OZ the tv show not the other thing

the thing with oz is that it always always knows the right next ridiculous pulpy comicbook step. just when i got over the loss of the indescribably weird brilliant alien Querns they bring in a bunch of illegal immigrant cliche chinese guys and that grizzly lispy old Burl guy to take over the black guys.

also! i only just realised that Said is that English guy from The Bill! http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-67214

oz is a splendid show, one of very few i anticipate gleefully. perfect for someone with my short attention span - hundreds of plotlines, characters killed off at an alarming rate, gruesome, in-your-face and very watchable.

Why oh why oh why oh why did Channel 4 stop showing 'Oz', the popular post-midnight prison drama/male rape fest?

Yours,

Disgusted of Dagenham

i'm a sucker for a good prison riot, you know

i find it interesting (not in a pointy way) that a jarmusch fan (adaml) would dislike oz but i can't be bothered right now

ruff sqwad the musical! rapid is whisked off from antarctica with his robot polar bear, meets tinman stryder, an mc who wants a heart and to be a bit taller. adventures follow in the wicked witch of the east london realm of council estates! but believing the east dead the wicked witch of the west persecutes them by delaying album deals. west is slain eventually but what's this? wizard and home never existed! it was all in rapid's mind oh no. so they all have bumsex instead

Fuck knows when they'll bother to show the last set of episodes. In another two years, probably.

I think I only saw half of it, which is why I'm confused.

Illegal immigrants in a high security prison? Prisoners' right decided over basketball games?

sasha this only caught ur eye this series? not like when er the ghost of luke perry ws tormenting timmy kirk or or...

is season 6 out on DVD?

Episode finishes with Robson having a spoon stuck up his arse by some other prisoner. Over the credits, the Big Brother voice bloke comes on with "And next on Channel 4 we get in the ring with KOTV - Knock Out Television".

You'd have to make a joke of it, really, wouldn't you?

taped it and got quite a few to watch now. maybe I'll do it all in one go and then afterwards take a trip down the rec and tape exchange and check that OZ soundtrack CD I saw, come back home and crank it up or something.

... seems to have not recorded it.

... not recorded.

VNLIDSNHVT ZGVJIH JFHSKJF!H2730711!!! FUXXXOR

(that oz s/t always looked grimy as hell)

They showed one of the bikers suffocating Jaz Hoyte and didn't even explain what if he died or not.

How could anyone not love Ryan O'Reily...watching him get shit done every episode was a major part of what made Oz great.

I did grow to love him over the seasons ...

It's definitely one of those shows where it was genuinely heartwarming when something nice happened (or something awful didn't happen) because it was just so grim. When Alvarez got the dog, I was terribly afraid that someone was going to kill the dog to get back at him.

xp because he was such a sneaky, slimy, fucking BRO ASS TOOL

Schillinger was kinda the same way, and I can't stand that guy ... honestly, I think it boiled down to me being fond of him because he was cute. He also appeared quite well-endowed.

Done watching the final season ... pretty heartbreaking.

Dean Winters plays jerks really well.

My bf are in disagreement whether Keller intended to fall off the balcony and die. I kinda don't think so.

Yeah I don't think so either.

omg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDSJkMVLiF8

(i am working my way through oz for the 1st time)

remember him as a broadway dude bc we reviewed the miss saigon casting suit in my ent law class but wow.

i only watched it a few months ago, so it's still pretty fresh in my memory.

also i read m. butterfly in theater history and know he was in that originally but it that kind of knowledge just does not convey bd wong singing tori amos, you know?

no - that is potentially the campiest of the variety show performances, but they all are fairly campy ... this doesn't happen until the last season, however.

wait there's more camp in season 6? (this is s5)

the talent show - for some reason i thought it was the last season ... the last season has a production of macbeth

schillinger has an alright voice!

yeah ... that guy is also really good at being evil.

such a sucker for a good baritone, though.

not that he isn't evil and awful.

i want to go to karaoke.

his and Tobias' vendetta against each other lasts the entire series

thanks for the spoiler (not really)

schillinger has an alright voice!

He was in the 90s revival of Guys and Dolls.

Sometimes I still think this is my favourite tv drama. It probably got more exposure for The Wire connections but I'm annoyed it still hasn't gotten more credit and viewers. It should've been more acclaimed than Sopranos (I liked that too, much more than I thought I would).

