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Oz
The cast of Oz
Format	Drama
Created by	Tom Fontana
Starring	Harold Perrineau Jr. Lee Tergesen J.K. Simmons Eamonn Walker Dean Winters Kirk Acevedo Christopher Meloni Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Ernie Hudson Terry Kinney Rita Moreno B.D. Wong Lauren Vélez Kristin Rohde
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	56 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	approximately 60 mins (commercial-free)
Broadcast
Original channel	HBO
Original run	July 12, 1997 – February 23, 2003
External links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Oz is an American television drama series created and written by Tom Fontana. It was the first one-hour dramatic television series to be produced by HBO and aired for six seasons between 1997 and 2003.

Oz is the nickname for the Oswald State Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison of undisclosed location. Many of the plot arcs are set in Emerald City ("Em City"), an experimental unit of the prison, in which the unit manager attempts to emphasize rehabilitation and learning responsibility during incarceration. Emerald City is a controlled environment, where there are a limited number of members of each racial and social group. The microcosm of Emerald City mirrors the racial and economic tensions in the United States at the time of airing.

Oz avoids any easy answers as to the origin of violence and criminality. Even the worst offenders are shown to have moments of humanity, while the supposedly "normal" characters come to commit their own atrocities. One of the perspectives proposed by Oz is that the wide-scale rehabilitation of prisoners is almost impossible when ideologies within the prison system itself are largely conflicted. The show focused extensively on the abuse of prisoners' rights, on counter-perspectives for/against the death penalty, and on the large increase of the incarcerated population on the U.S since the late 1990s.

The large ensemble cast included Rita Moreno, Ernie Hudson, Terry Kinney and Betty Buckley, as well as future Law & Order stars Kathryn Erbe, Christopher Meloni, B. D. Wong, J. K. Simmons, Dean Winters and Kirk Acevedo, Lost stars Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Harold Perrineau Jr., and Dexter stars Erik King, David Zayas, and Lauren Vélez. Many of the actors from Oz have appeared as guest stars or stars in the various Law & Order series, The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Black Donnellys, New York Undercover, 24, and Lost.

Contents 1 Style 2 Cast and characters 3 Episodes and broadcast history 4 Rights 5 See also 6 References 7 Books 8 Sources 9 External links

Oz is narrated by Augustus Hill, a disabled prisoner confined to a wheelchair who is played by Perrineau, in surreal segments that usually relate to an overall theme of the episode. When necessary, usually when a character is introduced, Hill, in an omniscient fashion, narrates said character's prison number, their crime, and their sentence. Hill, a former drug dealer and ex-junkie, appeared as a recurring character in the show's storylines until the sixth season, in which narrating duties were taken up by various deceased characters as well as Hill. The narrations by Hill are thus a form of breaking the fourth wall, although he did not address the camera during scenes where he was interacting with the other characters in the story. Only once in the show does Hill appear to address another character with one of his narrations, in the season 3 episode Unnatural Disasters Adebisi turns on a computer to see Hill dressed as a pharaoh speaking to him. (However, the unusual sight is quickly discarded by him as a drug-induced hallucination, and he never speaks of it). The narration made by Augustus Hill over the series is similar in both purpose and execution to the role of the Greek chorus in Ancient theatre, both providing plot exposition, as well as commenting upon the events of the stories, giving the audience a clearer understanding of the narrative's moral/thematic standpoint.

Main article: Characters of Oz

Oz initial starring cast consisted of 14 actors. Four of these were credited as "Starring": Ernie Hudson as Leo Glynn, the warden of Oz, Terry Kinney as Emerald City unit manager Tim McManus, Harold Perrineau as prisoner Augustus Hill, the narrator, and Eamonn Walker as new inmate and devout Muslim Kareem Said. Credited as "Also Starring" were: Edie Falco as correctional officer Diane Wittlesey, Rita Moreno as prison counselor Sister Peter Marie Reimondo, Kirk Acevedo as Latino inmate Miguel Alvarez, Leon Robinson as prisoner Jefferson Keane, J.K. Simmons as prisoner Vernon Schillinger, the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood in Oz, Tony Musante as incarcerated mafia boss Nino Schibetta, Lee Tergesen as another new inmate called Tobias Beecher, Sean Whitesell as cannibalistic inmate Donald Groves, Dean Winters as manipulative Irish inmate Ryan O'Reilly, and B.D. Wong as the prison chaplain Father Ray Mukada. During the season, Robinson and Whitesell left after their characters were executed and Musante left following his character's murder.

Season two saw several new additions. Recurring guest stars Lauren Vélez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and George Morfogen joined the main cast. Vélez played prison doctor Gloria Nathan, Akinnuoye-Agbaje played the leader of the Homeboys gang, Simon Adebisi and Morfogen played long-term inmate Bob Rebadow. Also, Acevedo, Moreno, Simmons, Tergesen and Winters joined Hudson, Kinney, Perrineau and Walker as the top billed cast-members.

Season three saw Akinnuoye-Agbaje receive top billing, with new additions Kathryn Erbe as Shirley Bellinger, who was on death row for killing her daughter, Luis Guzman as Latino gang-leader Raoul "El Cid" Hernandez, Mark Margolis as mob boss Antonio Nappa, and Christopher Meloni as Beecher's love interest Chris Keller, all of which had been recurring guests the previous season.

