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Natural Selection (Orphan Black)
Production
Reception
"Natural Selection" premiered in the United States on March 30, 2013, and drew 684,000 live viewers. Including viewers who watched playbacks of the episode on the same night, it had a total viewership of 1,026,000.[1] In Canada, the episode was watched by 404,000 viewers on Space, which made it the most-watched premiere of an original series on the channel.[2]
Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club gave "Natural Selection" an A– grade and particularly enjoyed the episode's unexpected plot developments and the writers' continually placing Sarah in "seemingly inescapable corner[s]". He described Maslany's performance as "absolutely fantastic" and commended the "labyrinthine plotting and endless forward momentum" of the storyline.[3] The Huffington Post's Chris Jancelewicz gave the episode an extremely positive review, giving particular praise to the episode's originality, its pace, its characters, and that "the innumerable layers of each character and their relationships with one another are dealt with perfectly." He commended the performances from Maslany and Gavaris, and noted that the two actors "play off of each other in the best possible way".[4] Alan Sepinwall of HitFix, described Maslany's acting as "terrific", "versatile" and "charismatic in the way any single-lead show needs". He admired the way the plot developed with "very little of it feeling contrived", as well as the balance between a dark and light tone.[5]
Roth Cornet, who reviewed the episode for IGN, praised Maslany's performance as Sarah but found the plot and supporting characters to be underdeveloped and sometimes implausible. Her conclusion was that "Ultimately, the pilot does a fair job of setting up a very basic premise and teasing an intriguing mystery."[6] A more critical review came from New York's Matt Zoller Seitz, who found the episode "amusing but not riveting" with a "loose and ragged" plot. He conceded that Maslany's performance was "undeniably impressive" but found her playing multiple roles gimmicky and detracting from the larger story: "the main selling point, Maslany's virtuosity, takes me out of the same drama in which I'm supposed to be immersed."[7]