Orange is the New Black

My third Netflix show this month. I’m just going through them based on recommendations and why not, so far all of them are entertaining,

In general, I do not like prison shows or movies. They can be excessively violent, but I heard great reviews of this show. Furthermore, I heard it wasn’t too violent and that it was humanistic. I’m also interested in female centric shows. There are a lot of male centric or shows with large male casts, but this show is a rare thing which is rather sad. Besides Captain Janeway is in it!

If you enjoy good acting and good character development, this is a great show. It is real and tells stories of women who are marginalized in society. It does not make them into stereotypes or tropes. There are strong friendships and relationships. There is a large cast of characters and I was interested in almost all of them except one notable example. This is rather rare for me because I often find that with ensemble shows, I only really like a couple of characters and am largely indifferent to the others. With this one, I was engaged with most of the characters early on.

Notably, as much as I find Piper the protagonist annoying, we are supposed to and the show does not hold back from being critical of her. I’ve never warmed to Laura Prepon even though I adored “That 70s Show,” but I think the casting worked perfectly for her here. I adore Kate Mulgrew so she was pitch perfect here as the matriarchal Red. There a slew of great characters and actors. I think the only one who truly fell short for me was the born again Christian meth head girl who came off as one note for me. The writing also kept pushing her as an antagonist. The character was overdone and I am not enamoured by the actor either.

All in all, this is probably the best of the Netflix shows I’ve seen in terms of writing. While it is intense at times, it is done because it is real and honest. I look forward to where they will take the show the next season.

Watched January 26, 2013.

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