Oz
Oz title card
Genre	Crime drama Suspense
Created by	Tom Fontana
Written by	Tom Fontana Bradford Winters Sunil Nayar Sean Jablonski Sean Whitesell
Directed by	Adam Bernstein and others
Starring	Kirk Acevedo Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Ernie Hudson Terry Kinney Rita Moreno Harold Perrineau J. K. Simmons Lee Tergesen Eamonn Walker Dean Winters
Theme music composer	Steve Rosen Dave Darlington
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	56 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Tom Fontana Barry Levinson Jim Finnerty
Producer(s)	Debbie Sarjeant Mark A. Baker Irene Burns Bridget Potter Jorge Zamacona Greer Yeaton
Editor(s)	Deborah Moran
Running time	55 minutes
Production company(s)	The Levinson/Fontana Company Rysher Entertainment HBO Original Programming CBS Television Distribution (2008-)
Broadcast
Original channel	HBO
Original run	July 12, 1997 (1997-07-12) – February 23, 2003 (2003-02-23)

Oz is an American television drama series created by Tom Fontana, who also wrote or co-wrote all of the series' 56 episodes.^[1] It was the first one-hour dramatic television series to be produced by premium cable network HBO.^[2] Oz premiered on July 12, 1997 and ran for six seasons. The series finale aired February 23, 2003.^[1][3] The show was filmed in New York City] and later Bayonne, New Jersey.

Overview [edit]

"Oz" is the nickname for the Oswald State Correctional Facility, formerly Oswald State Penitentiary, a fictional maximum-security prison (level 4) in an unnamed state in the US, though most likely New York State, considering the frequent references by characters to "upstate," a term used by New Yorkers to describe the upper region of the state. When a public official on the show delivers an address, the New York State flag can be seen in the background with the New York motto "excelsior." One of the Homeboy inmates also makes a reference to the Polo Grounds, an area of Harlem.

The nickname "Oz" is a reference to the classic film The Wizard of Oz, which is notable for popularizing the phrase: "There's no place like home"; in contrast, the series has used the tagline: "It's no place like home". Curiously, the name Oswald is also that of Correctional Services Commissioner Harold G. Oswald during the Attica prison uprising, in Attica, New York. Tim McManus's hometown is Attica, and he describes the Attica uprising as being one of the reasons he wanted to reform corrections.

In 2008, the show was placed at #73 on Entertainment Weekly's "New TV Classics" list.^[4]

Plot [edit]

The majority of Oz's plot arcs are set in "Emerald City," also a concept from The Wizard of Oz. In this experimental unit of the prison, unit manager Tim McManus emphasizes rehabilitation and learning responsibility during incarceration, rather than carrying out purely punitive measures. Emerald City is an extremely controlled environment, with a carefully managed number of members of each racial and social group, with the hope of easing tensions among these various groups.

Under McManus and Warden Leo Glynn, all inmates in Em City struggle to fulfill their own needs. Some fight for power – either over the drug trade or over other inmate factions and individuals. Others, corrections officers and inmates alike, simply want to survive, some long enough to make parole and others even just to see the next day. The show offers a no-holds-barred account of prison life. All plots, subplots and conflicts are given context and explanation by the show's wheelchair bound narrator, Augustus Hill.

Oz chronicles McManus' attempts to keep control over the inmates of Em City. There are many groups of inmates throughout the show and not everyone within each group survives the show's events. There are the African American Homeboys (Adebisi, Wangler, Redding, Poet, Keane, Supreme Allah) and Muslims (Said, Arif, Hamid Khan), the Wiseguys (Pancamo, Nappa, Schibetta, Zanghi, Urbano), the Aryan Brotherhood (Schillinger, Robson, Mark Mack), the Latinos of El Norte (Alvarez, Morales, Guerra, Hernandez), the Irish (the O'Reily brothers), the gays (Hanlon, Cramer), the bikers (Hoyt, Sands), and many other individuals not completely affiliated with one particular group (Rebadow, Busmalis, Keller, Stanislofsky). In contrast to the dangerous criminals, character Tobias Beecher gives a look at a usually law-abiding man who made one fatal drunk-driving mistake. Episodes are narrated and held together by inmate Augustus Hill, who provides the show with context, thematic analysis, and a sense of humor.

