The British Be Invadin

As Clovis and Maggie Cats have decamped for parts unknown, I felt it behooved yours truly to update all of you lovely people about the programs I have been spending my time watching instead of keeping up with Mad Men. (It's on my DVR, chickens! Fear not.) I thought perhaps you lovelies all thought I had shut myself in my apartment, huddled in blankets, binge watching Call the Midwife while eating cookies and cream gelato directly out of the pint. Me? Do such a thing? So, I thought I would keep you abreast of what I had been up to TV-wise.

I've been watching the hell out of Call the Midwife.

My dudes, this show gets me right in the feels. Now having completed its third, yes, third season, the BBC One drama has seen some major changes occur in the lives of the young midwives and the nuns of Nonnatus House. The most significant event of Season 3 is that Jessica Raine, who portrays the late Jennifer (Lee) Worth (on whose memoirs the show is based) has said goodbye to the series in the hopes of finding greener pastures elsewhere in some absurd little backwater known as Hollywood. After three seasons of filming graphic births, Raine is ready to move on to new challenges and new roles. Jenny starts a new job at a Marie Curie cancer hospital, working with terminally ill patients, and she begins her life with Philip Worth.  However, her departure does not mean the end of the series. BBC has renewed Call the Midwife for Season 4, starting in 2015. Like all good ensemble shows, Call the Midwife has done a fine job of developing its supporting characters, so there is plenty of interest in Chummy, Trixie, Cynthia, kind Sister Julienne, BAMF Sister Evangelina and batty Sister Monica Joan. 

RIGHT IN THE FEELZ!

If you watched all of Season 2 and the Christmas special, you will know that Sister Bernadette has thrown off her habit like she is Maria Fucking Von Trapp, and gotten herself married to Dr. Turner. She dyed her hair and went back to being called Shelagh and she is all kinds of prosh. Dr. Turner and Shelagh were being all kinds of improperly flirty in Season 1 and it's nice to see that relationship come to a successful conclusion. However, Shelagh discovers that her bout with tuberculosis during Season 2 has left scar tissue on her lady bits and she is told that it is unlikely that she will be able to conceive a child.

The show also shifted focus this season somewhat away from Jenny's personal life and more on the personal lives of Trixie and Chummy. Chummy has a bittersweet reconciliation with her posh mum, and she tries to become a Modern Lady, attempting to balance marriage and family with a career. And Trixie starts dating A VICAR. 

Go on with your bad self, Trixie.

I'm sure there will be more development of Cynthia, and the producers have introduced two new characters: Sister Winifred, direct from the Mother House, and new midwife Patsy. 

Call the Midwife is a huge hit in the UK and I encourage all of you duckies to tune in. The guys on this show are so hot. Even Dr. Turner is sexy for an old dude. Seasons 1 and 2 are available via Netflix streaming and through Netflix DVD. Generally, it airs Sunday nights at 8 EST on PBS. 

Next in PBS news (I'm not frontin or nothin; I watch a lot of PBS) is Mr. Selfridge.

 I'm actually glad I gave this show another shot. It's done the opposite of what Downton Abbey has done -- Mr. Selfridge started out weak and it's getting stronger. The shows are pretty comparable, and I do think Mr. Selfridge is a much better show at this point. Season 1 began in 1909, and Season 2 has moved forward in pastfuturetime to 1914, and addresses the outbreak of World War I. Harry (Jeremy Piven) and Rose (Frances O'Connor) Selfridge have stopped cheating on each other with really scary stalker people and are trying to rebuild their marriage. Since the show moved five years into the future, the role of Gordon Selfridge has been recast with an older actor (now portrayed by Greg Austin) and Harry sets the lad to work in the store, starting in the stock room and moving up to the perfume counter, where he begins a flirt with a young shopgirl. D'aww. 

With the outbreak of war, Harry attempts to break into the British establishment by using his money and connections to secure a seat on the Procurement Committee. He runs into a roadblock in the form of Lord Loxley, who dislikes Harry on a personal level. The Procurement Committee is dismissive of Harry's attempts to break into the British aristocracy because he is of low birth and American and all that jazz.

