Season 2 of BBC America's amazing Orphan Black premieres this Saturday, April 19th, with promises of more unique, hair-raising sci-fi thrills. I'm sure you've heard fans buzzing about the show. About clones. Genetic modification. Self-directed evolution. And a remarkable star-turning performance from previously obscure Canadian actress Tatiana Maslany. Well, every good thing you've heard is dead on.

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Team Tatiana

With only 10 Season 1 episodes, there's no excuse not to catch up with this rad series in time for the DNA to hit the fan in Season 2 (hey, you can always DVR the premiere if you need a few more days!). And if you're looking for a little extra push, for someone to sell you on this great series, then here are 5 reasons you should check out Orphan Black.It's often the case that actors and actresses toil in the industry for years before they catch a big break. Assuming, of course, that they ever do. But young Tatiana Maslany (who'd made a steady living as an actress) not only caught a break, she caught several. Seven (and counting) to be exact. Cast as a con artist named Sarah who discovers that she's an integral cog in an international, underground cloning experiment, Maslany not only got to show off her acting chops as the lead of her own series, but her impressive range as well.

Orphan Black: Season 1 Review

Clone Sweet Clone

The Enemy of My Enemy

A Steady Climb

Heavy Sci, Light Fi

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Playing multiple characters (who vary wildly in style, voice, and temperament) in the first season alone was enough to solidify Maslany as one of her generation's apex performers; not only being able to confidently live within each of the clones she plays, but also being able to endure the shooting schedule of a series that requires her to be in almost every single scene.Seriously. It's freakin' remarkable. And the best part is that it never comes off as gimmick-y. She's so damn good that you don't even pay attention to the tricks until you take a couple of steps back.As a subset to Maslany's uncanny undertaking, there are brilliant moments on the show when the clones have to pretend that they're each other! Which means that Maslany has to play the one of the characters she plays...while they try to emulate another character she plays. CLONECEPTION!So Sarah and her bizarre web of clonemies take turns, for the sake of humor and suspense, impersonating each other. Whether it's Sarah impersonating Beth (a doppelgänger police detective she saw commit suicide) in order to get her hands on Beth's bank account or Alison pretending to be Sarah so that she doesn't miss a scheduled visit with her estranged daughter, the show dazzles and dizzies us with its ingenious clone play.Piggybacking off of everything relating to Maslany and her ability to play a wide variety of characters, it must be said that the woman plays her own villains. Which is a whole other level of deviant innovation. It's one thing to play other curious characters who join together in order solve a big mystery which pertains to all of them, but it's another thing to play a grimy, bats*** religious psycho who means to exterminate them.And that's not the only "bad" clone Maslany portrays...There's a moderate chance that everything I'm describing to you right now is making your head spin. But fear not, Orphan Black doesn't hit you with its kaleidoscope-style mystery all at once. It eases you into it one breath-taking step at a time. All starting with the first scene in the first episode, where Sarah sees a woman who looks exactly like her jump in front of an oncoming train. What to do? What to do? It's clear the other woman had more means and resources than you, and wasn't on the run from her drug dealer boyfriend, so why not lift her identity for a night? Just to hide out. Well, that's where the roller coaster ride begins. From there, Sarah not only has to deal with the woman's own personal baggage as a police detective under investigation, but also with an escalating conspiracy involving a an organization called Dyad, who dabble in human evolution via sketchy fringe science.So it's not like we're introduced to all the clones at once. It's an ever-evolving reveal. Much as I assume Season 2 will open the floodgates up even wider.Though Orphan Black deals with unethical fringe science, you're not going to see monsters, mutants, and multi-verses like you did on FOX's Fringe. We're not knocking Fringe (we happen to love that show too), but one of the strengths of Orphan Black is that it assumes the form of "fifteen minutes from now" sci-fi. Like Person of Interest or any other show that pretty much shows us where we'll be in the very short future. If not even right now.It's all about cloning. And, going thematically deeper, identity. And what it could be like if a giant corporation, say, held the patent to your DNA sequencing. So like any great story dealing with fringe experiments, it puts a human face on the problem of those scientists out there who wonder if they could rather than if they should.

Orphan Black: Season 2 premieres Saturday, April 19th on BBC America. Season 1 is available to stream on Amazon Prime and is available on DVD and Blu-ray.Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/Showrenity