Orange Is the New Black

Orange Is the New Black (2013) 

Thanks to the gradual, detailed revealing of the specific features of the prison ecosystem, which is based on the equally uncompromising territorial behaviour as the world outside (where, however, the conflicts between different races and religions have far more brutal consequences), this character-driven series never gets too bogged down in emotional situations or relationships. In short, there isn’t enough time or space for sentimentality in prison. Thanks also to that, Orange Is the New Black is one of the first (proudly and thoroughly) female-led series that manages to appeal to both women and men with equal force. 85% Second season: The interrupted narrative in the style of Lost is already hackneyed and, furthermore, equally as pleasant as coitus interruptus. It mainly comes across as an effort to stretch the series out by an additional 13 episodes. The flashbacks only rarely complement the current story. They more often only needlessly distract the viewer’s attention, tell us what we already know and deprive us of a moment of surprise (how Vee will behave) and disrupt the pace. The sidelining of the Piper character, or rather the creators’ cluelessness as to what to do with her, also seems like an ill-conceived solution to the problem of how to expand one autobiography into a plot covering many hours. Though the series no longer has the fast pace of the first season (with the exception of the perfectly coherent first episode), fails to create a cohesive fictional world in which everything is in some way connected to everything else, and sometimes seems to be improvised, it still offers a far more diverse cast of female characters than most other television productions, let alone films. And that extraordinary diversity and minimum space for commonly seen female stereotypes are the reasons that I probably will not be able to resist watching the third season. 75% (2014.09.16)