A young woman stands on a subway platform. She turns to see another woman take off her shoes and coat, set down her bag, and turn around. The other woman… is her.
The other woman… steps off the subway platform into the path of an oncoming train.
That’s the first five minutes of Orphan Black, a new show on BBC America (and Space, in Canada). What follows is science fiction. Kind of.
Imagine that, a year or so ago, you saw a trailer for a film in which humanity discovered another planet Earth growing slowly closer. Humanity made contact with Earth Two, as they called it, and realized that each and every person on the planet could have a duplicate up there.
Then there’s some cuts of a young blond woman, a car accident, a relationship, and the chance for Our Heroine to win a trip to Earth Two. She seems all introspective; a Coldplay-like song runs in the background; the trailer ends.
Watch it yourself, if you like.
The problem, though, is that the movie I saw wasn’t quite the movie I was advertised.