Plot
The majority of Oz's plot arcs are set in "Emerald City," also a concept from The Wizard of Oz. In this experimental unit of the prison, unit manager Tim McManus emphasizes rehabilitation and learning responsibility during incarceration, rather than carrying out purely punitive measures. Emerald City is an extremely controlled environment, with a carefully managed number of members of each racial and social group, with the hope of easing tensions among these various groups.
Under McManus and Warden Leo Glynn, all inmates in Em City struggle to fulfill their own needs. Some fight for power – either over the drug trade or over other inmate factions and individuals. Others, corrections officers and inmates alike, simply want to survive, some long enough to make parole and others even just to see the next day. The show offers a no-holds-barred account of prison life. All plots, subplots and conflicts are given context and explanation by the show's wheelchair-using narrator, Augustus Hill.
Oz chronicles McManus's attempts to keep control over the inmates of Em City. There are many groups of inmates throughout the show and not everyone within each group survives the show's events. There are the African American Homeboys (Adebisi, Wangler, Redding, Poet, Keane, Supreme Allah) and Muslims (Said, Arif, Hamid Khan), the Wiseguys (Pancamo, Nappa, Schibetta, Zanghi, Urbano), the Aryan Brotherhood (Schillinger, Robson, Mark Mack), the Latinos of El Norte (Alvarez, Morales, Guerra, Hernandez), the Irish (the O'Reily brothers), the gays (Hanlon, Cramer), the bikers (Hoyt, Sands), and many other individuals not completely affiliated with one particular group (Rebadow, Busmalis, Keller, Stanislofsky). In contrast to the dangerous criminals, character Tobias Beecher gives a look at a usually law-abiding man who made one fatal drunk-driving mistake. Episodes are narrated and held together by inmate Augustus Hill, who provides the show with context, thematic analysis and a sense of humor.
The ensemble cast included Christopher Meloni, Ernie Hudson, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Harold Perrineau Jr., Eamonn Walker, Rita Moreno, John Lurie, Terry Kinney, Betty Buckley, Kathryn Erbe, Lee Tergesen, B. D. Wong, J. K. Simmons, Dean Winters, Scott William Winters, Kirk Acevedo, Erik King, Evan Seinfeld, David Zayas, Lauren Vélez, and Edie Falco.
Eric Roberts, Joyce Van Patten, Method Man, Luke Perry, Master P, Treach, LL Cool J, Rick Fox, Dana Ivey and Peter Criss have made appearances on the show.
Read more about this topic: Oz (TV series)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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