HBO’s epic prison extravaganza: Oz

09Oct06

Over the last five months or so, I have seen no less than thirty TV shows. No joke. I made a list. And I don’t mean like, catching an episode or two when I happened to be home; I don’t even own a television set. I’m talking full series marathons on DVD or downloaded torrents.

What this says about my general mental state is… well, whatever it is, it’s not the issue at hand. The issue is that EVEN THOUGH I’ve seen thirty different shows since my last birthday, when it came to writing the first entry for this TV blog, I knew without a single moment’s hesitation which show to start with. Oz.

Ooohh, Oz.

For those of you who’ve been under a rock for the last decade, don’t get cable, or maybe just aren’t American, “Oz” was an hour-long HBO prison drama that ran from 1997 to 2003. The name Oz became a cultural buzzword for shocking television, largely because of the show’s frank portrayal of prison violence and brutality, especially gay rape (followed later by controversy over subplots involving actual gay relationships). Reviews were stellar for almost all six seasons, usually including terms like “hyper-realistic,” “harsh,” “gritty,” and “disturbing.” It was generally acknowledged that HBO had done it again and created a damn fine show.

The whole time that Oz was actually on TV, I was either too young, too at boarding school, or too out of the country to partake of the goodness firsthand, so my experience with it was limited to distant grownup murmurings and jokes on Conan. This state of affairs never sat too well with me; my unholy love of above-par television cried out against the injustice of it all. But then, time passed. My thirst for hyper-realistic grit, while unquenched, began to fade. Maybe some things were just never meant to be…

Ah! But then, but THEN, summer 2006 rolled around. I suddenly found myself directionless, torrent-savvy, and, Glory Be, confident of my ability to handle gay prison sex scenes. Finally, the time had come to address the lack of Oz in my life. All six seasons of it. This was going to be EPIC.

19.5 gigabytes of excruciatingly slow downloading later, a friend came to stay with me for a couple of weeks, enlisting my help in finding an apartment in London. Secure in the knowledge that the show was now safely on my hard drive, I consoled myself with the thought that some actual human interaction would probably be good for me. We spent the next twelve days calling real estate agents and getting caught in the rain. It was a period of ups and downs, dizzying highs and terrifying lows, but eventually we closed in on that final property. All we had left to do was wait for some phone calls.

The only remaining problem, really, was that we were dangerously bored. Any conversation that was going to happen had already happened. Two weeks, twenty-four hours a day. Literally. YOU try it and see if you still have the energy to come up with new and interesting topics. We now knew each other’s family histories, views on music and religion, culinary likes and dislikes, ablution routines, and bizarre sleeping patterns. Desperate times were afoot. We needed a shock to the system. Something gritty, perhaps. Maybe even hyper-realistic and disturbing.

Cue Oz.

Words fail to adequately describe the four-day roller coaster ride that ensued. We laughed, we cried. We cringed a great deal. We didn’t leave the house.

The basic premise of the show is that within the confines of the fictional Oswald State Correctional Facility (nicknamed “Oz”), an idealistic administrator named McManus has set up an experimental wing called “Emerald City,” which he gets to run however he likes. In this wing, there are a number of different ethnic groups constantly at war with one another, either for personal reasons or because of complex power plays. There are the “Homeboys,” black gang members who intake copious amounts of heroin and include the likes of Adebisi, a violent, hyper-sexual super-criminal, and Poet, who often breaks into impromptu riffs about life in prison. There are the Latinos, whose one-time leader Alvarez gets tweaked out, cuts his own face, goes insane, and stabs a guard’s eyes out, all while somehow remaining a sympathetic character. Sayid, leader of the devout and militantly drug-free Muslims, also goes through one of the more interesting character arcs I’ve ever seen, struggling with his faith and pride over the course of the various seasons. And then there are the Aryans, the one group with absolutely no redeeming qualities, a bunch of bald, needlessly malicious crazies led by the captivatingly evil Shillinger. Wikipedia has a fantastic rundown of all ten ethnic groups and the various main characters: link to it at the bottom of the post.

Bottom line, it really is an incredibly well made show. The first three or four seasons are absolutely solid, a perfect mix of emotionally involving characters and complex, layered plotlines. People you hated in season one, you’ll find yourself rooting for in season four. Things get a little loopy towards the final seasons, but it’s in a deliciously ridiculous way, as if the writers wore themselves out and started daring each other to slip in this or that bizarro plot twist. At one point in season five, for example, a bearded LUKE PERRY (yes, THAT Luke Perry) joins the cast as a fallen TV evangelist caught embezzling money, manages to offend some people, gets himself walled up in the cafeteria (as in, they stick him behind a wall and close him in with brick and mortar), and then gets BLOWN out of said wall in a freak gas explosion, only to ASCEND TO HEAVEN (or so it seems) from his hospital bed. I mean, COME on. THAT is good television.

A word of warning: at some point during the course of 56 episodes, in between the nail-biting suspense, secretly delighted covering of eyes, and yelling of abuse at fictional characters, my friend and I started slipping into Oz-speak. We made flippant references to “GenPop,” the general population of the prison, and how going there would be a rude awakening for those used to the experimental unit of “Em City.” We called all the characters by their nicknames and discussed their interactions and motivations at length; multiple heated arguments definitely occurred over whether Keller really LOVED Beecher or was just using him. Most disturbingly of all, we also started threatening to shank one another at the slightest provocation (ie. the throwing of a pillow or the misplacement of a lighter). I realize some of you may not be up on your prison lingo: a shank is an improvised weapon, usually made by sharpening some everyday object (a toothbrush handle, perhaps) into a fine point. Shanks are used to stab people, most often in the kidneys or stomach. From HBO’s portrayal of it, general shanking etiquette seems to involve taking the victim by surprise, either walking up to them casually in a deserted hallway, pouncing mid-chat in line at the cafeteria, or cornering them in the exercise yard while they’re innocently shooting some hoops. It’s aaaall over in the blink of an eye.

Yeah. So maybe just don’t watch the whole thing in one go.