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Hear Tatiana Maslany return to Orphan Black in Serial Box’s new audiobook

Hear Tatiana Maslany return to Orphan Black in Serial Box’s new audiobook

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orphan black
Image: BBC America

The BBC’s Orphan Black ran for five years on television, and it’s set to return later this summer on a new platform. Publishing startup Serial Box has announced that it will continue the story as one of its “serials” — an episodic novel with accompanying narration — with series star Tatiana Maslany set to narrate.

Serial Box has a unique publishing model: it releases novel-length seasons of a story, broken up into a series of episodes. It’s a format that adheres more to that of a TV show, rather than your traditional novel. Over the last couple of years, the publisher has released a number of its own original content with titles like Ninth Step Station, The Vela, and The Witch Who Came in From The Cold. This year, Serial Box made the jump into licensed IP with a slate of stories set in the Marvel universe featuring Black Panther, Black Widow, Jessica Jones, and Thor.

Orphan Black: The Next Chapter is the latest such foray into existing worlds. The TV series started when a woman named Sarah Manning witnessed a suicide of someone who looked exactly like her, and discovers that she’s one of seven clones and that they’re all in danger from a major biotech firm called the Dyad Institute. The series ran through 2017, and earlier this year, word broke that AMC was developing a new series set in the same world.

Serial Box says that the series is set eight years after the end of the show, and will feature the same characters. “The story will take fans in some unexpected directions, and there are a lot of treats along the way that harken back to previous seasons.”

The first clip from the series showcases Maslany’s return to the franchise. Like in the show, it seems the audiobook will feature plenty of clones-impersonating-clones shenanigans, with the clip seeing a new clone, Vivi, impersonating Cosima Niehaus, a fan-favorite character from the original series. Maslany’s oft-praised (and Emmy award-winning) acting in differentiating the characters is on full display here, and is made even more impressive by the fact that it’s being done completely through voice.

This new series will feature Malka Older (Ninth Step Station, The Centenal Cycle series), with Madeline Ashby, Mishell Baker, Heli Kennedy, E.C. Myers, and Lindsay Smith attached as series writers. Maslany, who played Sarah Manning (and all of her clones) and earned an Emmy Award for her work, will narrate the audio version of the series. Serial Box says that the series will be available “later this summer.”

Update August 6th, 5:51PM ET: Updated post with Serial Box’s first clip from Orphan Black: The Next Chapter.