Remakes (House of Cards) and reboots (Arrested Development) are one way to go when establishing a brand — let's just forget about the atrocious Hemlock Grove for now — but with Orange Is the New Black, Netflix finally achieves its eureka moment with a terrifically entertaining piece of original programming that's truly and bracingly original.
The setting, an upstate New York women's prison, isn't all that new, but Orange — adapted by Weeds' Jenji Kohan from a memoir by Piper Kerman — makes it fresh by mining a deep vein of absurdist humor with an unexpectedly generous empathy for the outrageous characters its overwhelmed heroine encounters in her nightmare odyssey behind bars. When anxious Piper Chapman (a wryly understated and immediately sympathetic Taylor Schilling) is being processed to start her 15-month sentence, she's assured this isn't OZ — and it also isn't Chained (or Caged) Heat. This show is much cooler than that.
read more
Orange is the New Black might not have the hype of Arrested Development or House of Cards, but it is by far the most satisfying original series Netflix has released this year.
From Weeds creator Jenji Kohan, Orange follows Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), an upper-middle class woman who finds herself incarcerated for a crime she committed 10 years prior. But Kohan isn't simply rehashing the same pampered, fish-out-of-water angle of Weeds for another suburban satire. This time, Kohan uses the familiar white protagonist as a medium through which to tell stories of those typically marginalized in mainstream media.
read more
Netflix has renewed its new summer series Orange Is the New Black before it even premieres, Deadline.com reports.
The series...
read more
Netflix has released a trailer for its upcoming summer series Orange Is the New Black.
The series, from Weeds creator Jenji Kohan, is based on the true story of a Brooklyn woman who has to put her engagement and life on hold when she's sentenced to serve time in a federal women's prison.
read more
Snag it, bag it, tag it... just don't miss it! Syfy's Eddie McClintock-Joanne Kelly chemistry extravaganza known as Warehouse 13 is coming back on Monday, April 29 (10/9c) to finish up its fourth season with a blast of mind-blowing action, and we've got your first look in this teaser trailer.
"We obviously have to deal — in a major way — with what Artie's been through and what happens to him, having killed Leena," executive producer Jack Kenny told us after last fall's mid-season cliffhanger, hinting at even more tragedies to come. "There are many other versions of mortality that we're going to deal with in the next 10 episodes." So let's all cross our fingers that season-premiere guest stars James Marsters, Lindsay Wagner, Kate Mulgrew, Roger Rees and Polly Walker and can help Pete, Myka and the rest of the team find a cure for that sweating sickness epidemic Petey accidentally unleashed before anymore Warehouse workers wind up adding to the body count.
read more