Oz (The Prison Drama on HBO)

[Captain Stern]

Has anybody seen this show? I saw it for the first time by chance one night and it blew me away.

It takes place in a prison, but more specifically in one section of a prison - an experimental facility created by a liberal left wing idealist called Tim Macmanus. There is no overriding plot to the show. Instead it revolves around the interaction, the various relationships, between the inmates, and the inmates with the prison staff. I've seen it described as a soap opera for men, which I think is quite appropriate .

The inmates vary from neo nazis, sicilian mobsters, millitant black muslims, and your average homeboys. You might recognize many of the actors from other tv shows, such as Edie Falco from The Sopranos, Lee Tergeson who played Chet in the tv series of Weird Science, Leon from Cool Runnings, and J.K Simmons who I think plays Jonah Jameson in Spiderman (in Oz he plays a real nasty piece of work named Schilinger). It can be extremely violent (there are scenes of crucifixion, limbs being systematically broken, inmates being burned alive e.t.c.) and it can be very sexually explicit (full male body nudity, scenes of male rape taking place e.t.c.) but both the violence and the sex are quite neccessary to paint a better picture, and in no way does the show glamourize these things.

I think the most interesting characters are Tobias Beecher (a timid lawyer who undergoes a complete turn around during the course of the series), Vern Schilinger (the evil leader of the Neo Nazis) and Ryan O'reily (a scheming and seemingly amoral 'survivor', a character who you'd swear has a core of goodness in him, but then turn's around and does some truly terrible things).

Please post your views.

[Millane]

very awesome show, i think we got the first few seasons on SBS but its not on air anymore
is anyone sure if they've brought the seasons out on dvd yet...
some sick **** happens, the episode where they nail the guy to the gym floor in the crucifix position was pretty gruesome...