I’m not one for binge watching. I can usually handle two, maybe three episodes of a show before I grow tired, bored, or annoyed of it. So ever since Netflix began producing original programming and unleashed a new cable-altering distribution model -- one which encourages viewers to sit through 5, 10, 15 hours of industrial strength television at once -- I’ve balked at the idea of bingeing on episodic TV. This is largely because binge watching emphasizes quantity over quality. It devolves the act of enjoying great drama into an endurance contest, a competition to see who can watch the most number of episodes in the shortest window of time and then brag to everyone “I watched it all in one weekend!”
So why did I watch all 13 episodes of Netflix’s newest original show, Orange Is The New Black, in one weekend? How did I emerge after hours of staring at my computer screen, marginally paler and lacking sleep, only to find myself not only alive, but actually enjoying what I had just watched?
I can confidently say Orange is the best show on Netflix and one of the best shows on TV right now. This is partially because Breaking Bad has yet to return for what I already presume will be a breathtaking final season. Also, HBO powerhouses Girls and Game of Thrones are currently sidelined until their next seasons. But labeling Orange great by default would be both unfair and mistaken. It’s one of the most insightful, funny, and touching shows in recent memory. It’s better than good; it’s entrancingly seductive and refreshingly original.
This is all largely a compliment to Jenji Kohan, creator of Weeds who here adapts Piper Kerman’s memoir of the same name. The series starts off with a solid pilot that introduces us to the world of Piper Chapman, a WASPy Smith alumna who is sent to a minimal security women’s prison for helping her ex-girlfriend traffic heroin ten years prior. The statute of limitation on drug muling is 12 years, apparently. So she voluntarily surrenders to serve her time, leaving behind a new life she has built since college, complete with fiance, best friend, and upcoming business venture selling artisanal soaps. How will this sheltered, privileged white girl ever survive in prison? It’s an enticing conceit; and the pilot plays nice enough to pique our interest.
It’s not until the fourth episode, Imaginary Enemies, that the show seems to begin firing on all cylinders. The episode plays on the audience’s expectations of prison yard savagery like a harp, tempting us to jump to conclusions we’ve seen a thousand times before on other shows. But where others would have indulged in the predictability of its character tropes, Orange upends all expectations with a deliriously, mischievously sexual surprise of an ending. For the sake of enjoyment, I won’t divulge any plot details here. But suffice it to say this was the point in the season that grabbed me by the lapels and screamed, “Pay attention to me. I’m worth it!”
There are many reasons why Orange stands out in a sea of bland crime procedurals and gaudy reality competitions. It’s been noted that its setting in a prison has injected it with a unique dramatic angle:
Because Orange Is The New Black is set in prison, it's also set in a different point in the dynamic of many prestige dramas. Unlike Don Draper, who lives in fear that he will be comprehensively exposed to the world as a fraud ... or Tony Soprano or Walter White, for whom the threat of indictment and incarceration linger over their illegal activities and personal lives ... the women who are in prison in Litchfield have already been caught, tried, incarcerated, and revealed to their families as not just criminals, but as flawed human beings.
This is an insightful point; but one that I believe does not strike at the heart of what makes this show special. After all, we’ve seen prison dramas before (Oz) that have similarly dissected race relations, life struggles, and questionable pasts. It is true that the premise of having already been incarcerated relieves the show of the necessity to fabricate tension; but this premise also robs the show of an easy way of generating conflict. By taking away the well from which writers can easily create plot, the prison setting forces the show to turn inwards and craft story from its characters.
And by far, the biggest reason Orange works so magically is because its characters don't look, sound, or feel like anything else on TV. In an age where the uniform and the mundane dominate cable airwaves, Orange capitalizes on Netflix’s ability to cater to no one except their own artistic sensibilities. For one, the cast comprises a group of women so large and so complex and so diverse, it makes me wonder why we don't get more shows with such rich characters? These are women we are not used to seeing on TV -- butch women, angry women, racist women, old women, fat women. They say mean, sometimes honest, things and do even meaner, more honest, acts. They step across racial lines, sexual lines, and redefine all types of “acceptable” relationships. They form familial tribes and matriarchal groups that begin to speak to a grander, richer humanistic dynamic than anything else on TV. There seems to be a convention in show business that women who don’t squeeze into a Size 0 are not just unattractive, but untalented, uninteresting, and unwatchable. The people who believe that need to watch Orange and recalibrate their definition of “good.”
But beyond its diverse cast, the show tells a story that dares to provoke and instigate something greater than empty entertainment. There are pockets of brilliance in this show that could never survive, much less exist at all, on network TV. This is not just a story of a white girl in prison; the show has far too much respect, wit, and bite for such an easy premise. Its racial diversity and candid acknowledgment of racial, economic, and sexual issues plays as a captivating byproduct of the storytelling, not the story engine itself. And that is a feat easier said than done. In one plotline, Piper is denied food in prison for insulting the cook, while the show reveals flashbacks to a time when she attempted a seven-day juice cleanse (and failed). Its juxtaposition between a women suffering by circumstance and one suffering by choice is on-the-nose satirical, funny, and revealing.
Orange is perfectly calibrated. It burns with a combination of laughter and tears so masterful and unique it’s dizzying. It’s provocative, daring, intimate, and intense. For a show that deals with the repercussions of breaking the law, it seems ironic that Orange has managed to find a clear, confident voice by telling stories with such unrestrained wit, humor, and pathos. I’m not so sure if orange truly is the new black, but I know without a doubt that Orange has quickly become one of my favorite shows ever.
And by far, the biggest reason Orange works so magically is because its characters don't look, sound, or feel like anything else on TV. In an age where the uniform and the mundane dominate cable airwaves, Orange capitalizes on Netflix’s ability to cater to no one except their own artistic sensibilities. For one, the cast comprises a group of women so large and so complex and so diverse, it makes me wonder why we don't get more shows with such rich characters? These are women we are not used to seeing on TV -- butch women, angry women, racist women, old women, fat women. They say mean, sometimes honest, things and do even meaner, more honest, acts. They step across racial lines, sexual lines, and redefine all types of “acceptable” relationships. They form familial tribes and matriarchal groups that begin to speak to a grander, richer humanistic dynamic than anything else on TV. There seems to be a convention in show business that women who don’t squeeze into a Size 0 are not just unattractive, but untalented, uninteresting, and unwatchable. The people who believe that need to watch Orange and recalibrate their definition of “good.”
But beyond its diverse cast, the show tells a story that dares to provoke and instigate something greater than empty entertainment. There are pockets of brilliance in this show that could never survive, much less exist at all, on network TV. This is not just a story of a white girl in prison; the show has far too much respect, wit, and bite for such an easy premise. Its racial diversity and candid acknowledgment of racial, economic, and sexual issues plays as a captivating byproduct of the storytelling, not the story engine itself. And that is a feat easier said than done. In one plotline, Piper is denied food in prison for insulting the cook, while the show reveals flashbacks to a time when she attempted a seven-day juice cleanse (and failed). Its juxtaposition between a women suffering by circumstance and one suffering by choice is on-the-nose satirical, funny, and revealing.
Orange is perfectly calibrated. It burns with a combination of laughter and tears so masterful and unique it’s dizzying. It’s provocative, daring, intimate, and intense. For a show that deals with the repercussions of breaking the law, it seems ironic that Orange has managed to find a clear, confident voice by telling stories with such unrestrained wit, humor, and pathos. I’m not so sure if orange truly is the new black, but I know without a doubt that Orange has quickly become one of my favorite shows ever.
