Paint It Black

The Orphan Black story continues with Echoes, a new series set 30 years after the original

- STEVE O'BRIEN

THERE AREN’T MANY TV SHOWS that can boast a following so great that its fans even have a name. Clone Club has been the label for devotees of cult Canadian drama Orphan Black since it made its small screen debut in 2013. The series – about a human clone by the name of Sarah Manning – hoovered up a host of awards during its original five-season, 50-episode run, including a Primetime Emmy and a Peabody.

Now, seven years after that final episode, comes Orphan Black: Echoes, a sequel that, while it’s a distinct series in its own right, also promises to feel comfortingly familiar to old-time Clone Clubbers.

“We wanted to give the fans of the original show something to sink their teeth into,” Echoes showrunner Anna Fishko – a former writer and producer on Fear The Walking Dead – tells Red Alert, “so we’re using some of the characters from the original. We talked a lot about which characters the Clone Club had really latched on to and felt strongly about, and that was very informative in terms of how I shaped the story. At the same time I also wanted people who hadn’t watched all five seasons of the original show not to be lost in the weeds.”

Certainly, there are characters that fans of the original show will recognise in