I stumbled across a television series this weekend called Orphan Black and ended up binge-watching all of Season 1. The show airs on BBC America, and it’s – in a word – fantastic. The show starts with a woman running into a look-alike at the train station. Just as the main character, Sarah, realizes she’s looking at herself, the other woman jumps in front of a train. Sarah steals the woman’s purse and impulsively takes over her life. This leads to other doppelgangers!
As I was watching the show and becoming more and more engrossed, I kept having this vague sense of deja vu. It wasn’t long before I realized that Orphan Black had a ton of similarities to my Triple X series. (duh!) When Sarah and Beth met, it was like Lexie and Roxie meeting for the first time. (Although neither of them jumped in front of a train!) Then there was a scene where Alison, another look-alike, pretends to be Sarah. It was similar to the scene from Maxie where the identical triplets pose as one another at the magic show. Then there’s the scene where Sarah jumps the bones of this impossibly hot guy. It’s a page right out of Roxie’s book where… Oh yeah, you haven’t read that yet. 😉
Anyway, in the television series the women look alike, but their styles are very different. I’m not just talking about hair and clothes. They have different lifestyles and priorities, but at the heart of it, they’re one unit. They care about each other, and they’re all working together to get to the bottom of their mystery. (Well, except for maybe Helena. She’s nuts.) Does any of that sound familiar? Once again, it was my Triple X trilogy.
They say that there are no original ideas left anymore, and maybe the similarities between the television show and the books are an example of that. Yet I still think there are countless ways to make ideas unique. Orphan Black and my books might start out with the same basic premise — how would identical women react to one another and how could their lives intertwine? After that, though, the ideas spiral off to very different quarters — and that’s what makes things exciting. Maybe we have to start out at the same place, but I think there are a gazillion original ideas left to be found. How could there not be?
So I can’t wait to watch Season 2 of Orphan Black, and I hope you’re just as excited to read Roxie’s story. It will be here soon. Just one more week!
