Oz (TV series)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Oz | |
|---|---|
 The cast of Oz |
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| Format | Drama |
| Created by | Tom Fontana |
| Starring | Harold Perrineau Jr. Lee Tergesen J.K. Simmons Eamonn Walker Dean Winters Kirk Acevedo Christopher Meloni Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Ernie Hudson Terry Kinney Rita Moreno B.D. Wong Lauren Vélez Kristin Rohde Edie Falco Kathryn Erbe Mark Margolis Scott William Winters Luis Guzman Leon Robinson Luke Perry Tony Musante Robert Clohessy David Zayas J.D. Williams Evan Seinfeld Lance Reddick muMs da Schemer |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of seasons | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 56 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | approximately 60 mins (commercial-free) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | HBO |
| Original run | July 12, 1997 – February 23, 2003 |
| External links | |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
Oz is an American television drama series created by Tom Fontana, who also wrote or co-wrote all of the series' 56 episodes. It was the first one-hour dramatic television series to be produced by HBO. It aired for six seasons between 1997 and 2003.
Oz is the nickname for the Oswald State Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison of undisclosed location. Many of the plot arcs are set in Emerald City ("Em City"), an experimental unit of the prison in which the unit manager attempts to emphasize rehabilitation and learning responsibility during incarceration. Emerald City is a controlled environment where there are a limited number of members of each racial and social group.
The large ensemble cast included Rita Moreno, Ernie Hudson, Terry Kinney and Betty Buckley; later Law & Order stars Kathryn Erbe, Christopher Meloni, B. D. Wong, J. K. Simmons, Dean Winters and Kirk Acevedo; Lost stars Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Harold Perrineau Jr.; Dexter stars Erik King, David Zayas, and Lauren Vélez.; The Sopranos Edie Falco. Many of the actors from Oz have appeared as guest stars on The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Black Donnellys, New York Undercover, 24, Lost, the TV series Dexter, and in the various Law & Order series.
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Contents |
[edit] Style
Oz is narrated by Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau), a former drug dealer and ex-junkie. Now confined to a wheelchair, he appears in surreal segments or introductions that usually relate to an overall theme of the episode, setting up scenes, introducing characters, or adding epilogues. When necessary, usually when a character is introduced, Hill appears omniscient, as a tool of the writers, and narrates the details of character's lives, their prison number, their crimes, and sentences. Hill appeared as a recurring character within the shows' story lines until the sixth season, in which narration was taken up by various deceased characters, and Hill as well. The narrations by Hill are thus a form of breaking the fourth wall. He did not address the camera during scenes where he was interacting with the other characters in the story. Once in the show Hill appeared to address another character with one of his narrations: in the season 3 episode "Unnatural Disasters" Adebisi turns on a computer to see Hill dressed as a pharaoh speaking to him. (However, the unusual sight is quickly discarded by him as a drug-induced hallucination, and he never speaks of it.)
The narration made by Augustus Hill over the series is similar in both purpose and execution to the role of the Greek chorus in Ancient theatre, both providing plot exposition, as well as commenting upon the events of the stories, giving the audience a clearer understanding of the narrative's moral/thematic standpoint.
[edit] Cast and characters
Oz's initial starring cast consisted of 14 actors. Four of these were credited as "Starring": Ernie Hudson as Leo Glynn, the warden of Oz, Terry Kinney as Emerald City unit manager Tim McManus, Harold Perrineau as prisoner Augustus Hill, the narrator, and Eamonn Walker as new inmate and devout Muslim Kareem Said. Credited as "Also Starring" were: Edie Falco as correctional officer Diane Wittlesey, Rita Moreno as prison counselor Sister Peter Marie Reimondo, Kirk Acevedo as Latino inmate Miguel Alvarez, Leon Robinson as prisoner Jefferson Keane, J.K. Simmons as prisoner Vernon Schillinger, the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood in Oz, Tony Musante as incarcerated mafia boss Nino Schibetta, Lee Tergesen as another new inmate called Tobias Beecher, Sean Whitesell as cannibalistic inmate Donald Groves, Dean Winters as manipulative Irish inmate Ryan O'Reily, and B.D. Wong as the prison chaplain Father Ray Mukada. During the season, Robinson and Whitesell left after their characters were executed and Musante left following his character's murder.
