OZ

Oz was an American television drama series created by Tom Fontana, who also wrote or co-wrote all of the series' 56 episodes. It was the first one-hour dramatic television series to be produced by HBO. It aired for six seasons between 1997 and 2003.

Oz is the nickname for the Oswald State Correctional Facility, formerly Oswald State Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison (level 4) of undisclosed location. Many of the plot arcs are set in Emerald City ("Em City"), an experimental unit of the prison in which the unit manager attempts to emphasize rehabilitation and learning responsibility during incarceration. Emerald City is an extremely controlled environment where there are a controlled number of members of each racial and social group.

The large ensemble cast includes Eamonn Walker, Rita Moreno, Ernie Hudson, John Lurie, Terry Kinney, Betty Buckley, Kathryn Erbe, Christopher Meloni, Lee Tergesen, B. D. Wong, J. K. Simmons, Dean Winters, Scott William Winters, Kirk Acevedo, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Harold Perrineau Jr., Erik King, David Zayas, Lauren Vélez, and Edie Falco.

Oz is primarily narrated by Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau), former drug dealer, convicted murderer and ex-crackhead. Now confined to a wheelchair, he appears in surreal segments and introductions that usually relate to an overall theme of the episode, setting up scenes, introducing characters, or adding epilogues. When necessary — usually when a character is introduced — Hill appears as an omniscient narrator. Used as a literary tool of the writers, he narrates the details of characters' lives, their prison number, their crimes, and their sentences. Hill appears as a recurring character within the show's story lines until the sixth season, in which narration by various deceased characters was added to the narration by Hill.

These narrations by Hill break the fourth wall, in that Hill addresses the camera (and thus the audience) directly, out of the fictional context of the scene. Hill also appears in scenes where he interacts with other characters in the story (in which he does not address the camera). Only once in the series did Hill appear to address another character with one of his narrations: in the Season 3 episode "Unnatural Disasters", the character Adebisi turns on a computer and sees Hill—dressed as a pharaoh—speaking to him. (This unusual sight is discounted by Adebisi as a drug-induced hallucination, and he never speaks of it again.)

Augustus Hill's narration over the course of the series is similar in purpose and execution to those of the Greek chorus in ancient theater. Hill's narration provides plot exposition, as well as commenting upon the events of the stories. The narration thus provides the audience a clearer understanding of the narrative's moral and thematic standpoints. Oz was nominated for several Emmys but never won. Oz was HBO's first drama.