Well I haven't been on in a while.
Jul. 17th, 2014 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gen_is_goneA few days ago I picked up Orphan Black. It's interesting; while I really do love the concept of clones and admire Tatiana Maslany's acting abilities to a ridiculous extent, I keep getting weird, jarring tonal shifts.
I'd heard from various sources that the most deadly character on the show was the Canadian soccer mom, and while that is true, there are parts of Alison Hendrix's storyline that...don't mesh well with the tone of other parts of the series. While Sarah's self-destructive tendencies are played very straight, and continue to be a problem in her life even after all the charades kept up in the first part of season one have fallen apart, Alison's alcoholism and prescription abuse are played almost for laughs. The audience is meant to find the Stepford Wives routine funny as Alison becomes more and more paranoid and her anxiety sends her into a downward spiral that ends with her watching her best-friend choke to death in an accident pretty entirely meant to be seen as black comedy.
I don't have a problem with black comedy, it's that other characters' mental illness and quiet paranoia brought on by the clones being constantly observed and stalked is played for drama, but Alison, suburban soccer mom that she is, becomes the funny neurotic one, obsessed with her image and upholding the status quo.
Another thing that bothers me is Cosima's relationship with Delphine. Now, I'm only halfway through season two, so maybe things change, but from the glimpses of fandom I'd seen, I knew that they were the OTP of Clone Club. When actually watching them though, I just get constantly skeeved out. Delphine is Cosima's monitor, hired by the people who created the clones to insinuate herself into Cosima's life and report on her actions. She's introduced mid-way through the first season since Cosima's new at her university, and Cosima is almost immediately suspicious of her, but continues their relationship anyway. Delphine was implied to have been dating (or just screwing) Dr. Leekie, the scientist behind the clones, and was ordered to get closer to Cosima after Cosima misread a signal and kissed her, freaking Delphine right the hell out. When Delphine returns, she insists she had never thought about bisexuality before (and, to the show's credit, it actually explicitly uses the term bisexual) and the two of them jump right into bed, despite Cosima's suspicions. When she's later proven to be exactly right about Delphine's role in her life, the two fight and and make up within the space of one episode, and Delphine at the end is still working for Leekie, and by her own admission still monitoring Cosima.
I appreciate an actual f/f pairing becoming canon onscreen, and I really appreciate that that Delphine identifies herself as bi, but...I just wish that one of the exceedingly rare canonical f/f pairings available in a show that actually holds my interest wasn't so...blatantly creepy.
Another weird note (and I know this comes off like complaining, but i really do like the show more than I dislike it) is that Sarah's daughter Kira, who's somewhere around eight years old, does not act her age. She's not only ridiculously perceptive, (which in and of itself is far from unusual) she's also aware of adult situations around her in a way not really normal or typical of a child. My mental rewrite is that she's exceptionally Gifted, but even then, Gifted kids are still kids, and don't really tend to pick up on things like an adult who's more or less raised them keeping new secrets, and then be aware of what these are and that Mommy should be told but no one else. Or not even that, but that the language she uses to express herself is isn't just advanced for a child of her age, but rather adult concepts in child-words. If that makes sense. Mostly she's a Mysterious Plot Device Child, which is somewhat annoying. I'm waiting for her to actually act her age.
Eh. I like where it's going enough to keep watching, and the things that bother me have yet to overwhelm my enjoyment of it, so I'm going to at least finish watching season two before passing a full judgement. These are just my thoughts at the 3/4ths mark, I guess.
Also, everyone is very attractive and winds up in next to no clothing at some point or another, so there's that.
I'd heard from various sources that the most deadly character on the show was the Canadian soccer mom, and while that is true, there are parts of Alison Hendrix's storyline that...don't mesh well with the tone of other parts of the series. While Sarah's self-destructive tendencies are played very straight, and continue to be a problem in her life even after all the charades kept up in the first part of season one have fallen apart, Alison's alcoholism and prescription abuse are played almost for laughs. The audience is meant to find the Stepford Wives routine funny as Alison becomes more and more paranoid and her anxiety sends her into a downward spiral that ends with her watching her best-friend choke to death in an accident pretty entirely meant to be seen as black comedy.
I don't have a problem with black comedy, it's that other characters' mental illness and quiet paranoia brought on by the clones being constantly observed and stalked is played for drama, but Alison, suburban soccer mom that she is, becomes the funny neurotic one, obsessed with her image and upholding the status quo.
Another thing that bothers me is Cosima's relationship with Delphine. Now, I'm only halfway through season two, so maybe things change, but from the glimpses of fandom I'd seen, I knew that they were the OTP of Clone Club. When actually watching them though, I just get constantly skeeved out. Delphine is Cosima's monitor, hired by the people who created the clones to insinuate herself into Cosima's life and report on her actions. She's introduced mid-way through the first season since Cosima's new at her university, and Cosima is almost immediately suspicious of her, but continues their relationship anyway. Delphine was implied to have been dating (or just screwing) Dr. Leekie, the scientist behind the clones, and was ordered to get closer to Cosima after Cosima misread a signal and kissed her, freaking Delphine right the hell out. When Delphine returns, she insists she had never thought about bisexuality before (and, to the show's credit, it actually explicitly uses the term bisexual) and the two of them jump right into bed, despite Cosima's suspicions. When she's later proven to be exactly right about Delphine's role in her life, the two fight and and make up within the space of one episode, and Delphine at the end is still working for Leekie, and by her own admission still monitoring Cosima.
I appreciate an actual f/f pairing becoming canon onscreen, and I really appreciate that that Delphine identifies herself as bi, but...I just wish that one of the exceedingly rare canonical f/f pairings available in a show that actually holds my interest wasn't so...blatantly creepy.
Another weird note (and I know this comes off like complaining, but i really do like the show more than I dislike it) is that Sarah's daughter Kira, who's somewhere around eight years old, does not act her age. She's not only ridiculously perceptive, (which in and of itself is far from unusual) she's also aware of adult situations around her in a way not really normal or typical of a child. My mental rewrite is that she's exceptionally Gifted, but even then, Gifted kids are still kids, and don't really tend to pick up on things like an adult who's more or less raised them keeping new secrets, and then be aware of what these are and that Mommy should be told but no one else. Or not even that, but that the language she uses to express herself is isn't just advanced for a child of her age, but rather adult concepts in child-words. If that makes sense. Mostly she's a Mysterious Plot Device Child, which is somewhat annoying. I'm waiting for her to actually act her age.
Eh. I like where it's going enough to keep watching, and the things that bother me have yet to overwhelm my enjoyment of it, so I'm going to at least finish watching season two before passing a full judgement. These are just my thoughts at the 3/4ths mark, I guess.
Also, everyone is very attractive and winds up in next to no clothing at some point or another, so there's that.
