We are less than a couple weeks away from the premiere of BBC’s biotech-inspired, sci-fi drama Orphan Black. The third season begins on April 18. And I, for one, couldn’t be more thrilled, as should everyone in biotech.
The hype is gaining momentum as many are waiting to see what plot twists and turns await us, especially now that we know there are is a whole group of male clones, too. And for good reason, the lead actress, Tatiana Maslany, (lead doesn’t quite do her role justice), is currently getting a lot of praise and attention for her impressive and complicated achievement of playing multiple characters.
The 29-year-old actress has now received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for her role(s), and The New York Times spent some time focusing on the precisely executed, schizophrenic nature of her job. Definitely worth a read. The story did a nice job of explaining why the show’s clone concept is so compelling.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
In its subject matter, “Orphan Black” broods on the nature-nurture debate in human biology, but in its execution, the show cleverly extends the same question to matters of genre. What does the exact same woman look like if you grow her in the petri dish of “Desperate Housewives” or on a horror-film set in Eastern Europe? What about a police procedural? The result is a revelation: Instead of each archetype existing as the lone female character in her respective universe, these normally isolated tropes find one another, band together and seek to liberate themselves from the evil system that created them.
If you’re not already caught up, get it together – there’s not much time.
Many people are piping in on the show, either with a closer look at how Orphan Black manages to pull off the technical aspect of having the same actress play characters who fully interact with one another (watch this video), or the science behind the probability that a clone fiasco could happen how it has on the show.
Here’s a brief clip demonstrating the many faces of Maslany on the show.
Using Informed Awareness to Transform Care Coordination and Improve the Clinical and Patient Experience
This eBook, in collaboration with Care Logistics, details how hospitals and health systems can facilitate more effective decision-making by operationalizing elevated awareness.
