Rating: 
Summary: Return To "Oz"
Review: After a truly apocalyptic end to the first season, I was left left wondering, "Well, now what?" Which brings us to the second season of "Oz" on DVD. After a brutal and bloody prison riot, things seem to be returning to normal in Oz (short for Oswald Penitentary). The only thing is, normal in Oz involves death, drugs, despair, and ultimately, destruction. With allegiances being tested, torn and changed at the drop of a hat, survival for the inmates of Emerald City isn't an option... it's a necessity. Boasting solid performances from a great ensemble cast, and often shocking moments of violence and drama, this is one of those shows that definitely is not for everyone. With the show coming to an end on HBO, it's great to revisit that network's first great drama (sorry, but "The Sopranos" came AFTER this show)as it starts to become better with every episode.
Rating:
Summary: "Oz" continues, even more brutal than the first
Review: After seeing the pilot episode of the first season of "OZ" I was instantly hooked. I purchased the first season on DVD and loved it. I couldn't get enough. I was watching each episode twice, to make sure I didn't miss anything. Then finally the second season came out, and I loved it even more! The second season starts just where the finale of season one left off. After the brutal prison riot. The second season I thought was very different from the first, but much better and more entertaining. This time, we are introduced to brand new chatacters, like Beecher's new cellmate Chris (played by Christopher Meloni), Ryan O'Reilly's mentally ill brother Cyril, the late Nino's son, Peter (who takes control of the wiseguys) and many more. This season is much more shocking than the first, including more violence and brutal rapes. The suviving characters from season one are still in Oz, including the on-going battle between Beecher and Aryan leader Schillinger. Adebesi is back, who has numerous confrontations with Italian leader Peter Schibetta, who discovers Adebesi was behind his father Nino's death. Season 2 of Oz is a truly breathtaking experience, and should not be missed by anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Anticlimactic at best, I did not like this...
Review: After the first season, I expected to be blown away by the second one, so I bought it immediately. I was so wrong. The season finale was just bad. I won't spoil it for you, but there is no build-up like the first season, no event that closes the season--or, at least, not one that you saw building up in earlier episodes. The finale is just another episode. Bad, bad, season. I'll rent season 3, then I'll decide if I'll buy it. This season seemed to cater to shock-value more than storytelling. The reviews here seem to talk about the show itself, not this season. Now I know why. You have been warned.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: As season two of HBO's Oz begins, prison reformer Tim McManus (Terry Kinney) re-opens the experimental unit Emerald City in the wake of season one's climaxing prison riot. The drug wars between the blacks and the italians escalate while the Aryan Brotherhood, led by Schillinger (J.K. Simmons, perfectly cast), attempt to re-establish their dominance. Former lawyer turned drug raddled convict Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen) gets a new cell mate with the deranged Chris Keller (Law & Order: SVU's Christopher Meloni); which results into a savage and bizarre love affair with dire consequences. Alvarez (the underrated Kirk Acevedo) finds himself ousted by new Latino leader El Cid (Luis Guzman), and it's safe to say that warden Leo Glynn (Ernie Hudson) ends up having his hands full. Created by Homicide: Life on the Street creator Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson; the second season of Oz also introduced some pivotal characters to the cast. Along with the addition of Keller, we are introduced to Ryan O'Reilly's (Dean Winters) mentally ill brother Cyril (Scott William Winters), Italian enforcer Chucky (Chuck Zito), and biker/killer Jaz Hoyt (Biohazard vocalist Evan Seinfeld); all of whom ended up staying on the show until it's end. The performances are great, from Acevedo, to Tergesen, to Simmons, to Meloni, to the Winters brothers, to Harold Perrineau (as the wheelchair bound narrator Augustus Hill); as more character driven storyarcs are introduced. The second season of Oz, although not as great as the first season, is still one of the best and most underrated shows in the history of HBO, and it's still definitely not for the faint of heart.
Rating:
Summary: Fontana's Mythic Vision
Review: At first glance, Tom Fontana's extraordinary television series "Oz" seems to be a hyper-naturalistic view of the hellish life behind bars in American prisons. It is that, of course. But the title is a tip-off that Fontana also has larger, more mythic concerns on his mind. His tortured Catholicism plays a role in the world-view presented here, as it did in his wonderful earlier series "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "St. Elsewhere." It turns out that Oz (the prison) is a kind of purgatory where wounded spirits struggle with good and evil. Even the best (like administators Tim McManus and Leo Glynn) are highly fallible, even misguided and foolish at times. And even the worst prisoners have sparks of humanity in them. These worst include the amazingly terrifying Simon Adebisi, the larger-than-life Nigerian criminal who controls the heroin trade in Oz. And J.K. Simmons deserves some kind of special award for his portrayal of Vern Schillinger, the leader of the neo-Nazi prisoners. He is the worst human being imaginable, but Simmons plays him with such style and elan that you have to grant the devil his due. As the recappers on "Television Without Pity" put it, if "Oz" were more well known, Schillinger would join Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates in the Fictional Villains Hall of Fame. The battle for the souls of these men is best shown in the ordeal of Tobias Beecher, an upper-class lawyer who is convicted of a drunk-driving homicide and finds himself in the middle of this inferno. His horrible experiences in Oz reach a Job-like intensity. The second season sees the arrival of actor Christopher Meloni as the sociopathic Chris Keller. The three-way tango of betrayal between Keller, Beecher, and Schillinger is absolutely chilling. The storytelling of "Oz" is intricate, densely layered, and paced like a rocket taking off. If you miss five minutes of a single episode you may miss the fate of a character's entire life being sealed. There is a heightened, almost magic realism to much of what goes on. (In the land of Oz, it only takes a few weeks from a death sentenced being pronounced until its execution; and each episode is narrated by inmate Augustus Hill inside some kind of omni-aware, postmodern space.) This can be a little disconcerting at first, but the final impact is exhilarating. If you can take the intense (but never gratuitous) violence and the hair-raising prison sex, "Oz" is a wild ride from one of the best writers working in television.
