As I have reached mid-life, I am actually less of a couch-potato than I was in my younger years. I try to find balance through reading, music, and hobbies like my aquarium. I view television as something to consume in designated chunks when there is something I really want to see.
Around two decades ago, Netflix came on the scene with Internet-based mail order DVD rental and managed to completely disrupt what had been a bricks and mortar experience. As the years passed, the company altered their model to focus primarily on a video streaming service for their subscribers, Truth be told, the movie selection on the streaming offering is underwhelming, so my spouse and I also still hang on to our old-fashioned mail account. Yet, Netflix streaming does absolutely excel to incredible heights in the countless array of original series programming,
A few weeks ago, one of the company’s most high-profile shows–Orange is the New Black—released its fifth season. Part of the beauty of a streaming service is that viewers are free to either binge watch a new arrival all in one sitting or space it out a bit more. I am somewhere in the middle, but with my other half being a nurse who works nights and likes some of the same selections I do–I have to play it by ear.
I make it a point not to be one of the sheep/Kool-Aid drinkers who watches something only because it’s deemed hip by the trend setters. I don’t like someone telling me something is “must-see TV” as I figure I am the one who decides how to spend my time. Yet, for me at least, Orange–a women’s prison series that occupies the space between edgy comedy and poignant drama–lives up to the hype.
In a few different respects, Orange seems akin to the darkly comedic M*A*S*H, one of the most groundbreaking television programs from my childhood and early teen years. Granted, the content, subject matter, and audience dynamics are quite different. Yet, I see broad similarities in the sense of taking the most serious of settings and somehow managing to blend irreverent humor with engaging depictions of human tragedy and brokenness.
Taking Good Source Material and Reshaping to the Media Format
For those of you either old enough to remember or schooled in 1970s pop culture, M*A*S*H formed its basis on a Robert Altman film that was itself based on Richard Hooker’s Korean-War novel. The show’s creators managed to build a small-screen sensation–with eventual high ratings that kept it running for about four times longer than the actual length of the Korean War–by figuring out how to adjust the material to the venue of weekly half-hour television. Pulling off something like that counts as a pretty amazing skill in my book.
In the case of Orange, the source material comes from Piper Kerman’s well-written memoir documenting her 13-month stay at a federal minimum-security prison. Kerman, a Smith College graduate from an affluent background, became swept up in shady dealings involving drug trafficking and money laundering. She documents her experiences–and those of her fellow inmates–in such a way that lets the stories take shape without minimizing the circumstances surrounding why folks are behind bars.
In the fictional series, a woman named Piper also serves as the original protagonist, and the circumstances of her background and crime are similar. There are several of the same memorable characters too, including both Crazy Eyes and Pennsatucky, but the situations in the nonfiction book are generally much more understated. Granted, the “white collar” prison facility was by no means Club Med, but the conflicts depicted–interesting and enlightening as they may be to a reader–don’t quite provide the soap opera intensity needed to sustain a television project. So, the drama got kicked up a notch.
A Deceptively Simple Set Brought to Life with Magical Cinematography and Art Direction
M*A*S*H presented the austere conditions of wartime on a Hollywood set back when pretty much all television shows were filmed on a Hollywood set. The green tents were far from ornate, but somehow, the scenes still came to life in a way that rivaled the high art of the big screen. Camera angles captured just the right pose for the right emotional moment.
In an era when television producers compete with one another for the most ambitious locations, Orange interior shots actually originate from an honest-to-goodness New York area television studio, though an old psychiatric hospital does serve as the backdrop for exterior prison scenes. Yet, somehow the end result comes together with just the right look. I am no expert on the visual artistic aspects of show business, but I think that there are some real masters working in the stark motif.
Characters You Can’t Get Out of Your Head Played by Brilliant Performers
M*A*S*H the television show had a creative team with roots going back to the days of Vaudeville-styled comic reviews. So, it’s no surprise that, even in the midst of heavy-duty dramatic story lines, viewers were treated to the antics of a cross-dressing clerk on a futile quest for a Section 8 discharge, a sometimes bumbling but well-meaning chaplain, and a surgical team fueled by the potency of gin made in their own still.
Orange moves at a rapid pace and encompasses a cast of characters way too large to do justice in an overview, but I have to focus on some of my personal favorite. Prison cook Red–who in the book was actually named Pop and hailed from Hispanic heritage–is a Russian mobster’s wife with an appreciation for the finer things in life and a rather volatile temperament. She is played to perfection by Kate Mulgrew, If forced to choose, I have to declare her as my favorite part of the show,
In terms of raw display of acting chops, its hard to beat Uzo Aduba as the previously mentioned Crazy Eyes, aka Suzanne Warren. Suzanne’s delusions often start out with an endearing childlike quality, but ultimately the sadness of someone who didn’t get the right kind of help at the right time comes through in a painfully sad fashion.
Taking Risks with Storytelling Narrative
Okay, 1970s edgy wasn’t exactly the same as edgy in today’s context, but I remember some inventive M*A*S*H episodes that blew up the conventional rule books of the sitcom format, including one built entirely on dreams or another created from the point of view of the spirit of a recently deceased soldier that the doctors and nurses of the 4077 had sadly been unable to save. That was pretty impressive stuff for the time.
Each episode of Orange selects a character–usually an inmate but sometimes a guard–and provides a parallel story line from the past. In the case of the convicts, these mini-narratives take great pains to hint at the situations leading up–either directly or indirectly–to the crime for which the inmate was sentenced without fully playing out all the events, preserving an air of mystery that may be a bit frustrating for some viewers but that I actually appreciate.
One of my favorite flashbacks surrounds the past of Sister Jane Ingalls, imprisoned for her pacifist activism. The events depict a surprising romantic element steeped in the idealistic beatnik era of the 1960s. I remember the episode closing with the Joan Baez version of the Pete Seeger folk anthem Where Have all the Flowers Gone. It’s not that I am a total pacifist, nor do I necessarily agree with the kind of bold action the Sister had taken in her youth, but for some reason the whole thing came together in such a stirring manner.
Closing Thoughts
I think it’s important to clarify that I think prisons exist for a reason. My views on crime and punishment are pretty balanced, and I don’t think it’s right to wallow in the idea that everyone in jail is the victim of something beyond his–or actually in this case–her control. Yet, at the same time, I do think that Orange does a decent job of telling stories that speak to the human condition.
I actually detest “lock-up” reality shows–the kind that MSNBC re-runs on weekends when there aren’t any big news events–with their exploitative appeal designed for pure shock value. Yet, that is not what Orange is about. The content has some mature and controversial elements, so it’s not for everyone, but to me it’s television worth watching. I find myself entertained, but then I also feel challenged to think a bit too.
Coloring Outside the Lines 