Set in the present, Orphan Black is a Canadian television programme created by screenwriter Graeme Manson and director John Fawcett, which aired in the USA on BBC America for three seasons and is now slated for a fourth season beginning spring 2016. While Orphan Black seems to have achieved a level of cultural importance in the zeitgeist that Extant never did, each show adds to current conversations about diversity and representation in visual media, whose lives and bodies matter and, by extension, whose stories are worthy of telling. In Extant, artificial intelligence and human–alien hybrids confront the characters with fundamental philosophical questions about autonomy, personhood, free will and the right to life. In Orphan Black, the ethical and moral consequences of human cloning and its impact on human identity development are explored throughout the series from the perspective of the clones, all played by the same actress, Tatiana Maslany. They also each represent a potential for boundary transgressions which can test those cultural anxieties in alternative speculative landscapes. Together they reflect an overlapping set of contemporary social and cultural anxieties, both those originating from within the dominant culture and those originating on its margin. Orphan Black and Extant have arisen out of a particular set of historical and political realities, as evidenced by the composition of their casts, their characters and the themes explored in each series.
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