Rating:
Summary: Fontana's Mythic Vision
Review: At first glance, Tom Fontana's extraordinary television series "Oz" seems to be a hyper-naturalistic view of the hellish life behind bars in American prisons. It is that, of course. But the title is a tip-off that Fontana also has larger, more mythic concerns on his mind. His tortured Catholicism plays a role in the world-view presented here, as it did in his wonderful earlier series "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "St. Elsewhere." It turns out that Oz (the prison) is a kind of purgatory where wounded spirits struggle with good and evil. Even the best (like administators Tim McManus and Leo Glynn) are highly fallible, even misguided and foolish at times. And even the worst prisoners have sparks of humanity in them. These worst include the amazingly terrifying Simon Adebisi, the larger-than-life Nigerian criminal who controls the heroin trade in Oz. And J.K. Simmons deserves some kind of special award for his portrayal of Vern Schillinger, the leader of the neo-Nazi prisoners. He is the worst human being imaginable, but Simmons plays him with such style and elan that you have to grant the devil his due. As the recappers on "Television Without Pity" put it, if "Oz" were more well known, Schillinger would join Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates in the Fictional Villains Hall of Fame. The battle for the souls of these men is best shown in the ordeal of Tobias Beecher, an upper-class lawyer who is convicted of a drunk-driving homicide and finds himself in the middle of this inferno. His horrible experiences in Oz reach a Job-like intensity. The second season sees the arrival of actor Christopher Meloni as the sociopathic Chris Keller. The three-way tango of betrayal between Keller, Beecher, and Schillinger is absolutely chilling. The storytelling of "Oz" is intricate, densely layered, and paced like a rocket taking off. If you miss five minutes of a single episode you may miss the fate of a character's entire life being sealed. There is a heightened, almost magic realism to much of what goes on. (In the land of Oz, it only takes a few weeks from a death sentenced being pronounced until its execution; and each episode is narrated by inmate Augustus Hill inside some kind of omni-aware, postmodern space.) This can be a little disconcerting at first, but the final impact is exhilarating. If you can take the intense (but never gratuitous) violence and the hair-raising prison sex, "Oz" is a wild ride from one of the best writers working in television.
Rating:
Summary: OZ 1st.SEASON,OZ 2ND.SEASON
Review: EACH SEASON IS 8 HRS. [480 MINS.]OF ON THE EDGE OF YOUR CHAIR SUSPENSE.WE TALK ABOUT THE REALITY SHOWS ON TV NOW WELL THATS OZ IS REALITY BEHIND THE BARS.LEE TERGESENS DID A GREAT JOB.IM 50 YEARS OLD NOW AND SEEN A LOT BUT OZ IS NUMBER ONE.
Rating:
Summary: Oz - The Best Drama on Tv, EVER!
Review: For Fans of Oz i highly recommend this season as it is by far the best of all the seasons from beginning to end.
The storylines are fantastic in it, Emerald City has reopened after the Riot that concluded the first season, Simon Adebesi takes a much stronger role this season then last, Beecher finally stands up to the Aryans and Schillinger, makes a new Friend in Chris Keller but is all what it seems with him? Schibettas son comes to oz and is determined to find out how and why his dad died, Tim Mcmanus is still trying to create the perfect enviroment for prisoners in Em City but is finding it tough, there is a new female inmate in Shirly bellinger, and Ryan O' Reilly is still as sneaky as ever and Miguel Alverez starts to have a tough time.
The whole season was better then the first as the storylines were more interesting, they seemed to stick there course and you could sence they were building up into something, which of course they do in the Season Finale.
Buy this, you wont regret it!
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing compared to the first season
Review: I could not finish the second season of Oz. It was hopelessly dark. Whereas the first season is worth watching because it maintains suspense through building up to a prison riot, and even includes some humor, the second season seethes in pointless cycles of revenge among the characters. While this is similar to the Sopranos, it's different in that show, because it is easier to identify with the "family". The Sopranos characters are multidimensional and more homogenous, while Oz characters are scattered and mostly one-track. It also maintains the worthless "experimental" nature of the prison--there is no difference between this unit and any normal prison (save the glass cells). This makes the bleeding heart character who directs the Oz unit not just annoying, but infuriating. Nothing is done about the beatings, rapes, and murders that make prison so terrible (not to mention unconstitutional). This season simply lacks the balance that made the first season so good.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best this series has to offer.
Review: I love "Oz", and I think it's one of the best things television has ever done, but I am not a fan of its second season. Creator and writer Tom Fontana described each episode as a series of short stories. In season two, the short stories just aren't very good. It doesn't have the grit of the first season. Instead of inmates struggling to stay alive in a hostile enviromnent, we have inmates falling in love, battling cancer, and engaging in boring legal proceedings. It just isn't very compelling. I actually wondered if I was watching the WB during the episode where inmates got their GED diplomas. Not that the series has to be relentlessly grim, but there was just too much positivity this season. And certain things that happened just weren't believable. Realism took a backseat to convenience, and it felt like Fontana was clutching at straws when he devised the character arcs. The season isn't all bad, though. The Beecher/Schillinger feud takes some interesting turns, and Christopher Meloni is a terrific addition to the cast. But I only recommend the second season to people who feel the need to own the whole series.
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