‘Orange Is the New Black’ Taught Us What Netflix Was For

Saw OISTNB the first season and was underwhelmed. (Did enjoy seeing Pablo Schreiber in his pornstache, tho.) Overall I found the series too slick by half and strangely too "glamorous." The gritty Netflix series "Wentworth, about women in an Australian prison, was far superior.

Cancelled Netflix about a month ago. Was a regular fan of Orange is the New Black. Didn't see one promotion or algorithm tell me that there was a 7th season. I thought it was over when Piper was released from prison last year. Nice promotion you got, Netflix.

The black characters in Jenji Kohan's Weeds always felt like sassy stereotypes rather than human beings. It was always uncomfortable to watch. When I saw the same thing in the first episode of Orange, I gave up. When that picture of Orange's all-white writers' room leaked during the fourth season, I was not surprised.

I played agent “Mark Bellamy” in season six of OITNB. When I tell you what is on the written page is not only brilliant, but is exactly what is brought to the Netflix screen. No add libbing, no improves, no casual approach to meticulously written scripts. From the totem’s top, to its bottom, this is a First Rate, Platinum Star production. Creative craftsmanship at its finest.

In real life convicted federal prisoners are kept in DoJ only prisons not mixed with state prisoners.

"It didn’t aim for the striking images of a 'Breaking Bad,' the lapidary indie-film intimacy of “Enlightened” or the meticulous design curation of 'Mad Men.'Its aesthetic and composition were utilitarian, drab even..." You got that right. Season 6 was especially bad, the post-riot season with its droning, yelping nonsense. Seasons 1 and 2 were interesting; beyond that, it's a niche program.

Taystee was not the first person Piper met in Litchfield. It was Lorna Morello, who was driving the van and told her 'It's not so bad'. Taystee is the first person we see speak to Piper, because episode 1 opens with a flash-forward.

Supposed to be about women, but yet another place for the men in production to load up our home screens with nudity and sex. No thanks.

Who would have thought that Natasha Lyonne, our drug-addict sexy lesbian inmate, Nicky Nichols of OITNB would turn up as a brilliant collaborator and star in the next big thing to hit Netflix: RUSSIAN DOLL. I love her in both shows!

OITNB has been uneven and some story lines “jumped the shark,” but I stayed with it because many characters are fun to watch and have compelling stories. And the acting has been quite good as well. The 6th season almost lost me, but I’ll finish out the series.

I've watched every season of OITNB and plan to watch the last, as well. The show had excellent moments, but it's wildly uneven. The cast is way too big and the stories often feel very padded. Netflix at it's best is 2 levels below HBO at it's best. I think the problem is volume. Netflix feels it needs enough shows that no one will ever want to watch other channels. It's a questionable business model and I believe overall show quality suffers.

We do not get Net Flix so never saw any of it. But I am interested in racism and mass incarceration. So now it dawns on me that prisoners wear orange and most of them are black. Doh. Doing it with a women's prison is a nice way of angling into the many issues. Good for Net Flix.

Orange Is the New Black challenged us in ways that most shows don’t. Now that we have been given a look at the suffering of less-privileged women in prison—most of them mothers—do we have an obligation to do something about what we know? I know one woman who runs a nonprofit organization advocating for women in prison and organizing volunteers to drive their children to visiting days. Another is part of s group that collects and packs books requested by libraries in women’s prisons.

I'll never forget watching on Orange is the New Black for the first time. I came home from school on a hot June day and flipped it on in the few-odd hours before my parents came home. I was 16, in the closet, and I had no idea what the show was about. I had my hand on the remote, thinking, "I shouldn't be watching this," but I couldn't take my eyes of the screen. Orange is the New Black taught me about the beauty of female bodies -- what it looks like to film them absent of the male gaze, absent of sexualization. It showed me the many different ways it's possible to exist as a woman (& queer woman), introduced me to the stories of women unlike any I'd ever met at that point, and expanded my critical consciousness. Although some of the plotlines of later seasons bordered on absurd, the heart of the show has always been the honesty of the stories it depicts and the capacity for empathy it fosters -- and demands -- in its audience. Netflix has continued this tradition of celebrating the stories of underrepresented communities on other shows, including "One Day at a Time." But it's a shame that lately many of these shows have wound up under-promoted or canceled when they provide much-needed representation for its audience. I hope this will change with articles like this and pushback from audiences.

OITNB has been great television, despite a weak season or two. The fare the networks keep grinding out is mostly vapid, derivative and repetitive (try watching a few minutes "Big Bang Theory" on Youtube with the laugh track scrubbed out - painful). Streaming has raised the bar for how entertaining, fresh and innovative television can be. It baffles me why anyone is still watching the schlock CBS, NBC and ABC still air between those long commercial breaks.

