I can distinctly remember when OZ first premiered on HBO. The character of Tobias Beecher represented our introduction to maximum security prison life: A mild mannered white middle aged man about to enter the viper pit, completely unprepared for anything and everything that is about to happen to him. The first episodes, not to mention the entire first season, was gripping, intense, and brutal.
Then as the years went by, the show kind of denigrated into a melodramatic, tawdry soap opera, and it was always the same show. So-and-so plots against so-and-so. Someone gets raped, hooked on drugs, killed, beaten. Basically, it became mind-numbingly repetitive. They should have called it quits after the first riot. The acting went from naturalistic to macho preening. Instead of feeling like they were really in a maximum security prison, it felt more and more like they were just actors on a set, reading lines for the camera.
In the end, it became a guilty pleasure of mine because of its unintentional hilarity.
Then as the years went by, the show kind of denigrated into a melodramatic, tawdry soap opera, and it was always the same show. So-and-so plots against so-and-so. Someone gets raped, hooked on drugs, killed, beaten. Basically, it became mind-numbingly repetitive. They should have called it quits after the first riot. The acting went from naturalistic to macho preening. Instead of feeling like they were really in a maximum security prison, it felt more and more like they were just actors on a set, reading lines for the camera.
In the end, it became a guilty pleasure of mine because of its unintentional hilarity.