Violence in a snow strewn suburbia, with blood splattered across the frost whilst those indoors try to save face yep, there's a lot of shared DNA between Orphan Black and Fargo. Show creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett have invoked the sibling directing team the Coen Brothers as an influence on their show on a number of occasions, both in their setting, violent twists and esoteric character work. The season one episode Variations Under Domestication was originally cooked up as a potluck bottle episode, referring to an episode of a TV show done cheaply, all set in a single location (as Community will tell you). The bonus of doing that here was to finally get all the clones in one place, with a mostly dialogue-driven series of unfortunate events. It ended up being a macabre comedy of errors, with Alison's party crashed by various members and enemies of Clone Club. Both that whole episode and the opening of the second season première, a tense stand-off in a diner that erupts into violence, were based off of the Coen Brothers at their best some sort of mix of Fargo's ugly domestication and No Country For Old Men's nightmare in your own back yard.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
