslany and her clone double, Kathryn Alexandre), the myriad shades of femininity and female personhood are put on display to tell a story of bodily autonomy, the struggles of women, nature vs. nurture, and so much more—all wrapped up in a thrilling sci-fi conspiracy package.

“There’s been such a fire in all of our bellies to tell a story that means something and is actually saying something.” – Tatiana Maslany

And by making space for the women in their orbit, series co-creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett ostensibly became feminist allies, allowing their women equal space in the conversation and creation of the series’ stories and ideas. The rising tide that lifted these women’s boats. So we knew, in honor of the series’ end, that we had to lift up these women’s voices the same way Orphan Black lifted up its female fans.

Because, as Maslany put it, “Women deserve basic rights and ownership of our bodies, and the show has always been about that. Whether it was aware of it or not, it was always about that.”

Finding Its Feminism Through Science

“The future is female!” P.T. Westmoreland asserts, subverting a phrase of empowerment into one of pure villainy in the hands of religiously fanatical sciencecult Neolution’s leader. It is a phrase he utters often throughout the series’ fifth and final season, a nod to the show’s feminist leanings. Coupled with its link to the science at the heart of the show, it’s a phrase that becomes all the more sinister. Much like Henrietta Lacks in real life, the clones’ biology is used to advance science in an unprecedented manner, with no say or consent on the matter. And out of science, a story is born.

While all the science you see on Orphan Black is “based on things actually going on in the world today and throughout history,” the series molds it to their advantage to “build a creative and exciting narrative … We have always used the science to buttress other kinds of commentaries,” explained Cosima Herter, a science and story consultant on the series. “Like the assumptions we make about how and why we value (and legislate) particular kinds of bodies more than others, or the role of biotechnology and bioengineering in our lives, or why we accept some kinds of technologies and technological interventions and not others … the kinds of assumptions so many of us seem to make about hierarchies of life. We can use the science to mobilize questions about who benefits, who is harmed, and what kinds of gendered and class related beliefs are actually deeply written into those kinds of techno-science.”

In many ways, Orphan Black would be nothing without Herter—not to be confused with her clone namesake: the scientific backbone of the sestras’ plight, PhD student Cosima Niehaus. “Real Cosima helps us with the science and the larger picture of where the science fits into society and the themes that we might be working with that we’re not even aware of—that’s a big part of the process,” explained Graeme Manson.

Herter’s been that big a part of the process since before day one, as a friend of Manson’s with whom he would wax philosophical about science and its power in storytelling. And it is clear in talking to Herter that hers is a voice instrumental to the larger themes that drive the larger story, or—as she dubs it—”The Conversation” the show is having with its audience.

“When Graeme first came to me with the idea, he and I’d already spent a lot of time discussing all the different ways one could conceive of what a clone is—not simply a human clone, but all the ways clones occur naturally in other organisms,” Herter told us. “We spoke about literal clones, allegorical clones, the ways we could draw metaphor from the idea of clones, etc. At the time I was struggling through my Masters degree, and preparing to go on to work on a PhD. So many of the ideas that Graeme, as a writer, was trying to explore were ideas and issues I had long been interested in and was already working on during my time in academia.”

Maslany added, “I think Cosima’s got such an incredible perspective on [the show’s themes] in terms of the science.”

“We spoke about literal clones, allegorical clones, the ways we could draw metaphor from the idea of clones…” – Cosima Herter

Though she didn’t foresee a place for herself in the series beyond those initial chats, after the series was picked up Herter was given a title—several, in fact, both as a Science and Story Consultant—and quickly moved beyond “simply checking the facts of the ‘hard’ science.” Though as she asserts, “certainly this is an essential part of what I do.” Still, for Herter, the focus of her time was far bigger than that: “I spent much of my time researching and bringing timely issues and ideas in the biological sciences to the table that could be spun into an interesting and active narrative.”

But for all its science, Orphan Black is also about power: who has it, who controls it, how do you get it, and what does it look like in the hands of a woman. And it was something that evolved as the series went on, doubling down as fan reaction and critical—and academic! and scientific! [with quotes primarily explaining this one from Cosima Hertner.]

Please read the actual article.

There are bits that occurred here/refused to submit to my computer-fu that weren't part of the story there (so I know when I've been unable to access plain text for reasons that make me... uncomforable...) but as of this sign-off, there's a lot more to be read about "the meaning of Orphan Black."

Scully_fan

On the whole I liked the island/revival stuff. It just would have been better I think if they'd found a way to also have Sarah on that island with Cosima and Rachel for at least some of the time. It's no accident that those two have been the most interesting clones this season when they are placed right at the heart of the action and actually given something to work with.

Idk I think I'm pretty happy with the answers so far (Lin28A for example seems to make a great amount of sense). It's really just the feelings thing that stands out and irks me when such a huge deal was made of it.

majesdane

THAT does, but i hated that the explanation was so rushed.