That's how I felt about it too. Seasons 4-6 were blind buys for me, and I wish I hadn't. Season 3 wasn't quite up to par either, but I loved seasons 1 and 2.

Oz did eventually become a parody of itself, but I think I have talked to enough criminal defendants to be able to represent that a more accurate accounting of the early seasons is to suggest it was a parody of prison life.

I heard the author of the new James Bond novel on NPR today, and he described parody as turning the source material up to 125%. I would submit that Oz was at 125% at the start and was probably up to 150% by the end. To me, it was perfectly acceptable.

I was thinking the same thing. Here are some stats for fun...

March 2, 2001 - May 28, 2008

7 years, 2 months, 26 days
2644 days
228,441,600 seconds
3,807,360 minutes
63,456 hours
377 weeks

Lee Tergesen (Tobias Beecher) is currently appearing in the play GOOD BOYS AND TRUE at the Second Stage Theater in NYC.

Once they started killing off characters left and right for shock value, that's when the show jumped the shark for me, but I still loved it till the very last episode.

Wow, this thread brings back memories of my early days on the forum, waiting for the next season to be announced for release on DVD. The wait each year was horrible!

I wondered what happened to Beecher. Same with that one Italian kid.. the one that escaped in Season 2 or 3 and was on the fun.

Oh man, what fun.

I wondered what happened to Beecher. Same with that one Italian kid.. the one that escaped in Season 2 or 3 and was on the run.

Oh man, what fun.

The age pill crap and The Rev Coultier (luke perry) rising and disappearing like Christ killed it for me but I stayed down to the very last ep and was sad to see it go.

I agree that the later seasons got ridiculous. It was good up until

Yes, I agree there were some outrageous moments and storylines in a series which hoped to depict maximum security prison life with some level of accuracy. That said, I think it's great drama and it sucked me in. My Oz DVDs get lent out more than anything else. It's the first tv series my fiancee and I watched together as a couple and she fell in love with it. Well, she fell in love with Adebisi, but that's beside the point!

the man on man rape scenes were too explicit for my innocent eyes

how about Jeremiah Clutea (sp?) appearing in peoples cells as a ghost or Maxim doing a photo shoot with some of the prisoners as models.

One of the best theme songs ever!

My ex-drummer and I (bass) would jam that at the beginning of some gigs when we were warming up. It was most gratifying when one time I heard a guy yell form the back of the bar "AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHZZ!".

The best story I've ever heard about a series is that the show producers would "punish" actors who arrived late to rehearsal, etc. by writing in scenes where those actors would get thrown naked into the hole.

I think it was more a rite of passage, like joining a fraternity. That's why some of the guest actors were willing to put it out there.

While the later seasons were less realistic, I thought it freed them to examine more abstract issues.

Let's be serious though. With the amount of killing that happened at OZ, wouldn't it be shut down permanently after a couple months?

Yep. That's why I suggest that it was a parody of prison from the start.