Main article: List of Oz episodes

Oz took advantage of the freedoms of premium cable to show material that would be too extreme for traditional American broadcast television: coarse language, drug use, violence, male frontal nudity, homosexuality, rape, ethnic and religious conflict. Interestingly, in Australia, Oz was screened on the free-to-air channel SBS. This was also the case in Israel, where Oz was displayed on the free-to-air commercial Channel 2, in Italy where it was aired on the free-to-air Italia 1, in the United Kingdom where Channel 4 aired the show late at night, in Ireland on TG4 where it was shown at 11pm, and in Brazil, where it was aired by the SBT Network Corporation, also late at night. In The Netherlands, Oz aired on the commercial Channel RTL 5 and in Sweden and Norway, Oz aired on the commercial channels TV3 and ZTV late at night, and in Finland, on the free-to-air channel Nelonen (TV4). In Canada, Oz aired on the Showcase Channel at 10pm EST. In Denmark, Oz appeared late night on the non-commercial public service channel DR1. In Spain the show aired on Canal+, a premium channel. In Estonia, as well as Croatia, the show was aired late at night on public non-commercial state-owned channels, ETV and HRT, respectively. In Bosnia and Herzegovina it was aired on the federal TV station called FTV. In Portugal Oz aired late at night on SIC Radical, one of the SIC channels in the cable network. In France the show aired on a commercial cable channel 'Serie Club', also late at night. In Turkey, Oz was aired on Cine5, DiziMax also aired the re-runs. In Serbia, Oz was aired on RTV BK Telecom. In Panama, Oz was aired on RPC Channel 4 in a latetime hour. In India, reruns of Oz are aired on Zee Cafe in the late night slot (11 pm IST), albeit with some scenes deleted and adult language "muted" out.

The program's seasonal length (eight episodes, Seasons 1, 2, 3, 5, 6; sixteen episodes, Season 4) is an example of a trend for cable network programming to feature shorter seasons than American free-to-air channels, which typically feature more than twenty episodes per season.

The series was co-produced by HBO and Rysher Entertainment, and the underlying US rights lie with HBO, which has released the entire series on DVD in North America. The international rights were owned originally by Rysher, then Paramount Pictures/Television after that company acquired Rysher. CBS Paramount International Television currently owns the international TV rights, and Paramount Home Entertainment owns the international DVD rights (the first three seasons have been released outside the US. The forth series is scheduled for a March Release outside of the US).

• List of Oz episodes

This article does not cite any references or sources. (July 2006) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

• OZ -- Behind These Walls: The Journal of Augustus Hill, (ISBN 0-06-052133-3)

• Season 1, Episode 2, DVD Commentary on "Oz: The Complete First Season."

• Oz's transcripts
• OZ at the Internet Movie Database

v • d • e Oz
Episodes • Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 4 • Season 5 • Season 6
Prison Administration	Warden Glynn • Tim McManus • Sister Peter Marie • Father Ray Mukada • Dr. Gloria Nathan • Martin Querns • Dr. Tariq Faraj
Correctional Officers	Sean Murphy • Diane Wittlesey • Claire Howell • Clayton Hughes • Joseph Mineo • Rick Heim • Karl Metzger • Eugene Rivera • Dave Brass
Visitors	Governor James Devlin • Hank Schillinger • Jeremy Goldstein • Pierce Taylor • Alvah Case
Undercover Police	Paul Markstrom • Johnny Basil
Muslim Inmates	Kareem Said • Zahir Arif • Hamid Khan • Nacim Bismilla • Sanjay Afsana • Huseni Mershah • Ahmad Lalar • Jamel Yusef
Homeboy Inmates	Simon Adebisi • Burr Redding • Jefferson Keane • Poet • Kenny Wangler • Junior Pierce • Malcolm Coyle • Supreme Allah • Reggie Rawls
Aryan Inmates	Vern Schillinger • James Robson • Mark Mack • Wolfgang Cutler • Franklin Winthrop • Andrew Schillinger
Biker Inmates	Scott Ross • Jaz Hoyt • Max Sands
Italian Inmates	Nino Schibetta • Peter Schibetta • Antonio Nappa • Dino Ortolani • Chucky Pancamo • Frank Urbano • Salvatore DeSanto
Latino Inmates	Miguel Alvarez • Carlos Rodrigo • Carmen Guerra • El Cid • Carlo Ricardo • Enrique Morales • Carlos Martinez • Jaime Velez
Irish Inmates	Ryan O'Reily • Cyril O'Reily • Padraig Connolly • Timmy Kirk • Seamus O'Reily
Christian Inmates	William Cudney • Jeremiah Cloutier • Jonathan Coushaine • Robert Sippel
Gay Inmates	Billie Keane • Fiona • Richie Hanlon • Jason Cramer • Nat Ginzburg • Alonzo Torquemada
Other Inmates	Tobias Beecher • Augustus Hill • Lemuel Idzik • Chris Keller • Bob Rebadow • Agamemnon Busmalis • Omar White • Shirley Bellinger • Wilson Loewen • Willy Brandt • Lionel Kelsch • Jiggy Walker
Russian Inmates	Nikolai Stanislofsky • Yuri Kosygin