Focusing more on the ensemble cast and their personal struggles has allowed the characters to become more fully fleshed out, and in many cases, more likeable. Case in point is Mae Loxley (Katherine Kelly), who during Season 1 was a very cougary vampy person, but this season has revealed that the formerly MIA Lord Loxley is a TOTAL fucking asshole and I kept wishing for Mae to push him down the stairs.

Just you wait, my dears. 

There has also been a bit more focus on Store Ginger, Kitty Hawkins (Amy Beth Hayes), late of ladies' accessories. Kitty is now Miss Mardle's assistant, and she gets to boss the junior accessories assistants. Her character has revealed itself to be less catty and much more amiable, likely due to her character maturing, and through her burgeoning relationship with newspaper man Frank Edwards (British mainstay Samuel West). All workplace dramas need a ginger. Fact.

And then I told him I never wanted to speak to him again. I think I'm in love!

The title may be Mr. Selfridge, but the star of the show is, and always has been, Agnes Towler (Aisling Loftus). Agnes returns from her design studies in Paris and takes over as head of design.  There, she must contend with the jealousy of wannabe rival in ladies' fashion, the bitchy Mr. Thackeray. Agnes is also conflicted due to the return from America of her former lovvvvaaahhh, Henri LeClair (Grégory Fitoussi) because, in his absence, she has grown closer to Victor Corleone. Agnes realizes she must choose between one of her suitors, and compounding her work and personal stress is the fact that her brother, George, is one of the very first to sign up for active military duty. Oh, the dramz.

Oui!

The adorable Miss Mardle (Amanda Abbington) receives two life bonuses this season, while Mr. Grove continues to be a clueless douche. If you haven't noticed, and you should, Amanda Abbington also appears on Sherlock as Mary Morstan, and she is totes Martin Freeman's lady friend in real life. She is just wonderful on Mr. Selfridge, and if you haven't tuned in, you should.

We'll mad your men. And sell it a sturdy pair of boots.

Seriously, this show has gotten under my skin. The first few episodes of the first season are melodramatic and silly, but this season has made up for it in spades. If you're looking for a British costume drama that has the bells and whistles of Downton Abbey, but with better writing and a perfume counter, I very much encourage you to get on board with Mr. Selfridge. The show's home network, ITV, has renewed it for a third season. Mr. Selfridge normally airs around 9 p.m. EST Sundays on PBS. Some episodes are available for streaming on PBS.org.

The next ensemble of which I speak is BBC America's Brit-Can-Am Orphan Black, which is an entirely different kind of ensemble show altogether.

My dudes, this show is crack. I can't say too much about the season thus far without revealing major spoilers. 

Cosima (Tatiana Maslany) is working for the Dyad Institute, but the symptoms of her mysterious illness begin to worsen. Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) searches for answers about Mrs. S's involvement in Project LEDA. We learn more about pro-clone Rachel (Tatiana Maslany), and Helena (Tatiana Maslany) survived being shot by Sarah, but was abducted by some creepy International House of Prayer culty science people. Alison (Tatiana Maslany) turns into a pill popper due to her guilt over Ainsley's death, and the fact that she's finally realized that her husband, bumbling, oafish Donny, is in fact her monitor.

Canadian actress Tatiana Maslany (Tatiana Maslany) deserves some kind of acting Olympic gold medal. Much has been said about her performance  and it all bears repeating. Her portrayal of each of the clones is so mesmerizing and utterly believable that you really do forget that Cosima, Rachel, Sarah, Alison, and Helena are all played by the same actress, and the illusion goes far beyond wardrobe, make-up, and hair. 

Orphan Black airs Saturday nights on BBC America at 9 p.m. EST. Netflix for some odd reason does not have this available for streaming, but they do have Season 1 on DVD.

Attack of the Clones

Okay. So. You all watched Orphan Black, right? RIGHT? Seriously. If there was a more surprising show on television during this past spring, I’ll eat my hat.  I wrote about the show at the beginning of its 10-episode long first season, and now that we’ve come to the end of the season, let’s take a quick look back at one of the most innovative new shows this season. Slight spoilers in the paragraph below, however only in broad strokes. If you want to avoid all of them, just skip down to below the picture of the man with the ridiculously well-toned pectorals.