In 2005, Jinji Kohan opened our eyes with the suburban mother turned marijuana dealer in Weeds on Showtime (now streaming on Prime and Netflix.) Orange is the New Black was her next look at the social and criminal implications of the USA, which has a set of rules for the rich vs the poor. And a system that has the highest percentage of its population behind bars (and often generating profits via for-profit prisons and prison labor-manufacturing etc.) It's the ugly system that she was exposing... These were both breakthrough projects that have served to educate ordinary people about our broken criminal justice system and our broken / rigged by lawmakers/ income-inequality economic system that offers very few safety nets for people in need of healthcare, higher wages to just get by, and people caught up in a system of "justice" that is anything but just. Netflix's newest ground breaker is "When They See Us," (IMDb 9.1) which exposes how five very young black and hispanic teenagers were framed for the brutal rape of a Central Park jogger. In this case, we see first hand the blatant racism of (President) Donald Trump, who spent $85,000 calling for the death penalty of teens, who were 14, 15 and 16 years old with no prior criminal records. He represented then and now the power of the NYC white elite. Directed by Mark Ritchie, it is a four-part mini series that is profoundly moving, based on truth and excellent to watch. Also watch: Oprah Winfrey, "When They See Us Now" (7.9 IMDb)

Excellent article. I especially like that there are now more women-centric series. Quite a few female leads are middle age moms, not young hot lookers, a switch from previous TV casting. These new shows can be much more engaging than the previous generation of male-dominated shows. So what? The male hero (or anti-hero) is threatened - I don't have to worry, he will out-macho and out-punch his opponents in the end. Yawn. On the other hand, the new female protagonists are more fully dimensioned. They bring more courage and intelligence to their role as they are usually physically weaker than the bad guys, making for a more interesting and engaging plot. Diversity, as mentioned in the story, works better too. OITNB doesn't force people to be cardboard representatives for their particular group. It lets them be uniquely human. So refreshing today when immutable traits rather than character are often considered the most definitive attributes. And then there are so many foreign shows that open up worlds beyond the USA. I could go on about streaming... On the other hand, I don't understand the amount of criticism for the new TV in the comments. Maybe these are from people who primarily watch the two most popular shows on NF: the Office and Friends? IDK. Maybe I'm the problem: older, white, straight, male. Whatever, I have never watched much TV until now, couldn't stand the previous eras.

I believe you widely over-credit Netflix with changing the content of our viewing entertainment. Netflix did the new technology best—moving from DVD disk to streaming, and following the tech-industry model of cheap-and-easy to gain monopolistic positioning. But in record time, Netflix has become bland TV, “500 channels with nothing on” even if they are in more languages. We now know every country has bad TV, and more copycat cop shows than anything, it seems.

Chickens are "confined animals" ? What about Colin, the free-range chicken from a farm near Portlandia (An excellent Netflix show)?

This seems inaccurate: "Some of the inmates are nonviolent offenders; others have killed. Some have suffered bad breaks, abuse or straight-up injustice; others are dangerous, vicious and unrepentant." The only characters I can recall being "dangerous, vicious, and unrepentant", without having "suffered bad breaks, abuse or straight-up injustice" are Barb and Carol from Season 6. That said, it is true that "the seasons and episodes could be vast" so there may be other characters and story lines I'm not remembering. The use of "some" and then "others" is inaccurate. More accurate: "most" and "few". Some/others implies something of a balance between those imprisoned in relation to injustice and those imprisoned due to organic sociopathy.

I’m applaud oitnb for showing complexities of people and relationships

It is done. Interest was lost season 5.

Nice article. But if you think chickens are "confined animals" you haven't spent much time outside big cities. There are three in my backyard right now (not mine). Best defense against the Pentagon's weaponized ticks. Not making that up - Google it.

I like Orange, the earlier seasons more, but I found this Australian series, Wentworth that I just love. We watch very few shows over the air and canceled directv long ago. So many good streaming options. We went from nothing to watch to way too much good stuff to watch.

I liked it until the Riot season, although I stayed through it. I quit about 3 episodes into the Maximum Security season. It had stopped being entertaining and was just unpleasant and no longer worth my time

I watched the first 2 seasons and loved it in the sense that I had never seen anything like it and, not so much in an enjoyment way. The characters are intense and well portrayed. It was impossible for me not to care about them, even the ones I thought were awful. The show made being human something I couldn't look away from. At the end of the 2nd season, that ending, I knew I had found "my" end to the narrative. It was brilliant. I may go back and watch it all at some point, but I don't need to. I just need to not fear the reaper, and not be so rude.

Is Taylor Schilling still in jail? She's done some serious time.

Never watched it. The only series I’ve watched is Mrs. Maisal. I just don’t watch much tv.

It was great the first 2 seasons, then it went over the edge to not really believable. Or maybe just too dark and depressing.

Nope, sorry. Dreadful series. It's nice the author enjoyed it, but there are far better shows on Netflix.

From my perspective what Netflix has done is to bring together on one platform quality entertainment from all over the world. Europe,Asia Australia and numerous Spanish speaking countries. No other platform has been able to do this.

Sorry, but Orange Black an abysmal television series. Useless commentary about the supposed merits of Netflix. Netflix, like any distributor of entertainment product, starts as a pure distributor for a new or more or less new means of distribution. First the excellent program of physically distributing disks that contain the product, then the move into electronic streaming of the product. Then, as revenues grow, investment in Netflix's own product. The pattern is the same as for example that set by Home Box Office. The entertainment product itself, whether paid for by Netflix or not, follows the existing pattern of mostly garbage, with a good series or movie mixed in occasionally.