From creator Tom
Fontana (Homicide: Life on the Street) comes Oz, a
tough-as-nails drama set inside one of the most violent prisons, the
Oswald State
Penitentiary.
Led by Warden Leo Glynn (Ernie Hudson) and created by Tim McManus
(Terry Kinney), the experimental Emerald City (Em City) is a large
unit where the prisoners live, converse, plot, deal, and kill, among
other things. Narrated by prisoner Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau),
Oz focuses on a select group of prisoners and their everyday
actions, including Muslim leader Kareem Said (Eamonn Walker), unaffiliated Tobias
Beecher (Lee Tergesen), Irish badboy Ryan O'Reilly (Dean Winters), drug kingpin Simon
Adebisi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Aryan Brotherhood leader Vern
Schillinger (J.K. Simmons).
CRITIQUE
The fifth season of
Oz continues the stories and evolves the characters in many fun
and dramatic ways. The acting is top notch once again and the writing
is just as intense and dramatic as previous seasons. Creator Tom
Fontana collaborates well with the show's writing team that includes
Sean Whitesell, Sunil Nayar and Bradford Winters. Director Adam
Bernstein returns directing two of the season's eight episodes, and
Terry Kinney goes behind the camera for Wheel of Fortune. I
didn't spend much time in my review of Season 4 discussing plot
elements which is why I'll refrain from doing so here because there's
no use spoiling events in the season.
There's not much else
for me to discuss since you're either a fan of Oz, someone
who's seen it, or read my previous review - meaning I don't need to
repeat myself. It's simple, folks, Oz is great stuff. However, if
there is one flaw with this DVD it's the back cover that shows a very
telling photograph of a tragic event from the season finale. It's a
big spoiler to anyone who follows the show on DVD (and there are many
I'm sure). Frankly, it's inexcusable how the people in charge of
producing the DVD didn't catch this mistake. It's not the end of the
world, but they really should've used another photo!
Disc One:
501 - Visitation
502 - Laws of Gravity
503 - Dream a Little
Dream of Me
Disc Two:
504 - Next Stop:
Valhalla
505 - Wheel of Fortune
506 - Variety
Disc Three:
507 - Good Intentions
508 - Impotence
THE VIDEO
HBO presents Oz
in 1.33:1 fullscreen format. Video quality is pretty good but not by
any large standards. There aren't many flaws with the picture except
for occasional specks and grain. The colors look well saturated but
not very crisp, but that's alright. The nice thing about this DVD set
is that there are only three discs, each of them dual-layered. It
makes the packaging smaller and overall the quality is quite good.
Optional subtitles include English, French and Spanish.
THE AUDIO
HBO presents Oz
in English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. The dialogue is clear and very
easy to understand without any noise problems. The music cues sound
good, too. The front speakers get a lot of attention and perform quite
well. The 2.0 track works fine, too, and the Spanish Mono
dub track seems fine also.
THE EXTRAS
The commentary on
Impotence by series creator Tom Fontana and actor Dean Winters
found on disc 3 is pretty informative offering a variety of fun and
specific tidbits. Fontana is very knowledgeable about the actors who
play the different characters while Winters seems (pretends) to forget
his co-star's names. These guys laugh and joke a lot which works well
for the commentary. Now, my only question is, why don't these guys
record more of them?
There are also 23
Minutes of Deleted Scenes on disc 3. These
aren't scene extensions but actual deleted scenes with the time code
stamped at the bottom. Most of these don't add a whole lot to
the stories, although some flesh out certain things. The video quality
is not as good as the regular episodes but good enough. These scenes
can be played via the "play all" option or one at a time selected from
informative menu screens that list a one-sentence synopsis of the
scene and what episode the scenes were cut out of.
Lastly there is a
Season 6 Preview (2:10) that should get everyone excited about the
last Oz DVD. However! There are very big spoilers in here so
watch out!
Episodes previews
and recaps are available for each episode. The menus are very
nicely animated and scored.
FINAL THOUGHT
Oz is a great
show. The combination of great writing, acting and directing, and the
number of extras, makes this a highly recommended DVD set.