In terms of the plot, we learned that Sarah, the ne’er-do-well from England who has arrived in Canada some time previously, is drawn into a web of intrigue when a police officer who looks exactly like her commits suicide in front of her and Sarah decides to assume her identity. From there, Sarah learns that she is actually a clone, created for some unknown purpose, and that there are several more of her spread around the globe. To complicate things, the clones are being hunted down by a religious order (possibly) while being simultaneously pursued for some unknown reason by a group of technological futurists calling themselves the Neolutionists. Sarah, meanwhile, must keep her “partner” at the Toronto police force off the trail of the strange murders of women who look just like her and her possible involvement with them while at the same time she’s starting to suspect that Paul, the boyfriend of the woman who’s identity she’s assumed, may in fact be working for one of these clandestine groups.

Along the way, Sarah must interact with the other clones, who are almost alternate reality versions of herself. The tension gets higher when Sarah learns that each of the clones have “monitors”, or people installed in their lives to watch them and report back, however it’s not clear who those monitors are or which group they work for. This means that we get to know Sarah, but also her doppelgangers, learning more about each of their lives and seeing how they each fit into the broader puzzle. And we quickly realize that not all of the clones are working with each other and not all of them have the best intentions toward the others.

Fear not, ladies. There's a little somethin' somethin' in here for you too.

Okay, Spoiler-phobes. You can come back now.

First off, the good news (for my taste at least) is that this show didn’t succumb to the Lost-ization factor that I worried in my original post that it might. By that I mean that while the mysteries built on each other throughout the season and the mythology behind them was definitely dense and complex, none of the questions we found ourselves asking as viewers were put there simply for the sake of complexity. In other words, the show was taut, lean and we got a very clear idea that the writers know where this story is headed.

The second good thing it has going for it is the unique look and feel of the entire show. Not quite realism, not quite expressionism, the show didn’t look like anything we’ve seen before. The palate, generally muted through most shots, occasionally found ways to clash bright color against itself. As I said before, the only thing I’ve seen previously that reminded me of the same way the show used colors and visuals was Blade Runner, another story about people who are clones without necessarily realizing it. Regardless, it was the kind of visuals that we just don’t often see on television, so kudos to BBC America for putting together something really original.

Good evening, Mr. Decker. 

But of course, the 900-lb gorilla in the room is Tatiana Maslany, the actress tasked with playing the clones. If the original story set-up and visual look and feel were the show’s opening hands, Maslany was its ace up the sleeve. Maslany single-handedly took a concept that was probably going to be just gimmicky in any regular actress’s hands and turned it into something amazing to watch. She played each part with a separate style, including unique mannerisms, physicality, movement and voice. Maslany, unfortunately, is almost certainly not going to win an Emmy for her role here, but that’s to the fault of the Emmys, not her.

Among the roles that Maslany has had to play this year: Sarah, the English drifter; Beth, the Toronto cop; Cosima, the American grad student; Allison, the type-A suburban housewife; Helena, a Russian sociopathic religious fanatic; and Katja, a German socialite. Not enough variation for you? Maslany has, at times, had to play versions of each character pretending to be another character, such as when Sarah pretends to be Beth or when Allison presents to be Sarah. Maslany has so mastered each of these characters that not only do they each feel separate and instantly identifiable on their own, but they have their own nuances when they pretend to be each other. Maslany’s version of Sarah is slightly different than her version of Allison pretending to be Sarah. For an actress so relatively young and never before having anchored a television series, Maslany is providing something of a master class in voice and movement and how to create completely fleshed out, living characters.

Is it wrong that I hope future seasons have them forming a band together?

The variance that Maslany brought to each of her characters alone would be reason to be excited about what’s coming in season two. That not all of the clones make it through season one alive also illustrates that the show isn’t afraid to take some chances, as well as that the deaths that do occur feel like an organic part of the story. I’m really quite excited to see where the show goes given its cliffhanger ending this year, proving that the show has absolutely done its job for me. Tune in folks, you’re going to want to watch this one.

Seriously. Do it. Otherwise the unstable one will cut you.

Orphan Black is available through BBC America and season one will be released on DVD and BluRay on July 16. 

Orphan is the New Black

Hey everyone! Did y’all dig that new Doctor Who on Saturday night? Did you happen to stick around to see the premier of BBC America’s new series Orphan Black? Want to know what’s the what with this sorta British, sorta American, sorta Canadian series? Of course you do!

