Orange Is the New Black

Netflix has been in the spotlight recently with their releases of both House of Cards and Arrested Development in full seasons. After finishing both I couldn't wait to see what else they had lined up and once I heard that Jenji Kohan was on board I was sold. Being a fan of Weeds I expected nothing less than well written strong female roles and tons of F-bombs being dropped to come from Kohan's next project. Orange is the new Black is about Piper Chapman and her untimely sentence to an all female penitentiary. She must deal with adapting to her new prison life while also having to maintain a relationship outside with her recent fiancé. I had just finished the first season and was taken back and how well so many of the characters were developed in just 13 hour long episodes. In the beginning it does feel like the show doesn't quite know it's own tone, but just around 4 episodes in it becomes a fun drama with plenty of unique characters. A definite recommendation to anyone who is looking for a summer series to watch!

The longest series I have ever watched which was close to 90 hours.

Initially I was not interested in watching the series because of nudity, drug, sex, profane language content; but as the episodes moved on I found it interesting because of the portrayal of all the characters.

The story baseline is the prison life and crimes inside the prison. The episodes revolve around how each of the characters are doing good in their life and they end up in prison life doing some mistake.

I really liked the way they used contrasting short flashbacks for depicting how malice each and every prison inmate are on one side and on the other side how soft-cornered they are to their dear people and how one selfish act of them ended them in prison life.

They have shown how miserable and hard, prison life is amidst the corruption and the politics on the prison administration.

On top of all what made it more catchy was the frequent usage of drama and humour in the scenes.

Hated the latest season, couldn't even finish watching it! Some of the characters are really good and nuanced. The last season seemed to be going nowhere & similar plots just going round in circles. I hated watching one character fall in love with her rapist so not good to depict that. Too much normalising of porn, even tho in reality so few women watch it. Too much objectification of both men and women. Though I was glad to see nudity featured all sorts of body types and not always in a sexualised way.

It brings back memories of Weeds. You know in its glory days. The first few seasons before it went off the rails. That's what "Orange Is the New Black" is like. Equal parts funny and sad. A mix of true pathos and yet true honesty and beauty coming from the strangest places. Be warned however there is plenty of lesbian sex and if the "F" word makes your ears bleed it is probably a good idea to turn back now...This isn't OZ but this also isn't Disney. This is a true winner from Netflix and tells an interesting story not only from the main character's perspective but from the other inmates as well. It would have been boring to see things from just her point of view. Like Nancy Botwin on Weeds, sometime Piper Chapman is portrayed in not so good a light because she can be the villain in someone else's story.

Orange is the New Black is every bit as good as everyone says it is and it's definitely worth watching. While some seasons are better than others, they're all worth watching. It also has a very satisfying ending which we all know is hard to do with a good show. In fact the whole last season is one of the best. Bottom line is I was entertained throughout the entire series. This series won a ton of awards throughout its run and for very good reason. Having said that, I think Wentworth is the better show about a women's prison. If you haven't seen this yet do yourself a favor and go check it out.