7.6 | / 10 |
Users | 5.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
The story of Piper Chapman, a woman in her thirties who is sentenced to fifteen months in prison after being convicted of a decade-old crime of transporting money for her drug-dealing girlfriend.
Starring: Taylor Schilling, Michael Harney, Kate Mulgrew, Danielle Brooks (IV), Uzo AdubaComedy | 100% |
Biography | 18% |
Dark humor | 6% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
English, English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (3 BDs)
UV digital copy
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
What’s Jenji Kohan been smoking recently? The force behind the long running Weeds, a series which saw its heroine do a bit of jail time here and there, has now moved on to Orange is the New Black, a series built entirely around a young, well to do woman ending up in the pen due to a long ago peccadillo. Based on the bestselling memoir Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison by Piper Kerman, the series attempts to forge the same combination of wry humor and convoluted interpersonal relationships that made Weeds so successful. Judging by this first season, Kohan doesn’t quite have her mojo working for her, at least in the early going, but the good news is the series gets markedly better as it goes along. Part of the problem is a structural artifice that sees the show repeatedly cutting away from the prison saga to offer background vignettes about various characters. The creative team attempts to knit these segues together smartly, but it’s an inherently disruptive approach and one which tends to hobble the narrative arc of the piece. The humor in Orange is the New Black is also (perhaps unimaginably) even drier than Weeds, to the point that some viewers may be wondering if the show is indeed a comedy. It’s ironic that President Obama brought the house down at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner with a joke about how the recalcitrant Republicans had turned on John Boehner, treating him even worse than they have been treating Obama, with Obama scoring big time with the punchline, “I guess orange really is the new black.” There’s nothing quite as raucously in your face like that going on in the series, but there’s a certain undercurrent of uncomfortableness that may appeal to those who like their humor on the low key and often awkward side of things.
Orange is the New Black: The Complete First Season is presented on Blu-ray courtesy or Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Shot digitally with the Arri Alexa system, the series looks nicely sharp and well detailed in high definition, though the grim prison environments don't really provide a lot of opportunity for significant pop in terms of palette. Occasional scenes seem to have been color graded (or perhaps lit) in odd hues, perhaps to add a kind of fluorescent sheen to some of the interior prison scenes, but there's no significant loss of detail in these moments. Overall, colors look accurate, if kind of bland, and are well saturated. The image is very clear and benefits from consistent contrast. No obvious compression artifacts were noticed in preparation for this review.
Orange is the New Black has a surprisingly immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, at least when considering that large swaths of the series take place in the relatively claustrophobic environs of the prison. Noisy rooms like the kitchen or even the shop provide good spatial ambience and placement of sound effects, but even in Piper's cell, the distant echo of other inmates in the offing can add a sense of sonic verisimilitude. Dialogue is presented cleanly and the track has no issues of any kind to mention.
Kohan's slightly skewed sense of humor can be an acquired taste. I know people who think Weeds is one of the greatest shows in recent television history, and others who find it impossibly self-conscious and precious. Those two groups will probably feel pretty much the same about Orange is the New Black, but here there's an additional issue with the storytelling style, which tries to do too much in the early going, threatening to disenchant viewers. Those with a little patience will find the series getting more interesting—and maybe even more darkly funny—once the main characters have been introduced and at least the outlines of their backstories depicted. Orange is the New Black feels like it's still finding its thong-laden feet in this first season, but considering the fact that the real life Kerman didn't spend that much longer than a year in prison to begin with, Death Row may come for this series sooner rather than later. While not perfectly executed (to continue with our prison analogies), Orange is the New Black generates enough interest off of its motley crew of characters, brought vividly to life by a great cast, to come Recommended.
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