Diane Haithman contributes to Deadline’s TCA coverage.

BBC America’s drama Orphan Black stars Tatiana Maslany as young woman who witnesses the suicide of her clone. Series co-creator (with John Fawcett) and writer Graeme Manson described the show as “near-fi” not “sci-fi” today at TCA. “We’re a sci-fi show, but we’re set in the here and the now,” he said. “That’s really important to us, that the juice feels real. It’s not space ships and warp drives.”

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Mason said the show began gestating about 10 years ago, when creative partner Fawcett said. “Wouldn’t it be cool if you were standing in a train station and you looked across the tracks and you saw yourself, and then your eyes met and yourself stepped in front of a train?” He added that the pair had tried to make the project work as a feature film but “we just couldn’t contain the story in a couple hours of a feature. As the cable TV landscape changed around us, we realized it would be a great series.”