‘Orphan Black: Echoes’ Is the Rare Brilliant Spin-Off Series

It makes sense for the clone show to get its own clone. Almost seven years after the conclusion of Orphan Black, the Canadian drama that launched Tatiana Maslany to international stardom for her portrayal of a small army of human copies, we’re diving back into the clone-iverse with Orphan Black: Echoes. The show, premiering June 23 on AMC, presents an ominous technological future dominated by 3-D printing technology and monomaniacal scientists bent on perfecting humanity at any cost, and, like the clones in Orphan Black, the new series offers a spin on familiar territory. Echoes pointedly takes a different route through the metaphysics and ethical conundrums of scientific progress, asking us to ascribe human motivations to inhuman acts.

It’s Boston in 2052: The city skyline is upgraded with spiraling high-rises reinforced with skeletal honeycomb facades, even trucks have that electric vehicle purr, and rolling hills are dotted with windmills to indicate that we’re in The Future. A scientist played with quiet melancholy by Keeley Hawes works at the Additive Foundation, experimenting on a new technology with the capability to print human organs from scratch.

But that’s not the only thing she’s printing. In the opening scene, the scientist comes into contact with an amnesiac woman (Krysten Ritter, ever the badass, abrasive heroine in a dark jacket and skinny jeans) who has no memory of her name, or even a conception of ever having a past—and, given that this show is the sequel series to a show about clones, you can probably guess why. The only flash of recollection Ritter’s character, who later takes on the name Lucy, feels happens the moment she runs into a young teen girl named Jules (Amanda Fix) who looks strikingly familiar. Again, perhaps you can guess why.

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