I liked original "Orphan Black" (for the most part), but this one felt really uninspiring. I could not even finish the first episode properly.
Original was far from perfect, especially its last season (or maybe like 1.5 seasons even), which felt very rushed and chaotic, and I could barely make sense of anything happening on screen. But most part of it did have good pacing: it was fast, but it knew when to slow down and give you a conversation, that could stir important thoughts in your head. Sequel does not have that.
It felt really slow. Which is not a bad thing, some movies and series are meant to be slow, to have sort of brooding atmosphere. Very often that works really well with psychological stuff, with thriller. Echoes tried to be thriller-ish within first minutes, but it fell flat in my eyes.
I think the issue is combination of the writing and the casting. I liked Avan Jogia in "Twisted", he did an amazing job for the character and all the mysticism parts of it. I loved Krysten Ritter in "Jessica Jones", she was amazing as this sort of cynical and brooding character. I thought they could make things work in the world of "Orphaned Black", because original did touch (heavily) on topic that fit both "brooding" and "mysticism" concepts.
In reality, Avan felt more like an eye candy, which is not bad by itself, but I did not feel anything else behind the character. And Krysten... As one of the reviews put it: "she lacks range". Tatiana Maslany was pulling original show even in last season simply because of how great she was at portraying different characters in different circumstances.
Ritter's character Lucy, though... Even though she is just one character she is shown to be mutli-faceted person, but... They all feel same. They all feel boring and mundane. Because Lucy is an empty shell, that has been around for like 2 years? Or because she is poorly written? I think the latter, because grown adult with a life experience of 2 years can be an interesting topic to explore.
I admit, that I may be biased, because I did not even finish the first episode, but to me it still says a lot: there's just no hook besides in this show besides a familiar name.
