Clone Club, I have bad news: Orphan Black: Echoes has been canceled.
While its predecessor went on for five beautiful seasons and 50 wonderful episodes, the spinoff only survived one 10-episode season before AMC pulled the plug. It sadly joins a large population of queer-centric shows that got axed after only one season — and not very long after the final episode aired. You would think that in the binge culture we live in, networks that drop shows weekly would give American audiences who were waiting for it all to be out a little time to discover it and watch it, but alas, less than a month later, the show is gone. (Though, it did air earlier in Australia for some reason, so it’s possible it failed that litmus test, too.)
Now, despite a generally lackluster response from other critics, I enjoyed the show quite a bit. I loved the callbacks to the original series, from the main character being a grown-up Kira, to a few cameos from the original cast. I liked that it posed similar but different existential questions about the ethics of imagined future technology. I thought Krysten Ritter was amazing, as usual, and Amanda Fix was hilarious as her teen counterpart. The mystery they unraveled as time went on had me hooked, and one part in the finale made me literally gasp out loud, alone in my apartment. I was looking forward to a second season, because it was clear to me that Lucy, Kira, and Eleanor’s stories weren’t done being told. Plus, it was extremely and delightfully gay.
That said, I can think of a few reasons it’s possible this show didn’t resonate with audiences, even some fans of the original. For one, even though their existence has its fingerprints all over this story, the truth is, it’s hard to consider this an Orphan Black story without any of the original Leda clones being part of it. I almost wish they had framed it differently. Like “Echoes: An Orphan Black Story.” Or just call it Echoes, and have the marketing mention that it’s “from the world of Orphan Black.” Because it would be one thing if it was by the same creators and writers, but it really was just a spinoff by different writers. (Though John Fawcett did direct a few episodes.) Because I think the show itself was very good, but maybe it suffered from the direct comparison to the original series. It might have found faster success without setting up that expectation going into it. I also think it could have kept people who hadn’t seen the original from watching it, because as much as I love the original show (and I do mean love; I have a tattoo planned about it and everything), the name does nothing to explain what it’s about. Eventually we get context within the show to explain it, but if you’re just looking for a show to watch and see the name, it’s not helpful. It makes even less sense as the name of this series, whereas Echoes actually is brilliant.
I also am extremely biased when I say this, but I don’t think you can have an Orphan Black story without Tatiana Maslany. Tatiana was the heart and soul of the original show, and I’m sure there were Very Good Reasons on all sides why she wasn’t in Echoes, even as just one of the many characters she played in the original, but I think whenever that decision was made, and by whichever party, is when they should have deprioritized the Orphan Black name in the title of this show. Calling it “Orphan Black: Echoes” set Krysten Ritter up for failure, especially when the premise of the show wasn’t that she would be playing multiple versions of the same character. (Which she sort of did, but not in the same way Tatiana Maslany did.)
Also, I can’t help but wonder if the truth is, the story was “too gay” for mainstream consumers. Kira was a lesbian, and Eleanor (all versions, including both the original and copied Adult Eleanor, plus Lucy, Jules, and any other copies) were queer. There were even references to Kira’s Aunt Cosima and her wife Delphine. It seems to be a pattern that while other shows get at least two seasons to find their audience, queer-centric stories are quashed after one. Anything less than a runaway success is blamed on the queerness, giving the cis white straight men who are the studio heads and decision-makers justification in their declarations that queer stories aren’t “universal” enough. We have confirmation that these kinds of things are being discussed from the former Pixar employees who are speaking out about their time on Inside Out 2, where they were encouraged to make it seem “less gay” from higher-ups.
Of course, there could be plenty of other reasons the numbers weren’t there. The show wasn’t marketed well, not enough people have AMC+ subscriptions because it’s yet another platform to be paying attention to, etc. It’s just a pattern I can’t ignore and had to mention.
As I said before, I did really enjoy this show for what it was. It wasn’t trying to be a remake of Orphan Black. I thought it was fascinating that instead of studying the nature vs nurture of clones born the same year and raised separately all over the world, this show explores what makes an individual person themselves. Is it their brain and body, or their lived experiences? Because Eleanor, Lucy, and Jules were all the same person, the same DNA, just printed at various times in their lives. Lucy and Jules have no memory of who they were before, so they almost immediately start to veer from the path of becoming Eleanor. There are things they have in common, of course — including but not limited to their queerness — but there are significant ways in which they are different. The eldest Eleanor, however, who was reprinted with all her memories intact, slipped back into her old life like nothing happened…and no memory of being reprinted. Her son has a hard time grappling with this; if someone looks like, sounds like, acts like, and has all the same memories of your mother, but technically is a bio-engineered recreation of your mother…is she still your mother? Also what are the ethics
I think there was a lot more they could have explored with this concept, especially since, by the end of the season, a bad guy with a worse Boston accent had gotten his hands on a people printing machine, printing his own self, another teen Eleanor, and at least a handful of teen versions of other brilliant minds to create a nefarious squad of printouts he can shape to his own whims. I think a second season would have been very fun to explore, and I’m really sad we won’t get to see where this story was going.
Whatever the real reasons were behind its cancellation, I, for one, am sad to see it go. Here’s hoping that if we ever get to dip our toe back into the world of Orphan Black, it’s just as gay but with 100% more Tatiana Maslany.
