This is said to be the last season of Oz, and yet, only two seasons are on DVD. Music, pacing, convoluted story lines careening and intersecting in ways that are at the same time graceful and clumbsy, just like real life. Its often surreal direction elevates otherwise base events to sublime levels. Sometimes, Oz borders on, and crosses well into, genius. Despite the fact that it overflows with action and violence, it never mistakes kenesis for story. Although it deals with homosexuality with insight and objectivity in every episode, it just as often bristles with gratuitous homoerotic overtone. In order to keep ratings up, the stories sometimes veer into the unbelievable, but the grit and reality are never gone for long. The talent, none of it marquee, is nonetheless the finest assembly of supporting actors an ensemble cast could hope for. Oz us narrated dramatically by a "Greek Chorus" of inmates who make insightful observations not just about Oz, but applicable to the outside world as well. It is violent, lurid, obscene, profane and controversial.
These are not feature films, but one hour dramas, no different in concept or constraint from countless other network counterparts. The stature of this program must be measured in the context of its format. and ties everything together really nicely.
The whole thing is narrated and held together by inmates Augustus Hill, who provides the show with some context, some sense of theme, etc. Nathan), a nun/psychologist (Sister Peter Marie), a bunch of guards some honest, some crooked and of course the warden Leo Glynn. Besides the regular inmates, there's guest stars such as Method Man, Luke Perry, Master P, Treach, etc. And there's a great "everyman" character called Beecher who gives a good look at a normal man who made one tragic mistake. There's the gangstas (Adebisi, Wangler, Redding, Poet, Keene, Supreme Allah), Muslims (Said, Arif, Hamid Khan), Italians (Pancamo, Nappa, Schiebetta), bikers (Hoyt), Aryans (Schillinger, Robson, Mark Mack), Christians (Cloutier, Cudney), Latinos (Alvarez, Morales, Guerra, Hernandez), gays (Hanlon, Cramer) and a whole pile of others (the O'Riley brothers, Keller, Stanislovsky, etc.).
There have been many groups of inmates during the run of the show and not everybody makes it out alive. OZ chronicles the attempts of McManus (Terry Kinney) to keep control over the inmates of Em(erald) City as well as the drug trade and the violence.
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