Orange is the New Black

Schilling, Prepon and Mulgrew are uniformly terrific throughout, whether in prison garb or flashback civilian clothes. But other characters are equally compelling, giving this series innumerable stories to tell for hopefully many seasons to come. Based on the first six of 13 episodes, Orange is the New Black has passed virtually every test with flying colors.

Orange is one of the best new programs of the year, and the six episodes I've seen have left me hungry to see more.

In every case, there is an abiding feeling for character and authenticity that helps elevate Orange Is the New Black to a new definition of television excellence.

Orange is teeming with humor, heart and poignancy--all the elements needed to qualify it as one of the summer's must-see shows.

Orange Is the New Black [is] Netflix’s hilarious, addictive, fantastic new series about the goings-on at a low-security women’s prison.

Orange Is the New Black is a funny, dramatically sound, poignant, and thoroughly addictive adventure through a bleak looking glass.

Netflix finally achieves its eureka moment with a terrifically entertaining piece of original programming that's truly and bracingly original.

Kohen, basing her series on Piper Kerman's memoir, immediately gives us characters worth watching.... Orange is the New Black is TV that'll have you talking for days.

It constantly offers more than you expect, and even when it delivers something either predictable or straight from the “women’s prison drama” handbook, it then counters with something fresh or unexpected.

A deft mix of comedy and drama in which the prison feels like a real place and the women are actual people, rather than a thinly veiled excuse to stage catfights, lesbian fantasies and sexual assault.

Yes, there are a few stereotypes--a guard nicknamed Pornstache is exactly the sleazeball you expect in a women’s prison series. But, for the most part, the show strikes a fresh tone, allowing for real tenderness, social commentary and lots of anxiety in a classic fish-out-of-water scenario.

It's very funny and occasionally quite moving, with a crackerjack cast and provocative insights into the way that race and power and magical chickens function in the penal system.

It evokes "Oz" in a very, very good way: it doesn't feel quite like anything that's been put on television (if we're still calling Netflix "television") before.

Quibbles aside, watching this superb cast working together remains a pleasure, and it makes Season 2 of Orange Is the New Black an irresistible summer viewing choice.

Orange has graphic scenes that aren’t for kids. But they aren’t played for cheap gags, either, and that attitude serves the production well. With Schilling in top form, this Orange tastes fresh.

The performances by the likes of Mr. Biggs, Ms. Mulgrew and, especially, Ms. Schilling are so convincing, and the dialogue so sharp, that none of this feels like prurience for its own sake.

For all its comedy, this is a serious show, one that’s keenly attuned to the damage that women do to other women, and that men and women do to one another, and that the state does to its people before, during and after they go to prison.

"The Wire's" Snoop would definitely not fit in. But this is the most impressive group of female characters ever assembled in a series, and it's not just window-dressing; each woman has a story and that story will be told.

Orange is the New Black proves to be a smart, solid, entertaining effort for the online streaming service.

The show becomes more engrossing as is spins out from her story, fleshing out the inmates, their backstories, and their alliances. You may come for the culture-clash cringe-comedy; it’s the real human stories that will have you captivated.

Schilling's Piper, engaged to the supportive Larry (Jason Biggs) and dodging the attentions of her former lover (Laura Prepon) as well as more aggressively amorous inmates, displays a nice comic sense as she encounters one prison Catch-22 after another. The supporting cast is a strong one. But it's Kate Mulgrew, as the inmate who rules the prison kitchen with an cast-iron fist, who steals every scene she's in, and should leave Netflix's streaming subscribers begging for more.

Orange is scary, smart and relevant, and it will make you wonder why no one thought to give the “Oz” formula a dose of estrogen before now.

Smart, salty, and outrageous, the series falls squarely in the tradition of graphic adult cable drama.

While it's not apparent that the show's personalities add up to anything more than themselves at first, they ultimately prove to be compelling studies of people trying to work through glaring mistakes and obvious limitations to fashion some sort of livable present.

That ensemble may be enough reason to spend 12 hours or so at the fictional Litchfield prison, even if the drama occasionally lags. It’s a surprisingly congenial place.

Although messy and at times uneven, the one-hour series feels like a bull’s-eye with the sort of premium-cable space the distributor is eager to carve out with its original efforts.

The show runs smoothly, but the plotline just isn’t compelling enough for me to go rushing back.

The show appears to be an uneven hour that hesitates at going either for the full-throttle laugh or an authentic dramatic beat.

While the characters remain thinly rendered types and the situations predictable, Orange is the New Black veers from melodrama to slapstick.

Orange" is a slog, where minutes seem to stretch into hours, hours into days ... and the drip, drip, drip of prison time becomes its own reality.