Everybody watches TV because they can't be bothered with all this fancy book learnin'. Why read when you can passively let a story unfold in front of you? You don't even need to be paying attention properly, you can be on your phone or whatever. Not so with a book. And yet Orphan Black betrays its true nature by leaning heavily on books as symbolism and plot devices throughout its run. Charles Darwin's Origin Of The Species has made a couple of appearances, being read by people in the background at bars and the like, providing a not-so-subtle hint in the early days as to the direction the series was going. The fictional Huxley Station from the very beginning of the first episode is, obviously, named after pioneering sci-fi author Aldous Huxley. Then there's The Island Of Dr Moreau, which has served as both a MacGuffin and thematic hint. HG Wells' book is read by clone originator Ethan Duncan to Sarah's daughter Kira, and it's where he's hidden a bunch of super secret genetic notes he doesn't want the bad guys getting a hold of. But the book is another allusion to the themes of the show, being about a mad scientist on an island doing genetic experiments.
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/
