Orange is the New Black -- 9.5/10 -- A Netflix original. It's third season is coming out soon. Despite having it in my queue forever, I just recently went through the first season. It is beyond excellent.
It has a consistently top notch cast, especially the inmates. The lead actress, Taylor Schilling, has an amazing command of a broad array of facial expressions. The writing and characterization is superb.
I think I avoided it for so long because I thought it would be cliched. It is not. It is not Hollywoodized or over the top. The threat of violence is always lurking, but never, ever gone to gratuitously.
The characters are always human, never cardboard or one dimensional. The dynamics are as real life as they come.
I can't recommend it enough.
Ok, I've now finished the second season, far faster than I ever thought I would. Maybe I've oversold it a bit, I dunno . . . but I really like it. Let's call it
at least 9/10, k?
For me, the more episodes I watched, the more I got involved. The Jason Biggs relationship parts could be considered weaker than the prison stuff (and the artfully inserted back stories of the inmates) are, but they aren't terrible. It's just that, what smoking hot woman would plausibly be attracted to a Jason Biggs character?
The casting is as good as it gets, imho. Whoever cast this should get to sashay up to at least one awards show and be handed a statue of some sort. Srsly.
The acting is almost uniformly great, too.
And, as you watch more, you get to see the deft, real life way they flesh out what in other hands could have been prison stereotyped characters. MUCH respect for that.
So, A's to A pluses all around for the casting, acting, and writing. What more could you, Mister recumbent on your Barcalounger, semi-hip consumer of video entertainment, want? :awe:
The cherry on top is the lead, name of Taylor Schilling. The more I watched her do her thing, the more I wanted to do mine,
if you know what I mean. I would never have predicted that from any prior still photos of her . . . she just has a way, imho. She's a damn good actress, perfect at the center of this series. :wub: