In its five seasons, the beautiful, relevant Orphan Black has set the bar for TV shows shot in Toronto featuring a diverse cast. And unlike other co-productions made here, it doesn’t attempt to hide its location. In 1983’s Videodrome, David Cronenberg had James Woods run across Broadview, and Toronto’s east end is also a major fixture of Orphan Black. It’s a political statement as much as an aesthetic one, asserting our city as the site where unique and vital stories happen.
That Orphan Black is a show about 11 clones working to uncover the truth behind their existence while they resist the control of the forces responsible for their creation makes its success all the more special. The stellar cast, particularly Emmy-winning lead Tatiana Maslany as the multiple clones, grounds its dense plot and gives it its heart.
With Orphan Black now in its final season, and the last episode set to air Sunday, August 12, on Space, here are five other sci-fi/fantasy shows filmed in the city that show just as much promise.
The Expanse
Visual stunner The Expanse shows off some great writing. This space opera has an excellent pedigree– it’s an adaptation of a series of novels by James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck’s pen name), developed by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Children Of Men).
Story-wise, it’s like a pulpy Dashiell Hammett novel set on Battlestar Galactica, with a missing person mystery drawing the audience into a story of political intrigue and class war.
The excellent cast includes Tom Jane, Jared Harris and Shohreh Aghdashloo alongside rising stars like local actor Cara Gee, whose portrayal of Drummer quickly became a fan favourite after her arrival in season 2, which ended on Space in April. A third is on the way.
Killjoys
Like creator and showrunner Michelle Lovretta’s other made-in-Toronto hit show, Lost Girl, Killjoys centres its plot on a strong female lead. From the same production company as Orphan Black, Killjoys swaps Lost Girl’s vampires for bounty hunters in space.
Hannah John-Kamen plays Dutch, who along with fellow bounty hunters or “killjoys” John (Aaron Ashmore) and D’avin (Luke Macfarlane), travels through their system (“the quad”) wherever work takes them.
Tonally, this show is a bit more lighthearted and pithy than Orphan Black, as if inspired by the “boring conversation anyway” scene from Star Wars: A New Hope.
It’s no surprise, then, that it’s also Space’s most popular original show, returning for a third season on June 30.
The Handmaid’s Tale
It seems only natural to shoot a television adaptation of a Toronto writer’s work here, but the industry has only matured within the past decade. It’s strange to think that it might not have been possible just a few years ago. The choice to shoot the TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s speculative novel in southern Ontario gives the show an extra bit of resonance for the local audience.
The Handmaid’s Tale works because it makes the political personal: the tyrannical, fundamentalist Christian world of Gilead is seen through the eyes of captive handmaid Offred (Elisabeth Moss).
Moss does a lot of the heavy lifting – the camera is more often than not fixed on her face. The series, produced by Hulu but broadcast on Bravo in Canada, wrapped up its first season this month and has been renewed for a second.
American Gods
This is the love child of showrunner Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) and Neil Gaiman, the author of the book on which the show is based.
Ex-con Shadow (Ricky Whittle) gets thrown into a clash of old and new worlds when he meets the mysterious Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane). After a slow start, the show picks up steam halfway through the season with an episode that deviates heavily from the book. Some of American Gods’ best moments come when it embellishes characters and storylines that are only footnotes in the source material.
Typical for Fuller, it’s gorgeous, but it’s worth watching for the performances alone. McShane is a treat in anything he does, even if he’s not as gloriously foul-mouthed as he was in Deadwood. Gillian Anderson shows off her range as a character that’s the living embodiment of pop art. Though the season finale has already been broadcast, the only (legal) way to watch it in Canada is via Amazon Prime. So if you’re just tuning in, it’s fully bingeable.
Pictured (l-r): Michelle Yeoh as Captain Philippa Georgiou Sonequa Martin-Green as First Officer Michael Burnham. STAR TREK: DISCOVERY coming to CBS All Access. Photo Cr: Dalia Naber. © 2017 CBS Interactive. All Rights Reserved.
Star Trek: Discovery
The first Star Trek series in more than a decade began production in Toronto last fall. Bryan Fuller, who cut his teeth writing for Deep Space Nine and Voyager, is responsible for the show’s story arc. (Between Hannibal, American Gods and now Star Trek, he must really like it here.) He will remain a producer but hand the rest off to fellow Pushing Daisies scribes Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts.
Not much is known about the story yet, though a “first look” trailer dropped last month reveals the show takes place 10 years before the original Star Trek series, shaking things up by focusing on the ship’s first officer (Sonequa Martin-Green) rather than its captain.
Aesthetically, Discovery looks like a cross between Enterprise and the sleek Apple Store glow of the new films. Also, the Klingons look different now, which has made some people mad! Discovery is set to air in the fall.
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