I considered listing it. The first few episodes were indeed shlock. From what I’ve read, the improvement came when Joss Whedon wrestled control back from Fox. I liked it enough to hang in until the end, and it improved greatly, but I felt it never really found its feet.
The reason I like Orphan Black so much is that there is a strong weighting of science over fiction. The setting is present-day and the science portrayed is not far from actual research into cloning and DNA, at least to the layman (me). There is no recourse to magic or superpowers, with the possible exception of Kira’s clairvoyance. Certainly it’s a conspiracy thriller, so your tolerance for that genre will determine how you rank it.
