The "rules" of creating a TV series are pretty clear, given television's "track record." For example, if you've had a *remarkably* successful four-season run, and chalked up some of the best reviews in history, well, based on history, what most series do at this point is "jump the shark" completely and create a season SO bad that hardly anyone cares or notices when they announce that it was the last one ever, and claim "We intended it that way...yeah, that's the ticket!" Jenji Kohan didn't do that with "Orange Is The New Black." Yes, she and her incredible team of writers ended season 4 with a bit of a cliff-hanger -- an ill-conceived riot breaks out in the minimum-security women's prison in which the series is set, and the season ends just as one of the prisoners picks up the gun that a dim-witted guard had snuck in and then dropped -- in spite of regulations saying no guard should ever bring a gun into the prison -- and holds it on him. Fade to red, and the season ends.
So, again based on TV history, we all know what to expect next. The writers will clear up all the questions left hanging in the air by the cliff-hanger in the first half of the first episode of season 5, and then they'll move back to Business As Usual and the same old same old and hope for the best.
Jenji Kohan and company didn't do that. They let the riot go on for three days and made the *entire season* about what happens during those three days.
With a lesser cast and a lesser team of writers, this would have been a disaster. Suffice it to say that instead they created 13 of the best hours of television I've ever seen in my life. We've had four years to get to know many of these characters, but in season 5 we get to know them and see them as fellow human beings in ways we didn't think were possible. OITNB, season 5 is a veritable maelstrom of emotions -- everything from humor to tragedy to pathos and back to humor again, and with more than a few dashes of social commentary thrown in. And what is arguably the best cast on television pulled it off perfectly.
I can't pretend to know what the creators of this fine series were *thinking* as they took a chance this big, but it might have had something to do with the following bit of dialogue in the finale: -- "So was it worth it? The riot?" -- "We can't know that yet. Maybe they'll still meet some of our demands. And maybe some Grandma in Kansas will read an article about this, and she'll see us as people instead of criminals. And then maybe she'll tell all her Grandma friends, and then they'll tell their kids, and then they'll tell their grandkids. I mean, isn't that how change really happens? Through Midwestern Grandmas having epiphanies? Maybe that will have made all of this worth it." I can't help but think that this speech is coming directly from the writers, explaining their motivation for making this series.
I have said for years that if one were to select the 25 best performances by actresses on television in a given year, for the last four years 5 of them would be from Tatiana Maslany in "Orphan Black," and at least 15 of the rest would be from the cast of "Orange Is The New Black." This year there may not be room for five other contenders from other shows.
So, again based on TV history, we all know what to expect next. The writers will clear up all the questions left hanging in the air by the cliff-hanger in the first half of the first episode of season 5, and then they'll move back to Business As Usual and the same old same old and hope for the best.
Jenji Kohan and company didn't do that. They let the riot go on for three days and made the *entire season* about what happens during those three days.
With a lesser cast and a lesser team of writers, this would have been a disaster. Suffice it to say that instead they created 13 of the best hours of television I've ever seen in my life. We've had four years to get to know many of these characters, but in season 5 we get to know them and see them as fellow human beings in ways we didn't think were possible. OITNB, season 5 is a veritable maelstrom of emotions -- everything from humor to tragedy to pathos and back to humor again, and with more than a few dashes of social commentary thrown in. And what is arguably the best cast on television pulled it off perfectly.
I can't pretend to know what the creators of this fine series were *thinking* as they took a chance this big, but it might have had something to do with the following bit of dialogue in the finale: -- "So was it worth it? The riot?" -- "We can't know that yet. Maybe they'll still meet some of our demands. And maybe some Grandma in Kansas will read an article about this, and she'll see us as people instead of criminals. And then maybe she'll tell all her Grandma friends, and then they'll tell their kids, and then they'll tell their grandkids. I mean, isn't that how change really happens? Through Midwestern Grandmas having epiphanies? Maybe that will have made all of this worth it." I can't help but think that this speech is coming directly from the writers, explaining their motivation for making this series.
I have said for years that if one were to select the 25 best performances by actresses on television in a given year, for the last four years 5 of them would be from Tatiana Maslany in "Orphan Black," and at least 15 of the rest would be from the cast of "Orange Is The New Black." This year there may not be room for five other contenders from other shows.