Rating: Summary: OZ ROCKS!!!! BUY THIS DVD!!! Review: Well, I can only agree with the last reviewer -- thank god HBO has finally wised up and decided to release OZ for all of the diehard fans who have been waiting for 5 years. OZ is the most compelling series HBO does and has really suffered for years by everyone's concentration on the Sopranos. Now, at last, here we have season one for those of you who are sick of watching on faded old tapes -- BUY THIS NOW!!! I hope we get the next few seasons soon.... very soon!
Rating: Summary: An excellent show Review: The first season of Oz was the greatest! As I write this, Oz is still on tv during it's 6th season. This is a must have for fans of HBO programing. This show came out before Sopranos and Sex and The City and I've always liked Oz the most. The acting is superb. The first three seasons were its prime in writing. Now I feel the show is going downhill. The characters are getting weaker and weaker and there seems to be more and more (...) shots. (Ex: Season 4 or 5 was a scene in which a prisoner in the whole was (...) in a bucket and the audience got to see this whole action.NOT NECESSARY!) So, get this DVD if ur a fan of Oz or you never got a chance to see it from the beginning, because this is truly a great show. Hopefully season 2 and 3 come out too. It's a great show but I think it should have ended after season 3. It just doesn't have the flare it used to.
Rating: Summary: I can't stop watching this show! Review: I just started watching 'Oz' at the end of last season and have been wanting to know the back story. Thank God HBO realized the same thing. I just pre-ordered this and you should as well. It's a great collection for any 'Oz' fan.
Rating: Summary: I'm getting this now Review: I've been waiting for this DVD to come out. If you have seen this show even once, you'll know it is great. This is a way to remember the way the show started and connect some of the dots in the current storyline. Why does Beecher hate Schillinger? Get this and it will all make sense.Thank you HBO for finally putting this awesome show on DVD. I'm getting this one and any more you put out.
Rating: Summary: OZ Review: I have been an avid watcher of the TV program and have been waiting for HBO to release every season of the program. I am glad that we can now own this innovative and creative program. This program has intense character portrals and wonderful writing. Every episode you sit on the edge of your seat waiting for what will happen next. If you have never seen the show you are in for wild ride.
Rating: Summary: BUY THIS ONE NOW!! Review: I give this 5 stars only because I can't go any higher! Anyone who has watched this HBO original series knows that the acting is incredible, the story lines are as true to life as you can get, and is one of the most overall hard-hitting shows ever to come to American TV (albeit cable). Unfortunately, the show doesn't get the recognition of The Sopranos or Sex in the City because prison dramas don't draw the same overall audience. You have to see this to believe it! One of the most requested HBO series finally comes to DVD and I can only hope that HBO releases the other seasons as well. The best part is, the cast is filled with actors you may not initially recognize, but will later identify in other projects. Be prepared for a series that doesn't shy away from strong language, adult themes, frontal male nudity, and yes, even prison rape! AWESOME!
Rating: Summary: Great Show, awesome cast.... Review: I am a huge CSI fan. I enjoy watching the show, but I enjoy the show even more now that it's on DVD. I have season 1 and I have a great time having uninterrupted commercial free CSI marathons. What makes this show so interesting to me is how they use science to solve the crimes. If I had known science could lead to that type of a career opportunity, I would have taken the extra science classes in school when I was younger!!! You get 23 episodes on 6 DVD's. The 6th DVD has three episodes and then some extras. I wish they would have put the character profiles on the first DVD instead of the 6th. The show tends to use real life criminal cases for their shows. Some of the shows I recognized cases discussed on the news. Another good thing about shows on DVD? You get to see the missed episodes you did not catch during the original broadcast. I thought I caught all the shows on TV, but turned out I had not seen Who Are you, Pledging Mr. Johnson, Blood Drops, Unfriendly Skies, Boom, Sounds of Silence, and Justice is Served. I enjoy how visual the show is, and the show focus is on the crime, not Las Vegas. You may see a backdrop of Vegas at the beginning of the show or during the show, but that's about it. Gil Grissom is an old school forensic scientist. He likes to use the hands on approach to solving crimes. He loves to solve puzzles, and he tries not to let his emotions get in the way of doing his job. After a major shooting of one of the other forensic investigators he ends up becoming the supervisor of the night shift, while Brass is sent back to homicide. There is always a tug of war between the police and the forensic investigators. Grissom hates three things. 1. Guys who hit their wives, Sexual assault on children, and scum who deal to kids. Grissom supervises Katherine Willows a former "erotic dancer" who is a divorced single mom of a young girl. The very handsome Nick, who is always in competition with Warrick (another handsome man, those eyes, those lips, that hair!!!!) who has a gambling problem, and new comer Sarah who wants acceptance, but demands respect. She has a hard time keeping her emotions in check. Especially during the sexual assault cases, but Katherine is the same way during a case that deals with the death of a child. Reginald Vel Johnson (Family Matters) has a role in three episodes of season 1 as a Psychologist. I enjoy watching all the cases, but my favorite cases are the following: 1.Unfriendly Skies 2.Blood Drops 3.Sounds of Silence 4.Friends and Lovers 5.Who are you 6.anonymous 7.Crate and Burial 8.Pledging Mr. Johnson 9.Too Tough to die 10.I-15 Murders This is a great, great show!!
