TV SERIES REVIEW: Orange is the New Black
Title: Orange is the New Black
Season: 1
Originally streamed: July 11, 2013
No. of episodes: 13
Genre/s: Comedy/Drama
Summary:
From IMDb
The story of Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), a woman in her thirties who is sentenced to 15 months in prison after she is convicted of a decade old crime of transporting money for her drug dealing girlfriend (Laura Prepon).
Orange is the New Black, I would have to say, is one of the most compelling live-action series that I’ve watched this year. I wasn’t too keen about watching the show after hearing about it from my boyfriend but I was proven wrong after watching the first episode and being able to marathon the entire series until the day after. There are just so many elements of the show that will make you want to watch more of it and you won’t be able to stop yourself.
Let me introduce the protagonist of the series, Piper Chapman (played by Taylor Schilling). From the looks of it, you’d assume that she’s the typical nice yet naive blonde-haired girl but there’s much more to learn about Piper as the series progresses. In the show she is currently engaged to her boyfriend (played by Jason Biggs) who asked for her hand in marriage despite the fact that Piper had to go to prison and for the sake of keeping their relationship in tact while she’s in there. We also learn that the reason of Piper’s incarceration was because she transported drug money for her drug-dealing ex-girlfriend, Alex (played by Laura Prepon), 10 years prior when Piper was a lesbian. Okay. She so used to be a lesbian… but the peak interest of the series doesn’t necessarily end there.
As Piper checks herself in at Litchfield Prison you will start to meet an array of characters that you will love to get to know, whether it be guard or inmate. Aside from Piper’s character, there are a handful of the other inmates that the series focuses on. There’s Red – the prison’s Russian head chef, Nicky – a sarcastically humorous former drug addict, Pennsatucky – the crazy religious zealot junkie… The list goes on with these diverse set of characters and with the help of flashbacks, it really helps you get to know more about all these characters and feel very empathetic towards their reasons for being in prison, their relationships with one another and how they have adapted to the system (as cliques, too, exist in prison). I would love to delve more into the characters but I wouldn’t want to spoil too much for future audiences to discover and enjoy on their own.
Having well-developed characters and a decent storyline, it’s a very entertaining series. With each episode, you’ll become more invested and interested as to how certain events and situations would transpire. If the fact that this series involves lesbians, comedy, semi-nudity, drama and all the other things I have described, I wouldn’t know what to tell you otherwise to convince you that this series is very much worthwhile.
