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CLASSIC TV
Blood and porridge…
MVP
ADEWALE AKINNUOYE-AGBAJE AS SIMON ADEBISI Emerald’s City most fearsome resident, Nigerian drug lord Simon Adebisi, is also its most recognisable. Known for his love of knitted beanie hats and heroin, Adebisi takes leadership of the ‘Homeboys’ gang, taking no prisoners in his rise to power. Future Lost star Akinnuoye-Agbaje brought charisma and a cheeky sense of glee to the big man’s sociopathic antics. The show’s decline is often traced to S4 and Adebisi’s exit, in which he was killed off to accommodate the actor’s role in The Mummy Returns. Oz was never the same again…
OZ
1997-2003 AVAILABLE ON DVD, PARAMOUNT+
Welcome to Emerald City: an experimental cell block within Indiana’s maximumsecurity Oswald State Correctional Facility (aka Oz). Overseen by idealistic architect Tim McManus (Terry Kinney), the City’s ambitious overhaul of inmate management is unique in that it gives prisoners nowhere to hide; while reform is prioritised over punishment, denizens are locked away in a series of transparent ‘pods’...
In creating Oz for HBO, showrunner Tom Fontana tore up the television drama rulebook. Airing two years prior to The Sopranos, it was revolutionary in humanising its monsters, trusting audiences to understand their actions without recourse to glorification. ‘I wasn’t interested in writing heroes per se,’ Fontana told Yahoo TV. ‘I was planning to make interesting characters.’
Viewers enter this world via lawyer Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen), imprisoned after killing a child while drunk driving. ‘Beecher’s our Dante coming into the Inferno,’ said Fontana of the character’s descent. His rivalry with white supremacist Vernon Schillinger (a terrifying J.K. Simmons) forms a throughline across six seasons, as both men go to increasingly horrific lengths in their shared vendetta – somehow, the vengeful shit that Beecher takes on Schillinger’s face isn’t even the worst atrocity either man has in store.
The revolving door of incarcerations, murders and paroles made room for a diverse cast, including Ernie Hudson as warden Leo Glynn and Edie Falco in a pre-Sopranos role as prison officer Diane Whittlesey. Meanwhile, Harold Perrineau’s Augustus Hill led a Greek chorus of fourth-wall breaking narrators in sharing the inmates’ stories, offering a commentary on American prison life between rounds of rioting and shanking. In the cases of Poet (Craig ‘muMs’ Grant) and Kenny Wangler (J.D. Williams), Oz documented those who never stood a chance within society, calling its prison system home instead.
As The Wire later did for American policing, Oz shone a spotlight on the penal industry and those trapped within it, from low-income gang-bangers to the guards and staff. It tackled topics such as rape, addiction and prison politicking with unflinching grit and a surprising vein of theatricality. It may have been rightfully derided for its sillier turns (including that ageing-pill subplot), but was never afraid to take chances - killing off its primary narrator, for example, or following Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s lead with its own musical episode.
Twenty years later, Oz still captivates. Much has changed since, but just as much remains the same – both in the unforgiving, all-consuming penal system and the era of prestige television drama that Oz helped usher in.