Season two saw several new additions. Recurring guest stars Lauren Vélez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and George Morfogen joined the main cast. Vélez played prison doctor Gloria Nathan, Akinnuoye-Agbaje played the leader of the Homeboys gang, Simon Adebisi and Morfogen played long-term inmate Bob Rebadow. Also, Acevedo, Moreno, Simmons, Tergesen and Winters joined Hudson, Kinney, Perrineau and Walker as the top billed cast-members.
Season three saw Akinnuoye-Agbaje receive top billing, with new additions Kathryn Erbe as Shirley Bellinger, who was on death row for killing her daughter, Luis Guzman as Latino gang-leader Raoul "El Cid" Hernandez, Mark Margolis as mob boss Antonio Nappa, and Christopher Meloni as Beecher's love interest Chris Keller, all of which had been recurring guests the previous season. Falco left at the end of the season, and Margolis left when his character was murdered.
Season four featured 10 "Starring" and 14 "Also Starring" cast members throughout the season. New additions were: Betty Buckley as Suzanne Fitzgerald, Ryan O'Reilly's mother and the Emerald City music teacher; Anthony Chisholm as Hill's mentor and stepfather Burr Redding; Rick Fox as basketball champion Jackson Vahue; Zeljko Ivanek as Governor James Devlin; David Johansen as Jewish inmate Eli Zabitz; Brian F. O'Byrne as Provisional IRA terrorist Padraig Connolly; Luke Perry as Jeremiah Cloutier, a reverend who was arrested for embezzling funds from his church; and Scott William Winters as the brain-damaged brother of Ryan, Cyril O'Reilly.
[edit] Main Crew
- Jim Finnerty
- Tom Fontana
- Barry Levinson
- Bridget Potter
- Debbie Sarjeant
- Irene Burns
- Adam Bernstein
- Sean Whitesell
- Taylor Harrison
- Chelsea Mason
[edit] Episodes and broadcast history
Oz took advantage of the freedoms of premium cable to show material that would be too extreme for traditional American broadcast television: coarse language, drug use, violence, male frontal nudity, homosexuality, rape, ethnic and religious conflict. In Australia, Oz was screened on the free-to-air channel SBS. This was also the case in Israel, where Oz was displayed on the free-to-air commercial Channel 2, in Italy where it was aired on the free-to-air Italia 1, in the United Kingdom where Channel 4 aired the show late at night, in Ireland on TG4 where it was shown at 11pm, and in Brazil, where it was aired by the SBT Network Corporation, also late at night. In The Netherlands, Oz aired on the commercial Channel RTL 5 and in Sweden and Norway, Oz aired on the commercial channels TV3 and ZTV late at night, and in Finland, on the free-to-air channel Nelonen (TV4). In Canada, Oz aired on the Showcase Channel at 10pm EST. In Denmark, Oz appeared late night on the non-commercial public service channel DR1. In Spain the show aired on Canal+, a premium channel. In Estonia, as well as Croatia, the show was aired late at night on public non-commercial state-owned channels, ETV and HRT, respectively. In Bosnia and Herzegovina it was aired on the federal TV station called FTV. In Portugal Oz aired late at night on SIC Radical, one of the SIC channels in the cable network. In France the show aired on a commercial cable channel 'Serie Club', also late at night. In Turkey, Oz was aired on Cine5, DiziMax also aired the re-runs. In Serbia, Oz was aired on RTV BK Telecom. In Panama, Oz was aired on RPC Channel 4 in a latetime hour. In India, reruns of Oz are aired on Zee Cafe in the late night slot (11 pm IST), albeit with some scenes deleted and adult language "muted" out.
The program's seasonal length (eight episodes, Seasons 1, 2, 3, 5, 6; sixteen episodes, Season 4) is an example of a trend for cable network programming to feature shorter seasons than American free-to-air channels, which typically feature more than twenty episodes per season.