Two questions linger...

Schillinger calls that guy who destroyed a museum sculpture a "sicko". I could never work out wether he is just joking because he doesn't care about art or he does find something genuinely perverse in the crime.

Alvarez trains the dog for the guy he blinded but quietly says something (which I don't think was subtitled/translated) when he hands over the dog. It felt like a sinister moment but nothing before or after that moment suggests any bad intent on Alvarez's part.

It probably got more exposure for The Wire connections but I'm annoyed it still hasn't gotten more credit and viewers

whut

please tell me you aren't in the US because otherwise nothing about that statement makes a lick of sense

UK.

I meant the cast and crew shared by Wire and OZ. I think some Wire fans watched OZ after but it still seems neglected to me.

It was HBO's first drama and was watched by a bunch of people; it's more accurate to say that The Sopranos and The Wire wouldn't have had the audiences they had without OZ preceding them.

there wasn't anything sinister about it -- the dog training bit was one of his acts of redemption that ended up amounting to little, because everyone in the show is pretty much damned. I recently rewatched this show -- it really is one of the most impressively feel-bad US tv dramas. The Wire is much "nicer" by comparison. Probably the only thing that comes close is The Walking Dead. I feel like OZ definitely paved the way for a lot of shows in terms of subject matter and tone.

Oz's role etc is acknowledged.

The Sopranos had more of a central performance of stature to focus on, not so macaronic and medieval violent as Oz. I do prefer it (not by much) but I can understand why people who buy into 'new golden age of TV' wouldn't like it as much.

OZ is about the prison industry. The Sopranos is essentially a family/character study.

I'm certain there is a weird moment when Alvarez hands the dog over and whispers something, then the blind guy looks confused. It's very brief but I kept rewinding it trying to figure out what he whispered.

I feel like The Sopranos was more in keeping with television of the past, whereas OZ and the "social issues dramas" that followed were more of a departure. I also finally got around to watching The Sopranos, and I liked it a lot, so it isn't an issue of "which is better"

Oh the moment is weird -- he does whisper something -- but I don't think it's actually malevolent, but it is ambiguous

For me there wasn't a 'prison industry' angle so much although I'm sure I'd be more attentive to that on a re-watch. It was crazy plots, fucking and murder. It had some strong storylines and people you cared for and looked forward to watching.

that is really odd to me, it's like watching the Sopranos and saying "Tony was in the mob?"

haha well I don't quite see that. I was young when I watched it so what I'm saying is its any political angle wasn't so much a thing.

The opening monologues were all about that! It is what framed the show, like, the stories were often predominantly illustrations of these issues.

Has there been many re-runs in the last decade? Because I think maybe it would do better now. Maybe audiences are more accustomed to brutality now too.

Its been 10+ years since I watched so those opening monologues are...not the first thing that comes to mind.

Loved that monologue about prison creating worse criminals and multiplying them, and you see him surrounded by inmates.

It would be interesting to see Oz get a nightly showing on a British channel, like The Wire a few years back. It generally seemed to get more exposure in Ireland than the UK at the time, giving it was broadcast around 11 o'clock instead of 4 in the morning.

I stayed up very late to see OZ sometimes. Yeah I think the final season was on that late and I couldn't stay awake to finish it at the time.

Oz doesn't reward binge-watching like 'good' tv does starting with the Sopranos - it's too brutal and too episodic. I watched the last two seasons week to week when it was airing, that was just the right pace.

I binge watched OZ and I didn't feel it fared any worse than Sopranos. I think both shows didn't have the season arc thing down yet but it's hard to blame them because they were pioneering the modern form.

Speaking of Oz mysteries, what happened to that creepy Russian dude with the glasses in the third season? He was played by that guy who often plays Russian dudes. He gets thrown into solitary confinement, and then disappears forever. Obviously they weren't under obligation to explain or anything, but.

My favourite bizarro moment is the scene where a baffled Adebisi watches Hill (in narrator mode) on the computer!

Speaking of Oz mysteries, what happened to that creepy Russian dude with the glasses in the third season?

I think he got killed.

just started rewatching this with my bf, SO FUCKING STOKED, also never realized how damn 90s this was

HOUUHHHH

i love the theme music. it is so grim.

rn every time my bf and I see each other we go HOUUUUUUHRHHHH