It attempts to dress up torture-porn tropes with a late-inning switch to science fiction that spectacularly backfires.
It emerges as an almost wistful hour, to be filed, after a truly disheartening season, under “too little, too late.”
A mixture of old ideas and new developments straining to hold our attention, an insolvent phantom itself.
It fails to suggest much more than madness in the method, as the show resumes its retreat into the realm of pure plot.
It strings together a series of arresting images, but they’re little more than a placeholder for dramas still to come.
The final act is an appropriate description for viewers who’ve struggled to connect with Orphan Black this season.
Focusing on the clones’ familial and romantic attachments, it offers a glimmer of hope for a return to form.
Perhaps the clever conceit of plumbing scientific texts for episode titles and structuring themes has run its course.
Tonight’s episode of Orphan Black comes all too close to the grievous error of which its title warns.
More evidence that Maslany’s is the best performance on TV, but it’s unclear if the show can keep pace.
The character study nestled inside all the bombast remains crafty for its commingling of artful storytelling and genre nonsensicality.
The cutting-room switchbacks required to hold the tune for nine—or is it 10?—narrative threads foil any chance at building momentum.