[edit] References in other media
- In an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Johnathan and Andrew are locked up in the local Sunnydale jailhouse. Johnathan is paranoid about jail, but Andrew scathingly reminds him, "This isn't Oz; this is Mayberry."
- An episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live hosted by Jerry Seinfeld featured an "episode" of Oz (using the actual set and actors) where Jerry, as the character who was sent to prison during the final episode of Seinfeld and the actor, is transferred to Em City; the short film combines and parodies memorable moments in both series.
- Saturday Night Live's rival sketch show MADtv did two Oz parodies: one with Bill Cosby (Aries Spears) in jail (called Coz) and another where Martha Stewart (played by Mo Collins) is sent to the Oswald Correctional Facility and uses her recipes and home decorating ideas to kill the other prisoners.
- The episode Fast Times at Buddy Cianci Jr. High of FOX's Family Guy featured Lois Griffin believing her son Chris to have killed a man, whereas it was actually the man's wife who did the deed. Lois briefly contemplates calling the police but forgets it, stating "I can't call the police. I have to get rid of this body or Chris will go to prison, and we all know what happens in prison showers! I've seen Oz!"' It then cuts to a group of naked inmates scrubbing each others backs in the shower singing a song to the tune to Merry Old Land Of Oz from The Wizard of Oz.
- The Arrested Development episode "Visiting Ours" featured a young, traumatized George Michael Bluth watching an episode of Oz, mistaking the show for the film The Wizard of Oz; as a result, George Michael spends the entire series petrified of prisons.
- In an episode of the Adult Swim series Robot Chicken a segment parodies Oz starring the Scarecrow from "The Wizard of Oz" who gets shanked with a shiv in the cafeteria.
- The South Park episode "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000," in which character Eric Cartman is sent to juvenile hall, is a clear parody of Oz, even featuring the show's theme song.
- The Simpsons episode "The Seven-Beer Snitch" features Homer Simpson becoming a snitch and receiving a series of gifts and privileges, one of which being an "adorable little hat" identical to the one worn by Simon Adebisi in Oz.
- The Venture Bros. episode "Powerless in the Face of Death" features music similar to the Oz opening theme during a prison scene.
- On HBO Series Six Feet Under, characters David Fisher and Keith Charles are seen watching Oz and talking about the show on occasion.
- On a Season 3 episode of another HBO Series "The Wire", Omar Little and Dante are seen watching an intimate scene from a Season 6 episode of Oz between Tobias Beecher and Chris Keller.
- On one episode of Queer as Folk (North American TV series), Brian's nephew says he hopes Brian is sent to jail and anally raped by a black man. Justin comments that his parents must have HBO.
- On an episode of "The O.C.", when Seth is picking out a comic to give to Ryan's brother in jail, Ryan suggests a different one and Seth says "The guy's in prison man, have you seen Oz? I'm sure that'll be fine..."
- In Tyler Perry's play I Can Do Bad All By Myself, Madea was talking to Vianne about potential names for her child if she and Bobby, an ex-con, have children and Madea stated as one name, "This is my new born, Oz."
- On an episode of "The Simpsons" Chief Wiggum asks a criminal if prison is like what they show in Oz.
[edit] Rights
The series was co-produced by HBO and Rysher Entertainment, and the underlying US rights lie with HBO, which has released the entire series on DVD in North America. The international rights were owned originally by Rysher, then Paramount Pictures/Television after that company acquired Rysher. CBS Paramount International Television currently owns the international TV rights, and Paramount Home Entertainment/CBS DVD owns the international DVD rights (the first four seasons have been released outside the US. The fifth season is scheduled for a June 2008 Release outside of the US).
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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This article does not cite any references or sources. (July 2006) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
[edit] Books
- OZ -- Behind These Walls: The Journal of Augustus Hill, (ISBN 0-06-052133-3)
[edit] Sources
- Season 1, Episode 2, DVD Commentary on "Oz: The Complete First Season."
[edit] External links
- Oz's transcripts
- Oz at the Internet Movie Database
- Oz at TV.com
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