The BBC America series Orphan Black (2013-2017) won acclaim for its compelling writing, resonant themes and innovative special effects. And for the bravura acting of Tatiana Maslany, who plays an ever-growing number of clones drawn into an increasingly dangerous world of cutting-edge science, corporate espionage, military secrets and religious fanaticism. Heir to pioneering shows centered on strong female characters, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse, Lost and Xena: Warrior Princess, Orphan Black models the current Golden Age of serial-form storytelling, with themes of identity, bodily autonomy, gender and sexuality playing against corporate greed and its co-opting of science. This collection of new essays analyzes the diverse clone characters and the series, covering topics including motherhood, surveillance culture, mythology, eugenics, and special effects, as well as the science behind cloning.

This volume provides an overview of the landscape of mediated female agencies and subjectivities in the last decade. In three sections, the book covers the films of women directors, television shows featuring women in lead roles, and the representational struggles of women in cultural context, with a special focus on changes in the transformative power of narratives and images across genres and platforms. This collection derives from the editors’ multi-year experiences as scholars and practitioners in the field of film and television. It is an effort that aims to describe and understand female agencies and subjectivities across screen narratives, gather scholars from around the world to generate timely discussions, and inspire fellow researchers and practitioners of film and television.

The films, television shows, and graphic novel series that comprise the Whedonverse continually show that there is a high price to be paid for love, rebellion, heroism, anger, death, betrayal, friendship, and saving the world. This collection of essays reveals the ways in which the Whedonverse treats the trauma of ordinary life with similar gravitas as trauma created by the supernatural, illustrating how memories are lost, transformed, utilized, celebrated, revered, questioned, feared, and rebuffed within the storyworlds created by Joss Whedon and his collaborators. Through a variety of approaches and examinations, the essays in this book seek to understand how the themes of trauma, memory, and identity enrich one another in the Whedonverse and beyond. As the authors present different arguments and focus on various texts, the essays work to build a mosaic of the trauma found in beloved works like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dollhouse, and more. The book concludes with a meta-analysis that explores the allegations of various traumas made against Joss Whedon himself.

A fascinating deep-dive into how shows from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The Equalizer have changed the way women are portrayed on television. The last three decades of television have been a formative and progressive time for female characters, as stronger, more independent women have appeared on screen to guide a new generation of viewers into their own era of power. These characters battle vampires, demons, corrupt government officials, and scientific programs all while dealing with the same real-world concerns their audiences face every day. In Fierce Females on Television: A Cultural History, Nicole Evelina examines ten shows from the past thirty years to unveil the enormous impact they have had on the way women are portrayed on television. She reveals how Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Alias, Nikita, Agent Carter, Jessica Jones, Homeland, House of Cards, Orphan Black, and The Equalizer feature extraordinary lead characters who are at the same time utterly relatable, facing surprisingly familiar questions in their everyday lives regarding sexuality, gender, and how to fight back in a patriarchal world. Fierce Females on Television shows how, even with their captivating mix of melodrama, mystery, magic, and martial arts, these shows nevertheless represent the audience’s own desires and fears. Finally, viewers of science fiction, fantasy, spy, and political shows have strong, modern women to watch, admire, and emulate.

In a world in which political opportunity and liberation seem far away, the genre of science fiction grows in cultural importance and popularity. The contributors to this collection are political and social theorists from a range of disciplines who use science fiction as inspiration for new theories and examples of speculative politics. In dystopian governments, they find locations and forms of resistance. Representations of Political Resistance and Emancipation in Science Fiction explores a range of political and social theoretical concerns for the twenty-first century. Contributors analyze themes of post-humanism, resistance, agency, political community making, and ethics and politics during the Anthropocene.

Television is entering a unique era, in which women and minorities no longer serve under white captains but take the lead--and all the other roles as well. In a brilliant new universe where the intersectional values of fourth wave feminism are becoming more widespread, fantasy and science fiction are leading the charge. Shows from Star Wars to Doctor Who are rewriting their traditional storylines to include more well-rounded and racially diverse female characters. Steven Universe, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Orphan Black and Sense8 highlight queer characters and experiences. Dystopias like Marvel's Jessica Jones and The Handmaid's Tale show the female perspective entirely, guiding viewers from trauma to self-determination. In fantasy and horror, Wynonna Earp, Game of Thrones, Supergirl, Vikings, American Horror Story, Black Mirror, and The Walking Dead reveal how much the story changes with a spectrum of women reclaiming the text from white, straight, young, cisgender men. These new shows are intersectional, digital, global, critical, and political, with fan responses changing the content and cutting-edge platforms like Netflix and Hulu shaking up the format.

In Orphan Black, several apparently unconnected women discover that they are exact physical doubles, that there are more of them out there, that they are all illegally produced clones, and that someone is having them killed. They find themselves in the midst of a secret and violent struggle between a fundamentalist religious group, a fanatical cult of superhuman biological enhancement, a clandestine department of the military, and a giant biotech corporation. Law enforcement is powerless and easily manipulated by these sinister forces. The clones are forced to form their own Clone Club, led by the resourceful Sarah Manning, to defend themselves against their numerous enemies and to find out exactly where they came from and why. Orphan Black continually raises philosophical issues, as well as ethical and policy questions deserving philosophical analysis. What makes a person a unique individual? Why is it so important for us to know where we came from? Should we have a say in whether a clone is made of us? Is it immoral to generate clones with built-in health problems or personality defects — and if so, does that mean that producers of clones must practice eugenic selection? What light does the behavior of members of the Clone Club shed on the nature-nurture debate? Is it relevant that most are heterosexual, one is a lesbian, and one is a transgendered male? This TV show shows us problems of biotechnology which will soon be vital everyday issues. But what kind of a future faces us when human clones are commonplace? Will groups of human clones have a tight bond of solidarity making them a threat to democracy? If the world is going to be taken over by an evil conspiracy, would it better be a scientific cult like Neolution or a religious cult like the Prolethians? Should biotech corporations be able to own the copyright on human DNA sequences? What rules of morality apply when you can’t trust the police and powerful groups are ready to murder you?