Orphan Black weaved some slow-cooker mysteries throughout its run on the BBC, one of which being the obscure title’s meaning. Aside from sounding cool and piquing audience interest, the meaning of “Orphan Black” is eventually explained on the show.
Orphan Black was always a show that worked on multiple levels, one being the provocative sci-fi cloning storyline and the other being the heart of the show, the familial relationship between the Seestras. Orphan Black‘s title is also multifaceted, that is, it reflects both the arcane mystery and the show’s sentimentality. Its meaning shifts between these two functions as the series unfolds and the relationships between the clones evolved.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view.
The first time the words “orphan” and “black” are spoken together on the show is in Season 1, Episode 8, “Entangled Banks.” Towards the end of the episode, Siobhan is telling Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) about how she came to be under her foster care. Sarah was an orphan that was smuggled in a “pipeline” hidden from the restrictive regime of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Orphans were sometimes easy targets for illegal medical experiments, and so those orphans that were smuggled to safety were said to be “in the black.”
Sarah and the clones were referred to numerous times in the show’s promotional statements as “orphans,” which ties into the clues in the show. Sarah is, therefore, an orphan in the black. The title of the show just omits some prepositional words to make the phrase sound more incisive. Each of the clones were orphans in a way, since they technically have no biological mother or father. They were all a part of an underground science experiment and kept secret from one another. As the show progressed and the orphans found each other, they came out of secrecy, or the “black,” and created a new kind of family with each other.
The first time the actual phrase “orphan black” is uttered in the context of the show is in the final moments of the series finale. Helena shares an autobiographical book she wrote with her sisters about their story, the title of the book being “Orphan Black.” It’s a meta moment in the show and it gives the title a new emotional hue.
Graeme Manson, one of the creators of the show, told to The Hollywood Reporter that the book title “was John’s [Fawcett] idea originally, that Helena would be journaling this year. And then it became that the snake would sort of eat its tail and we would loop back and name the series and share a few gentle laughs with Clone Club about the name of Orphan Black, everybody saying what a dumb name it was. John and I heard that endlessly when we started this show.”
The creators tied the name into the show’s meaning and gave it an affectionate wink at the series’ close, especially by having the beloved former assassin, Helena, reflect on the clones’ journey from the black. Hints were dropped along the way about the title’s significance, which culminated in a new sentimental light that harkens back to what the show is truly about: found families.