Oz: The Complete Third Season
by Tom Fontana
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, B.d. Wong, Ernie Hudson, George Morfogen, J.k. SimmonsDirector: Tom Fontana
Brand: HBO Home Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 480 minutes
Published: 2004-02-01
DVD Release Date: 2004-02-24
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 99079
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Product features:
- DVD
- 4 X 3 FULL FRAME
- Digi-Pack
- Multi Disc
- Dolby Surround 2.0 - Spanish Dolby Surround 5.1 - English Dolby Surround Stereo - English
- Audio Commentary: Audio commentary by creator Tom Fontana and director Chazz Palminteri on "Unnatural Disasters" Deleted Scenes: 22 minutes of deleted scenes
Movie Reviews of Oz: The Complete Third Season
Movie Review: Oz makes the leap
Summary: 5 Stars
After a somewhat disappointing second season, Oz came back with a vengeance for its third go-round, finally making good on the promise of its excellent first season. The show does, as usual, contain its share of implausibilities (although not to the extent that the fourth season does), but its insight into people and the institutions they create, along with its odd mix of realism and sensationalism, more than make up for any gaps in credibility. Its murderer's row of a cast is in fine form once again, even with characters frequently coming and going, and the volatility of the characters and storytelling is, as usual, cranked to the max. The show's disturbing violence gained it a good deal of notoriety, and this season does feature some truly imaginative (and imaginatively filmed) murders, but the killings, maimings, and beatings are just one manifestation of its pedal-to-the-metal intensity and visceral impact.
Its intimate, pressure-cooker setting gives Oz an ideal platform for developing characters and constantly shifting interpersonal dynamics, and this season sees the further development of several lingering plotlines from the first two seasons, along with plenty of new shocks to be found. Essentially, Oz examines prison life from three perspectives-the groups that dominate life among the inmates, the unfortunate few who have to find a way to survive without the protection of a prominent organization, and the staff who have to try to keep a lid on everything-and all three end up getting plenty of attention this season. Fontana has said that Oz was intended to be a microcosm of the world at large, and this season certainly fulfills that goal, partly with its frequent and savage outbreaks of violence, but more in its penetrating examination of the varied and contradictory sides of human nature. Above all else, it's the self-contained universe Oz establishes that makes it such an addictive show-an environment where violence, greed, and racism are nothing less than survival mechanisms and anything even resembling a virtue can be turned into a weakness. In Oz, even a prison boxing tournament designed to provide the inmates with a release turns into the focus of endless intrigue and division, not to mention murder.
The third season's main focus, especially in its last few episodes, is on the mounting racial divisions in Oz, which are handled in a surprisingly organic manner, with a series of seemingly unrelated incidents serving to divide the inmates almost completely by skin tone. Naturally, the race-based tensions are exploited by the show's leading villains: Nigerian-born drug lord Simon Adebisi and Nazi hatemonger Vern Schillinger, both of whom belong in the hall of fame for memorably evil TV characters. Played in career-making fashion by Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje, who's as physically imposing as Shaq and a much better actor, Adebisi is a smirking, menacing presence, the sort of magnetic villain you can't help but enjoy watching even as his machinations reach new levels of deceit and depravity. For his part, the glowering, sadistic Schillinger always manages to couch his actions in the rhetoric of rightneousness, but he seems less concerned with improving the fortunes of the white race than with brutalizing and terrorizing any fellow inmates he sees fit, regardless of color. That said, J.K. Simmons always manages to make Schillinger believable and even occasionally human, never more so than when his son gets sent to Emerald City and quickly finds himself in over his head.
Now, since I'm not quite out of things to say, here are a few bullet points regarding this season:
-The second season established a set of fractured relationships among the inmates, but they're really developed to their fullest extent in the third season. Sometimes the show's plotlines can admittedly veer a bit into soap-opera territory, but in the most compelling character arcs-the ongoing comingling of love, distrust, and violence between Beecher and Keller; Ryan O'Reilly's stewardship of his brain-damaged brother, which walks a fine line between protection and exploitation; and of course the severed bond between Schillinger and his son-there's a rawness to the emotions of those involved that few shows can match.
-It's on this season that Kareem Said becomes a pantheon TV character, right up there with the likes of Tony Soprano and Vic Mackey. Said was a fierce, galvanizing figure from the show's beginning, and as the third season progresses it reveals more of the internal conflicts and unshakable convictions that end up costing him dearly even among the other Muslims. Eammon Walker really gets inside Said's character this season, lending him new levels of complexity with practically every facial expression and line of dialogue, turning Said into a figure who's unflinchingly principled but far from bloodless or unrelatable.
-In spite of all the betrayal, murder, and everything else, it's not all doom and gloom in Oz. As in real life, there is the occasional tender moment, such as elderly lifer Rebadow finally getting to meet his grandson, and loads of offbeat humor, especially with the introduction of children's TV host and inmate lust object Miss Sally. Plus there's the ongoing saga of creepy death-row inmate Shirley Bellinger, which adds little to the show but does take some interesting twists towards season's end.
And yeah, that's pretty much it. If you liked the first two seasons of Oz, the third season offers everything that was good about them and plenty more. All fans of fierce, intelligent TV owe it a look.
Summary of Oz: The Complete Third Season
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