The ensemble cast included Christopher Meloni, Ernie Hudson, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Harold Perrineau Jr., Eamonn Walker, Rita Moreno, John Lurie, Terry Kinney, Betty Buckley, Kathryn Erbe, Lee Tergesen, B. D. Wong, J. K. Simmons, Dean Winters, Scott William Winters, Kirk Acevedo, Erik King, Evan Seinfeld, David Zayas, Lauren Vélez, and Edie Falco.

Eric Roberts, Joyce Van Patten, Method Man, Luke Perry, Master P, Treach, LL Cool J, Rick Fox, Dana Ivey and Peter Criss have made appearances on the show.

Cast and characters [edit]

From left to right: Ryan O'Reily, Vernon Schillinger, Miguel Alvarez, Tobias Beecher, Kareem Saïd. In the front, Augustus Hill.(This photo was also used as the cover for Augustus Hill's book)

Main [edit]

Recurring [edit]

Episodes [edit]

Oz took advantage of the freedoms of premium cable to show material that was too excessive for traditional American broadcast television, including elements of coarse language, drug use, violence, male frontal nudity, homosexuality and male rape, as well as ethnic and religious conflicts.^[2]

International broadcast history [edit]

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, where the series aired on free-to-air channel TG4 at 11 p.m.; 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. In Sweden and Norway, it 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 Friday 10 p.m. EST. In Denmark, it appeared late at night on the non-commercial public service channel DR1. In Spain, the show aired on premium channel Canal+. In Estonia, as well as Croatia and Slovenia, the show was aired late at night on public, non-commercial, state-owned channels ETV, HRT and RTV SLO. 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 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 aired on RTV BK Telecom. In Panama, Oz aired on RPCTV Channel 4 in a late-night hour. In Malaysia, full episodes of Oz aired late at night on ntv7, while the censored version aired during the day. In New Zealand Oz aired on The Box at 9.30pm on Wednesdays in the early 2000s (decade).

Syndication [edit]

On April 21, 2009, Variety announced that starting May 31, DirecTV will broadcast all 56 episodes in their original form without commercials and in high definition on the 101 network available to all subscribers. The episodes will also be available through DirecTV's On Demand service.^[5]

Rights [edit]

The series was co-produced by HBO and Rysher Entertainment, and the underlying U.S. 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/Domestic Television after that company acquired Rysher. CBS Studios International currently owns the international TV rights, and Paramount Home Entertainment/CBS DVD owns the international DVD rights.

DVD releases [edit]

HBO Home Video has released all six seasons of Oz on DVD in Region 1 and Region 2. The Region 1 releases contain numerous special features including commentaries, deleted scenes and featurettes. The Region 2 releases do not contain any special features.

Soundtrack [edit]

A soundtrack containing East Coast, West Coast and Southern hip hop was released on January 9, 2001 by Avatar Records. It peaked at #42 on the Billboard 200 and #8 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.^[6]

References [edit]

General

• Season 1, Episode 2, DVD Commentary on "Oz: The Complete First Season."
• Season 2, Episode 5, "Oz: The Complete Second Season."

Specific

Further reading [edit]

• Stemple, Lara (2007). "HBO's OZ and the Fight against Prisoner Rape: Chronicles from the Front Line". In Merri Lisa Johnson. Third Wave Feminism and Television: Jane Puts it in a Box. London: I.B. Tauris. pp. 166–188. ISBN 1-84511-245-8. OCLC 72151012. 
• HarperEntertainment (2003). Oz: behind these walls: the journal of Augustus Hill. New York: HarperEntertainment. ISBN 0-06-052133-3. OCLC 51241977. ^{[page needed]}

External links [edit]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Oz (TV series)

• Oz at the Internet Movie Database
• Oz at TV.com