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Oz (TV series)
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Oz was an American television drama series created by Tom Fontana, who also wrote or co-wrote all of the series' 56 episodes. It was the first one-hour dramatic television series to be produced by HBO. It aired for six seasons between 1997 and 2003.
z is the nickname for the Oswald State Correctional Facility, formerly Oswald State Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison (level 4) at an undisclosed location.
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Oz was an American television drama series created by Tom Fontana, who also wrote or co-wrote all of the series' 56 episodes. It was the first one-hour dramatic television series to be produced by HBO. It aired for six seasons between 1997 and 2003.
Overview
Oz is the nickname for the Oswald State Correctional Facility, formerly Oswald State Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison (level 4) at an undisclosed location. Many of the plot arcs are set in Emerald City ("Em City"), an experimental unit of the prison in which the unit manager attempts to emphasize rehabilitation and learning responsibility during incarceration. Emerald City is an extremely controlled environment where there are a controlled number of members of each racial and social group.
The large ensemble cast includes Eamonn Walker, Rita Moreno, Ernie Hudson, John Lurie, Terry Kinney, Betty Buckley, Kathryn Erbe, Christopher Meloni, Lee Tergesen, B. D. Wong, J. K. Simmons, Dean Winters, Scott William Winters, Kirk Acevedo, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Harold Perrineau Jr., Erik King, David Zayas, Lauren Vélez, and Edie Falco.
Style
Oz is primarily narrated by Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau), former drug dealer, convicted murderer and ex-crackhead. Now confined to a wheelchair, he appears in surreal segments and introductions that usually relate to an overall theme of the episode, setting up scenes, introducing characters, or adding epilogues. When necessary usually when a character is introduced Hill appears as an omniscient narrator. Used as a literary tool of the writers, he narrates the details of characters' lives, their prison number, their crimes, and their sentences. Hill appears as a recurring character within the show's story lines until the sixth season, in which narration by various deceased characters was added to the narration by Hill.
These narrations by Hill break the fourth wall, in that Hill addresses the camera (and thus the audience) directly, out of the fictional context of the scene. Hill also appears in scenes where he interacts with other characters in the story (in which he does not address the camera). Only once in the series did Hill appear to address another character with one of his narrations: in the Season 3 episode "Unnatural Disasters", the character Adebisi turns on a computer and sees Hilldressed as a pharaohspeaking to him. (This unusual sight is discounted by Adebisi as a drug-induced hallucination, and he never speaks of it again.)
Augustus Hill's narration over the course of the series is similar in purpose and execution to those of the Greek chorus in ancient theater. Hill's narration provides plot exposition, as well as commenting upon the events of the stories. The narration thus provides the audience a clearer understanding of the narrative's moral and thematic standpoints. Oz was nominated for several Emmys but never won. Oz was HBO's first drama.
Cast and characters
Season two saw recurring guest stars Lauren Vélez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and George Morfogen join the main cast. Vélez played prison doctor Gloria Nathan, Akinnuoye-Agbaje played inmate and Homeboys gang leader Simon Adebisi, and Morfogen played long-term inmate Bob Rebadow. Acevedo, Moreno, Simmons, Tergesen and Winters also joined Hudson, Kinney, Perrineau and Walker as the top-billed cast members.
In season three the following recurring guests were also added to the main cast: Kathryn Erbe as death-row inmate Shirley Bellinger, Luis Guzman as inmate and Latino gang leader Raoul "El Cid" Hernandez, Mark Margolis as inmate and Mafia boss Antonio Nappa, and Christopher Meloni as Beecher's love interest Chris Keller. Akinnuoye-Agbaje was added to the show's top-billing. Falco left at the end of the season, and Margolis departed with the murder of his character.
Season four featured 10 "Starring" and 14 "Also Starring" cast members throughout the season. New additions to the cast were: Betty Buckley as Ryan O'Reilly's mother and Emerald City music teacher Suzanne Fitzgerald, Anthony Chisholm as Hill's mentor and stepfather Burr Redding, Rick Fox as basketball champion Jackson Vahue, David Johansen as Jewish inmate Eli Zabitz, Brian F. O'Byrne as provisional IRA terrorist Padraig Connolly, Luke Perry as new inmate and minister Jeremiah Cloutier, and Scott William Winters as Ryan O'Reily's brain-damaged brother Cyril O'Reily.
Many of the actors from Oz worked together on other hit shows after the end of the series.
- Christopher Meloni and B.D. Wong are both regulars on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit which also guest-starred Rita Moreno, Dean Winters and J.K. Simmons.
- Harold Perrineau, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, eljko Ivanek and Lance Reddick all appeared in Lost. Perrineau and Agbaje as regulars, Reddick as recurring and Ivanek as guest. Ken Leung who appeared as Bian Yixue in the 4th season episode "Conversions" went on to become a regular starting in the 4th season of Lost
- Lauren Vélez, David Zayas and Erik King worked together as regulars in Dexter, on which Scott William Winters had a recurring guest role.