Rating: Summary: OZ...We're Not In Kansas Anymore Toto! Review: Well, I'd seen HBO's other hit original series like "The Sopranos" and "The Wire", and I honestly thought that TV couldn't get anymore violent or better in story content! BOY WAS I WRONG! You have to watch the show from the beginning, but if you follow carefully you feel just like you're in the prison...which is exactly what the show's directors and producers have attempted to do by shooting in closed-in spaces and upping the anti on violence. It seems that movies are losing story conent and TV (with less censorship) is gaining much more edgy stories! Plus the cast is all-star from Rita Moreno (Sister Peter Marie) to the very under-rated Kirk Acavedo (Alvarez). Even the show's writer, Tom Fontana is so great at connecting stories and humanizing the most brutal killers in OZ. The only thing that I can find that irritates me is that these cast members keep doing LAW AND ORDER episodes! God! I mean, come on, it's better to burn out than fade away. Anyway, I've got to recommend this and the other seasons.
Rating: Summary: The Wonderful Wizards of "OZ" Review: In a world where shock value has been beaten, bruised, and stomped into the ground, a show like "OZ" will come along and raise the standard for iconoclastic television a notch or two. Sure, "Sopranos" and "Sex in the City" have their grit, but "OZ" is the darkness of both, plus the irony of "Six Feet Under," combined.
There are several excellent factors to "OZ," including the cast of actors largely unknown (at the time) to the public eye. My favorite aspect of "OZ" is the narration that punctuates the series. Albeit sporadically badly delivered by Perrineau (mostly because of over-acting), the concept itself is genius.
On the subject of acting, I'm going to take the unpopular road here and say that Lee Tergesen (Tobias Beecher) is hyped more than he deserves it. His performance is often too histrionic and, although it would've worked on a stage, is a textbook example of Mistakes that People Make Fresh Out of Acting School.
Highlights include J.K. Simmons (Vern Schillinger), Eamonn Walker (Kareem Said), and Terry Kinney, who manages to pull of the pathetic Tim McManus very well. Sean Whitesell, who returned to write for the show after his character, Donald Groves, was killed, is a definite honorable mention.
There are also actors whose craft comes in flashes of brilliance. For instance, Dean Winters (Ryan O'Reily) is sometimes fit only for theater and sometimes absolutely perfect; Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Simon Adebisi) is often peaks and valleys in his work.
Overall, this show is incredible. Fontana writes well and rarely loses focus, except for the initally unorganized voice-over by Perrineau. Right around season 2 and 3, they finally get it together, though, and center it around certain subjects, so fear not.
I highly recommend buying the first season.
Rating: Summary: I'm glad I got this... Review: I bought the Oz Complete First Season because I never got to see the show during its series run on HBO. I'm really impressed and very glad that I did.
Oz does not hold back when it comes to telling the story of life behind bars. This is no fairy tale and you begin to feel something for each one of the characters. Personally, I felt sorry for Beecher (then a little sickened by him), and I fell in love with Attabisi because he just does NOT care. He's definitely one of the most comical characters.
If you're into gritty, hard-core drama, and definitely not faint at heart, then you'll love Oz. It tells it like it is. I only gave it four stars because I wasn't too impressed with the whole riot thing at th end, but this set up of what's to come by the first season certainly left me looking forward to the subsequent seasons.
Can't wait to go get Season 2.
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