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Orphan Black -- S1
3 June 2013 07:37 am( Reaction spoilers for the finale )
Years ago I read an Ursula K. Le Guin essay -- I forget which, now, but I believe it was in the anthology The Language of the Night -- that argued that a good way to know if a story has well-written characters is if you can remember their names a year later. Now, it's only been two days, not a year, but despite this show having a fairly large main/supporting cast -- and four main characters who look an awful lot alike -- I recall their names better than on many shows, where I will continue to refer to people as "the blonde one", etc for months on end.
So, while the plot is definitely engaging, and I'm apparently still naive enough about drama/thriller/SFF tropes that I'm not catching the abundance of them on this show, or at least am not bothered about them, the draw is absolutely the characters. I'm pretty sure every single character significant enough to appear in more than, say, two episodes has garnered a fairly strong emotional reaction from me. ( I carry on about that at some length, and also reference significant plot spoilers for all of S1. )
I feel like I could go on and on, but this is getting pretty long, I need to go to work, and I haven't read anyone else's posts yet! Besides, this is more than I usually manage to write about a show. So I'll leave off here.
Thoughts, anyone?
Years ago I read an Ursula K. Le Guin essay -- I forget which, now, but I believe it was in the anthology The Language of the Night -- that argued that a good way to know if a story has well-written characters is if you can remember their names a year later. Now, it's only been two days, not a year, but despite this show having a fairly large main/supporting cast -- and four main characters who look an awful lot alike -- I recall their names better than on many shows, where I will continue to refer to people as "the blonde one", etc for months on end.
So, while the plot is definitely engaging, and I'm apparently still naive enough about drama/thriller/SFF tropes that I'm not catching the abundance of them on this show, or at least am not bothered about them, the draw is absolutely the characters. I'm pretty sure every single character significant enough to appear in more than, say, two episodes has garnered a fairly strong emotional reaction from me. ( I carry on about that at some length, and also reference significant plot spoilers for all of S1. )
I feel like I could go on and on, but this is getting pretty long, I need to go to work, and I haven't read anyone else's posts yet! Besides, this is more than I usually manage to write about a show. So I'll leave off here.
Thoughts, anyone?