It is no small challenge to follow in Tatiana Maslany’s footsteps. In the five original seasons of Orphan Black, Maslany played an incredible range of characters, clones with entirely different lives and personalities who were all caught up in one messy web.
But Krysten Ritter seems up for the challenge. In Orphan Black: Echoes, she plays Lucy, who wakes up—sort of—after a mysterious procedure and knows nothing about who (or when) she is. When she stumbles out into daylight, the world doesn’t look like our own. Does it look strange to her? Does anything look normal to her? That, we’ll have to wait to find out.
Ritter’s black hair and pale skin aren’t the only visual “echo” from the original Orphan Black; the woman speaking to Lucy when she sits up (in a room that recalls a certain living room from the original series) looks more than a bit like that show’s Delphine (Évelyne Brochu). This teaser is so carefully constructed; watching Ritter tug on a cap as she walks down the street, I could practically see Maslany doing the same thing.
This is a whole different show—but it’s wise to play up and lean into the connections, rather than ignoring what came before. The all-new cast includes Keeley Hawes, Amanda Fix, and Avan Jogia; today it was announced that Rya Kihlstedt and James Hiroyuki Liao will also be series regulars—Kihlstedt as a brilliant neuroscientist and Liao as a powerful billionaire. Reed Diamond also joins in a recurring role; he’s playing a head of security (if you just thought of Dollhouse, you are not alone). Anna Fishko (Fear the Walking Dead) is creator, writer, and executive producer on the series; original Orphan Black co-creator John Fawcett is also an executive producer, and will direct some of the episodes.
The rest of this teaser is disorienting flashbacks and laboratory terrors. It’s not a ton to go on, but it’s enough to get me extremely intrigued.
Orphan Black: Echoes is coming to AMC, BBC America, and AMC+ in 2024.
This post was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.
