It’ll be missed (Picture: BBC America)

Last weekend, the Orphan Black sestras said their goodbyes as one of the boldest and bravest TV shows of recent years came to an end.

Orphan Black: the best moments (so far)

And what an incredible ride these five seasons have been, from that shocking opener at the train station in episode one to where we left the clones: out saving the others.

*Warning: contains spoilers from the show.*

Sure, the end of the show means no more Sarah, Cosima, Helena, Alison, Rachel and co. It means no more ‘chicken’ or ‘monkey’ or ‘meathead’.


But what it leaves us with is an incredible story that is sure to stand the test of time, and an incredibly devoted fan base, the Clone Club.



And the Clone Club have been out in force over the past few days, sharing stories of what this show has meant to them and why they will miss it so much.

Orphan Black has proven itself more than just a fun watch. It has really meant the world to so many of us across the globe.

The show brought us a collection of seriously badass, complex, intriguing, nasty, funny and enigmatic ladies. It explored themes of motherhood and fertility, of sisterhood and friendship and – arguably one of the most startlingly relevant themes of modern times – a woman’s right to have control over her own body.

Cosima and Sarah are more than medical specimens (Picture: BBC America)

These ideas were not only explored by the women central to this story, of course; it also affected the men in their lives, be they colleagues, spouses, siblings or friends.

Because ‘we make a family’, right?

Orphan Black was an unashamedly female-focused and feminist show, but not in any way that tried to suggest women are better than men. It was a celebration of women in all their messy glory and for that we fell head over heels for it.

Over five seasons, the clones did all they could to defeat those who sought to harm them and who insisted that they were ‘property’, because the clones wanted to get to a point when they could live a life unmonitored by external parties who felt they could come in at any point and take over.

The Leda clones fought to get free of the Dyad Institute, who wanted to own them (Picture: BBC America)

Individually there wasn’t much they could do. But together, there was no stopping them.

One of the most exciting elements of Orphan Black was the way it explored the idea of nature vs nurture. These genetic identicals begin exactly the same but then grow into very different women, affected in some way by where they were raised and by whom.

There is the family we are born into and the family we choose and few shows have been able to look at that quite like Orphan Black did.

Just because they look alike, there was no rule that said they all had to get on. There was so much conflict between the clones, from the annoyed and frustrated to the murderous and threatening, and watching that complexity shift over the five seasons was a fascinating insight into growth, change and determination.

For a show that dealt with such multi-faceted themes, it was also able to shift between moods beautifully. It was funny (twerking will never be the same again), moving (Mrs S!), terrifying (that shower scene), hugely shocking (the eye!), inspiring and so very clever.



So thank you to creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett, to Tatiana Maslany and the rest of the incredible cast, to the clone stand-ins who were so clearly an integral part of the team and to all the crew who made this a show so brilliantly executed that, even after five years, we’re still convinced the clones are actually played by different people.

Surely it’s time for a rewatch now, right…?

MORE: The Orphan Black clones ranked from worst to best

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