After a solid airing on BBC America and an order of another two seasons, it seemed weird that BBC Three snuck the entirety Orphan Black Season 3 out on iPlayer with virtually no warning. After steamrolling through all ten episodes, it seemed even weirder because it was so damn good.
Season 3 is the same Orphan Black we know and love, only better. The show’s excellent balance of drama, suspense, sci-fi jibber-jabber and farcical comedy remains impeccable, but also better than before. Essentially, it has just got better at what it was already doing brilliantly.
We join the Leda Clones pretty much where we left them. After a brilliant dream sequence in which Helena (Tatiana Maslany) enjoys a baby shower thrown for her by her sisters, it’s all still very much doom and gloom. Almost everyone is frantic and confused since the surprise introduction of Project Castor (aka the Boy Clones). The unfolding story is seamless – there are no feeble episodes – and more intense than it has been before.
The boy clones, all played by the excellent Ari Millen, are a fantastic addition, but Maslany’s sister clones still come out on top. There are no weak links in her family, but we wouldn’t expect anything less.
This season, Sarah teams up with Dyad, now run by Delphine (Evelyne Brochu), in an attempt to take down the Castor original, Cosima continues to experience health issues and has trouble knowing whom she can trust, and Rachel finds herself vulnerable after Sarah’s attack last season. There’s also a new Leda clone, a ditsy nail technician named Krystal.
The best storylines involve the ever-enigmatic Helena, who makes friends with a hallucination-induced talking scorpion while being held captive in a military base in the desert, and Alison, who hilariously sets up a super-suburban drug dealing business with her husband Donnie (Kristian Bruun) under the pretence of selling luxury soaps.
