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Oz (TV series)

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Oz was the first one-hour dramatic television series to be produced by HBO. The show, which aired for six seasons (1997-2003), is set in a maximum-security prison. The state that it is set in is never named. However through most of the viewing, it is assumed to be in New York. (Also, the New York state flag can be seen in the background of some scenes). The series was created by Tom Fontana and produced by Barry Levinson.

Oz is the nickname for the Oswald State Correctional Facility. Many of the plot arcs are set in Emerald City ("Em City"), an experimental unit of the prison, where the unit manager tries to emphasize rehabilitation and learning responsibility during incarceration. Emerald City is a controlled environment. There are a limited number of members of each racial and social group (Muslims, Sicilians, Latinos, Homosexuals, Neo-Nazis, African Americans, Irish Americans and others). The microcosm of Emerald City is a metaphor for racial and economic struggles.

Oz avoids any easy answers as to the origin of violence and criminality. Even the worst offenders are shown to have moments of humanity, while the supposedly "normal" characters come to commit their own atrocities.

The ensemble cast included many famous actors including Rita Moreno, Ernie Hudson and Betty Buckley, as well as Law & Order stars Kathryn Erbe, Christopher Meloni, B.D. Wong, J.K. Simmons, Dean Winters and Kirk Acevedo. Many of the actors from Oz have appeared as guest stars or stars in the various Law & Order series, The Wire, and .

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Oz is narrated by Augustus Hill, a wheelchair user (played by Harold Perrineau Jr.) in surreal segments that usually relate to an overall theme of the episode. Hill, a former drug dealer and ex-junkie, appeared as a recurring character in the show's storylines until the end of the 5th season, when he was killed and narrating duties were taken up by various deceased characters as well as Hill. The narrations by Hill are thus a form of breaking the fourth wall, although he did not address the camera during scenes where he was interacting with the other characters in the story.

The major plotlines in Oz typically involved rivalries between the different prison gangs, which often resulted in murder and retaliation. There are some long-standing individual rivalries including the ongoing struggle between Vernon Schillinger (played by J.K. Simmons), Aryan Brotherhood leader, and Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen), a family man jailed for killing a child while driving drunk.

Oz took advantage of the freedoms of cable television to show material that would be too extreme for traditional American broadcast television: coarse language, drug use, violence, male frontal nudity, homosexuality, rape, and ethnic and religious conflict. Interestingly, in Australia, Oz was screened on the relatively liberal-minded free-to-air channel SBS. This was also the case in Israel, where Oz was displayed on the free-to-air, commercial Channel 2, the United Kingdom where Channel 4 aired the show late night and in Ireland on TG4 where it was shown at 11pm. In The Netherlands Oz aired on the commercial Channel RTL5 and in Sweden and Norway Oz aired on the commercial channels TV3 at 8pm and ZTV, 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 is aired on Canal+, a premium channel. In Estonia the show was aired late night on public non-commercial state-owned channel ETV.

Contents

Cast and Characters

Main cast

Character Synopses

Prison Groups

There are ten main groups of prisoners on Oz, all divided by ethnicity or religion. The prison is 78% black and racial problems constantly arise throughout the series. The groups were denoted in the second episode of Season 2, when Tim McManus formed an inmate council consisting of one member of each group. He determined that four prisoners from each description would be in Em City at all times; no more, no less. This system was scrapped when Querns took over and started loading the unit with Homeboys, but was (apparently) reinstituted when McManus took over. On occasion, new inmates would be inserted directly into Em City; in this case, someone would have to leave for Unit B.

Described below are each of the groups.

Inmates

The inmates in Oz are a wide variety imprisoned for different activities. Some inmates such as Adebisi and Schillinger are purely evil sociopaths with little moral compromise and others such as Beecher are merely in for screwing up only once in life. As the population is 78% Black, the Islamic inmates, particularly Said, try to raise issues relating to racial injustices of the system. The entire show though does go back and forth between showing the inmates as savage and human with most of the inmates getting shown as both at some point throughout the series.

Prison Staff

The prison staff of Oswald is very much like the NYPD. The correctional officers are majority white most of whom are Irish and Italian with many black and some Latino officers. The Warden, Leo Glynn is African American and started off at Oz as a correctional officer. Most of the correctional officers come from lower socio-economic classes and amoral and prone to corruption. The main unit manager, Tim McManus, is the only authority figure who has not started off as a guard and this thereby gives him a different point of view for how to deal with the inmates. The rest of the non-correctional staff, such as Dr. Gloria Nathan and psychiatrist "Sister Pete" Reimondo, have a much more humane view of prisoners, and often push Glynn and the others to see the inmates as human beings. Overall, the staff is always conflicted, trying to maintain internal affairs and order as to keep the public calm as to how the prison is being managed.

Others

Slang and Terms

Trivia

References in other media

Books

See also

External links

 

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