Trippy.

Orphan Black, part of BBC America’s “Supernatural Saturday” lineup, tells the story of Sarah, a malcontented English drifter who’s made her way to Toronto at some point and is desperately trying to pull together enough money to get her young daughter back. It’s unclear why her daughter was removed from her to begin with, but given that part of Sarah’s plan is to get her foster brother, Felix, to push several pounds of cocaine for her, we can probably hazard a guess. The story gets underway when Sarah witnesses a sobbing woman, a women who eerily looks exactly like Sarah herself, throw herself into the path of an oncoming train. Sarah, again showing the kind of principled thinking that likely led to getting custody of her daughter removed from her, steals the woman’s purse.

Sarah discovers the woman, Beth, not only has a sweet car and an amazing apartment, but also $75,000 in a bank account that was only recently deposited. Convenient, eh? Sarah, con-woman that she is, devises a plan to steal the money by pretending to be Beth and then pass off Beth's mangled body as her own, allowing her to slip away in The Perfect Plan. All she needs to do is move into Beth's apartment, practice speaking with a American/Canadian accent through watching home movies of her and getting to know who Beth is convincingly enough to fool the account manager at the bank who is apparently friendly with Beth enough to know her personally. Did I mention that it turns out Sarah may have to have convenient distraction sex with Beth's live-in boyfriend as well? Just part of the game, really.

"I wonder if they made any honeymoon videos?"

And that's when the fun begins, because it turns out that Beth wasn't just a suspiciously unhappy woman on a train platform, she was also a cop who is under investigation for apparently accidentally killing a civilian in the line of duty. Before she can get the money, Sarah must now confront a deposition of internal affairs agents at the local police department to account for Beth's actions, which Sarah clearly has no clue about. Sarah has to jump from one frying pan to another all the while avoiding an increasing number of fires just to make her scheme pay off. It isn't long before "Beth" starts getting mysterious text messages from someone who demands that they meet. When this third party finally corners Sarah, the person is, wait for it, another woman who looks exactly like her, only German. And someone's out to kill all three of them. For only wanting to steal $75,000 and an identity, Sarah quickly finds herself at the center of a massive underground web of intrigue.

There's also gay comic relief. Because of course there is.

It shouldn’t take much of a leap (or even a cursory glance at the promos) to realize that this is a story about clones. Possibly about clones doing sexy spy things, although that remains to be seen. The show has a certain Alias-lite kind of vibe going, so that’s possibly not beyond the realm of possibility. And while the premise of clones in the modern day, all of whom presumably have no memory of being clones or of knowing where they came from has a certain appeal to it, the direction the show-runners and the writers choose for it will be the ultimate arbiter of whether or not this becomes your next great television addiction. If it succumbs to the Lost­-ization of modern television, the tendency of a show to regress further and further toward the needlessly complex mean, my patience isn’t going to last long.

Speaking of patience, the pilot episode itself is a mixed bag – slow moving at times with not enough information about any of the characters to really make us pull for them, right up until the last five minutes when OMG you guys shit gets real. Pilots are notoriously hard to do – you have to introduce characters that the audience instantly bonds with (or hates) and present enough of the world to give the audience an understanding of what it’s getting itself into. The real strength of the show after one episode is Tatiana Maslany, the actress playing Sarah (and Beth, the dead cop, and the strange third German lookalike). Maslany plays multiple characters, multiple accents and multiple bodies throughout the episode and does it convincingly. It’s a lot of fun to watch the same actress playing essentially alternate realities of herself, a lot like how Dollhouse could have been if that show had started with a more talented lead actress.

"You're drunk, Eliza. Sleep it off and stop calling me here."

What’s intriguing about the story is a plot that, if fantastic, we can understand and get behind (There are clones. Someone presumably made them. The clones seems to be in trouble. Wackiness ensues.) and a look and feel that, if not utterly original, at least calls to mind some comfortable old friends. Several of the scenes look like they could have been included as outtakes from Blade Runner, another sci-fi epic about people who are, if not clones, something not too far removed from the concept and have no idea whether or not they are “real.” It’s caught me for at least another episode or two. Here’s hoping for more.

Orphan Black airs Saturday nights on BBC America.