So far, Netflix’s original
programming has left me feeling underwhelmed at best. Of their four shows, I’ve only finished half
of them (still have four episodes of House
of Cards, and abandoned Hemlock Grove
after two.) House of Cards, while well acted and well made, feels a little too
much like leftovers from better anti-hero shows. Hemlock
Grove feels like the worst parts of every contemporary popular horror
series duct taped together. And Arrested Development, well
we know how disappointed I was with that.
I was ready to write off Netflix’s originals until Orange Is the New Black, the latest from Weeds creator Jenji Kohan.
I’m happy to say Orange has
proved me wrong and is a great addition to the non-cable supported
television movement.
The series, a fictionalization
of Piper Kerman’s memoir of the same name, is about privileged WASP Piper
Chapman (Taylor Schilling) who finds herself in prison for fifteen months
because of a crime she committed a decade earlier. On top of the fish out of water story, she’s
dealing with an increasingly strained relationship with her fiancé (Jason
Biggs) and her concerns her girlfriend at the time of her crime (Laura Prepon)
sold her out. The show tells its story
in a series of flashbacks that jump all over the timeline, but it never gets
confusing. Also, taking a page from
Lost, each episode besides the pilot and finale feature flashbacks from a specific
inmate’s history, usually culminating in how they got to prison. As it worked for Lost, it works here, giving
us context to why the characters are the way they are now.
The cast is exceptional, with
plenty of memorable characters: Natasha Lyonne as recovering addict Nicky, Uzo
Aduba as the unstable Crazy Eyes and of course I can’t mention the cast without
spotlighting Kate Mulgrew, who is my #1 pick on my Emmy fantasy ballot for next
year, as the Russian cook Red. I could
easily list off most of the cast.
Considering the environment of a prison, it’s one of the most diverse
casts I’ve seen on a TV show recently and like diverse shows that work, the
diversity isn’t a transparent act of patronizing the audience. Also, I think there are some networks that don’t have as many
compelling female characters as Orange
does.
With it being set in a women’s
prison, women’s issues are a major piece of the show. There’s a transgendered inmate, an inmate set
to be married who’s involved with another inmate and an inmate who finds
herself romantically interested in one of the guards with some horrifying
consequences. Some of the crimes the
inmates committed involve women’s issues, or they wound up taking the fall for
a man. Not to mention the guards are
primarily men, a mix of insecure men like Healy (Michael J. Harney) or cruel
like Mendez (Pablo Schreiber). Between
this an Orphan Black, it’s refreshing to see such good entertainment with an
emphasis on strong female characters at the center. It shows those sexist dummies that so long as
there are well written characters, it doesn’t matter who the story is about.
As it has been with all of
Netflix’s originals so far, the entire first season was released in one day,
trying to capitalize on the trend of “binge watching”. As you can tell by the introduction, none of
the shows really got that urge for me to binge watch because I actually wanted
to until Orange. Although I parsed my viewing out—not more
than two a day—it wasn’t out of not wanting to see more. This was the first Netflix show where I was
actually looking forward to seeing the next episode. Unlike its other shows, Orange Is the New Black doesn’t feel like a show that’s trying to
be a great show. It just is.
Grade: A-
Notes: (SPOILERS)
I don’t know if this is a
problem with the way I saw it on (Roku box), but for some reason there were no
subtitles during the scenes where the characters weren’t speaking English
unless I turned on the subtitles for the entire episode. There has to be some way to work around that
or I’m missing something, right?
I have to imagine this was in
the promo material, but I didn’t know Alex was a prisoner with Piper until it
happened on the show.
Top 5 characters I want to see
flashbacks from who didn’t get them in season one: 1) Crazy Eyes, 2) Taystee,
3) Poussey, 4) Sister Ingalls, 5) Morello.
Like many children of the 90s,
it was a little weird to hear Patty Mayonaise’s voice coming out of Yoga Jones’
mouth.
One thing this show did really
well were the transitions. A favorite of
mine (I think it was in “Moscow Mule”) involved the camera craning around a box
of produce to a flashback.
Really found the friendship
between Sophia and Sister Ingalls surprisingly effective, especially since it
was started because Sophia wanted Ingalls’ hormones.
That throwaway line early on about
Larry and some trouble with a webcam was a shout out to American Pie, right?
Favorite needle drop: “Sunday
Morning” by Velvet Underground.
I like that Regina Spektor
theme song a lot, but I don’t know how I feel about the montage in the opening
credits.
I hope that’s not the last we
see of Miss Claudette, though it sounds like it might be.
Poussey is the inmate that
grew on me the most as the season progressed.
Really loved the season later on between her and Taystee when Taystee
found herself back in priosn.
I’d love for this to set the
stage for a comeback for Natasha Lyonne.
I have to imagine she mined a lot of her real life troubles for the role
of Nicky, and it pays off in a big way.
Loved silent Norma singing in
the Christmas pageant.
I wonder how they decided who
was going to be a credited lead character, considering most of the large cast
appeared in every episode.
It felt like the new
administrator subplot was underserved this season. The series in general had a lot to juggle and
did it well,, but I imagine we’ll hear more from this story next season.
I wonder how long this series
will go on for. Season one covered 3-4
months of Piper’s 15 month sentence. She
could get more time because of her pummeling Pennsatucky in the finale (who
knows how that’ll play out). Season one
definitely felt like one part of a bigger story, with a lot more left in the
air than I’d usually like. Regardless, I’ll
be there whenever they put out season two.