- Edie Falco and Dean Winters were both stars on 30 Rock.
- Oz and The Wire have an immense number of crossover cast members. Oz actors Lance Reddick, John Doman, J.D. Williams, Seth Gilliam, Wood Harris, Reg E. Cathey, Frankie Faison and Domenick Lombardozzi were all regulars on The Wire, while Method Man, Tom Mardirosian, Cyrus Farmer and Clarke Peters all guest-starred on The Wire.
- Kirk Acevedo and Lance Reddick both have supporting roles on the TV series Fringe.
- eljko Ivanek and Seth Gilliam both appeared in the movie Courage Under Fire.
- Zeljko Ivanek and Mark Margolis both appeared in the movie Hannibal.
- Kathryn Erbe is a regular on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Guest-stars from Oz have included Arija Bareikis, Kevin Conway, Robert Clohessy, Sean Dugan, Susan Floyd, Seth Gilliam, Ray Iannicelli, Jon Korkes
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, ''Law & Order, ''The Larry Sanders Show, ''Homicide: Life on the Street, ''Moonlighting , ''Starsky and Hutch, ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show, ''All in the Family...
, Oleg Krupa, Jordan Lage, David Lansbury, Carlos Leon, Rita Moreno, Lance Reddick, Dana Reeve, Kristin Rohde, J.K. Simmons, Lee Tergesen, Lauren Vélez, Thomas G. Waites, Dean Winters, and David Zayas.
Episodes and broadcast history
Oz took advantage of the freedoms of premium cable to show material that would have been too extreme for traditional American broadcast television, e.g., coarse language, drug use, violence, male frontal nudity, homosexuality, male rape, as well as ethnic and religious conflicts. In Australia Oz was screened, uncensored on the free-to-air channel, SBS. This was also the case in Israel, where Oz was displayed on the free-to-air commercial Channel 2, in Italy where it was aired on the free-to-air Italia 1, in the United Kingdom where Channel 4 aired the show late at night, in Ireland on TG4 where it was shown at 11pm, and in Brazil, where it was aired by the SBT Network Corporation, also late at night. In The Netherlands, Oz aired on the commercial Channel RTL 5 and in Sweden and Norway, Oz aired on the commercial channels TV3 and ZTV late at night, 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 aired on Canal+, a premium channel. In Estonia, as well as Croatia, the show was aired late at night on public non-commercial state-owned channels, ETV and HRT, respectively. In Bosnia and Herzegovina it was aired on the federal TV station called FTV. In Portugal Oz aired late at night on SIC Radical, one of the SIC channels in the cable network. In France the show aired on a commercial cable channel 'Serie Club', also late at night. In Turkey, Oz was aired on Cine5, DiziMax also aired the re-runs. In Serbia, Oz was aired on RTV BK Telecom. In Panama, Oz was aired on RPC Channel 4 in a latetime hour. In India, reruns of Oz are aired on Zee Cafe in the late night slot (11 pm IST), albeit with some scenes deleted and adult language "muted" out. In Malaysia, Oz aired late at night on ntv7, while the censored version aired during the day.
The program's seasonal length (eight episodes in Seasons 1, 2, 3, 5, 6; sixteen episodes in Season 4) is an example of a trend for cable network programming to feature shorter seasons than American free-to-air channels, which typically feature sixteen to twenty-two episodes per season.
Main Crew
Tom Fontana (Head Writer/showrunner), Barry Levinson, Jim Finnerty
Rights
The series was co-produced by HBO and Rysher Entertainment, and the underlying US rights lie with HBO, which has released the entire series on DVD in North America. The international rights were owned originally by Rysher, then Paramount Pictures/Television after that company acquired Rysher. CBS Paramount International Television currently owns the international TV rights, and Paramount Home Entertainment/CBS DVD owns the international DVD rights (the first five seasons have been released outside the US. The sixth and final season was released 22nd September 2008 outside of the US).
DVD releases
HBO Home Video has released all six seasons of Oz on DVD in Region 1 and Region 2.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date | Additional Information
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| The Complete First Season | 8 | March 19 2002 |
- Two Audio Commentaries
- Deleted Scenes with Audio Commentary by Tom Fontana
- Music Video from Oz Soundtrack, "Behind the Walls" by Kurupt featuring Nate Dogg
- Featurette
- Episodic Previews
| | The Complete Second Season | 8 | January 7 2003 | Biographies "The Museum Of Television & Radio Seminar" featurette Cast and crew featurette | | The Complete Third Season | 8 | February 24 2004 | Audio Commentary Deleted Scenes: 22 Minutes of Deleted Scenes Episodic Previews Episodic Recaps | | The Complete Fourth Season | 16 | February 1 2005 | Deleted Scenes Audio Commentaries | | The Complete Fifth Season | 8 | June 21 2005 | Deleted Scenes Audio Commentary Season 1-4 recaps | | The Complete Sixth Season | 8 | September 5 2006 | Audio commentaries Deleted Scenes: 30 minutes of deleted scenes Original cast audition tapes |
Further reading
External links
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