We live in a world where pigs are cloned on an "industrial scale", where the director of engineering at Google believes human beings will be able to live forever with the help of technology and tampering with our DNA, and where the US Supreme Court recently had to make a law to stop people patenting genetic material (unless it's synthetic). We live in a world that actually isn't too far from that of Orphan Black, and its creators have been canny in their cherry-picking of trends in science, technology and society in order to build a convincing, engaging world. One of the clones the show centres on, Cosima, is a graduate student who's studying evolutionary developmental biology (basically how different organisms evolve, and what we can learn from them). From there she's dragged into a world of body modification and transhumanism which isn't too dissimilar from people implanting headphones in their ears or those chasing the William Gibson ideal. None of this is required knowledge to enjoy Orphan Black, it's just a clever way of grounding its more fantastical elements - ie a shadowy organisation that's secretly producing multiple clones of one woman - in reality. It's also clever because it's not necessary to "get it" or realise that all this stuff isn't too far off, but all the technobabble is convincing enough that you don't question it either way, and can instead get wrapped up in the crazy story.
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/
