OKAY TIME FOR SOME ORPHAN BLACK FEELINGS

[kaberett]

... by which I mean "I finished season 1 last night, er, whoops?"

(1) I am genuinely surprised at how well I have been coping with it - in spite of the graphic graphic suicide, self-harm, and abuse, I am honestly in one piece?

(2) In fact, I ended up staying up much later than intended last night because the bit that really fucked me up was Kira getting injured. I would not have coped well with having to wait a week to find out she was okay. This is clearly going to be An Problems when I am watching along at airing-time. :-/

(3) Is this in fact covering some of what Dollhouse wanted to do, only competently and with agency?

(4) Because wow, absolutely everything about this is so fucked up, wow.

(5) Mrs S. did... not look as though she was going to be happy about making off with Kira; I was starting to have You Are Building A Family feels about her interactions with Sarah, and given how drawn Mrs S was looking...

(6) On a completely different note, I love Felix to bits. I mean, it's a bit disconcerting that one of my students last year is pretty much a dead ringer for him (down to hairstyle and vocal cadences), but-- "I need to change. Fetch me something gay." "Oh my god, we're going to have to do a complete reverse Pygmalion."

(7) He is a sex worker and not shamed for it.

(8) There are not words for how much I love watching Cosima and Delphine do science together, seriously not words.

(9) aaaaaah it is doing all of the questions about What Identity Means that I loved so much in the Imperial Radch, and it is doing the thing I love so much of recessional's fic of -- everyone is immensely fucked up and traumatised, and yet they are still worthy of love. Except for the white cishet dudes. It's... kind of amazing.

(10) Yeah I love this ridiculous show, whoops.

Comments

[jack]

Ooh, I'd heard this had interesting things to say about identity and wasn't too faily -- another recommendation along those lines means I need to watch it immediately!

[kaberett]

I just watched the entire first season in two evenings back-to-back, and spent most of the time in a pub for a friend's birthday yesterday evening wishing I was home and watching it! I wasn't particularly expecting to be into it but as it turns out (1) it doesn't trigger me too badly and (2) I'm really into it.

[emperor]

I've seen S1 & S2; it is very good, but the "person X pretending to be person Y and not doing a very good job of it" bits are too cringey for me to really enjoy.

[kaberett]

Huh, interesting - I experience them as actively comforting, I suspect in part because it feels a lot like being faceblind - interacting with people who clearly know me, and expect me to know them, and playing the part as well as I can. I mean, at least in those circumstances most of what I have to do is act like myself, but. Nonetheless.

[rysmiel]

I am very glad you are enjoying it so much and finding the graphic bits bearable; I am a little uncomfortable with the extent to which it leans on Putting Kira In Jeopardy as an emotional button towards the end of the first season, and I am slightly side-eyeing some of the science, but those are very minor things compared to its strengths. (And it totally cracked me up when I realised that it's doing things like structuring episodes the way you structure an episode when one of your principal actors can't be around, or shooting sex scenes differently the way one does with actors who are different levels of willing to work nude, for the different clones.)

[boxofdelights]

Oh! I interpreted that last element as TV being much more prudish about lesbian sex than heterosexual sex.

[umadoshi]

Orphan Black!!!

Quite a while ago now I told my high school best friend (with whom I'm not often in touch, but who periodically asks me for media recs) that he needed to watch it. I forget it if was when he was about to watch it or when he'd only seen one episode that he mentioned it on Facebook, and one of his friends said something to the effect of "I tried the show, but gave up fast because Felix was such a Sassy Gay Friend stereotype".

I think I almost cried. Because Felix. So glorious and well-rounded and plausibly flawed and dearly loved and fierce and amazing...! (I can never decide who my favorite character on the show is--if I even have one!--but Felix is the only male contender.)

(My friend loved the show. No idea if his friend ever gave it another shot.)

[kaberett]

FELIX. He is deliberately camping it up, obviously, but that GLORIOUS scene where Sarah's moved in and is all NOW I PUT MY FEET ON YOUR HEAD and they just do the stupid sibling fighting because they adore each other to pieces. He is fantastic and he is not shamed and I kind of want to play him everything ever by Matt Fishel.

[umadoshi]

That's one of my very favorite scenes in S1! Their relationship makes me so, so happy.

[jedusaur]

I've been moderately enjoying it. The scenes with Sarah trying to pretend to be Beth were HIDEOUS for me, but it's gotten a bit less embarrassment-squicky now that most of the characters have some idea of who the others are and what's going on. In situations where one clone is pretending to be another and it's not uncomfortably apparent that it's the wrong person, I really love the subtleties of how Maslany does the impersonations. And Felix is thoroughly excellent, I agree.