But I am really enjoying the chance to appreciate the uncut original, for what it was.ДЇinally, an unreturned package that went my way for once. ItвЂ™s probably just as well that its Golden Age successors adjusted the formula. ItвЂ™s fascinating, then, to look back on Oz now, and admire its determination to do, and be, something genuinely new - and to be hard to watch. On the other hand, itвЂ™s often funny, and regularly spiked with moments of genuine warmth and humanity. IвЂ™m a fan of Orange Is the New Black, for instance, and certainly itвЂ™s bold in its explorations of moral ambiguity and the perverse effects of prison life. And watching it has revealed to me that for all the sophistication of more recent Golden Age programming, todayвЂ™s shows have all dialed it back from the experimental risks of Oz. Possibly it sounds crazy to express admiration for such a show, but grim as it may be, the writing is amazing. Any gesture of goodwill is sure to turn into an evil trick - or to be interpreted as such, resulting in yet another crushing and violent betrayal. In subsequent seasons, that narrator character becomes (so far) a genuinely well-intentioned and semi-relatable figure, along with a few others. Meanwhile, the showвЂ™s structure is punctuated with crazy interstitial narration that plays out in stagey set pieces that feel more appropriate to some 1990s East Village experimental theater than major-league television. At least he doesnвЂ™t actually shank or rape anyone, as most everybody else on the show does, but you wouldnвЂ™t want to have lunch with him.ДЄnother principal character - a white-collar lawyer and thus arguably the most вЂњrelatableвЂќ figure for a typical HBO viewer - responds to prison life with an off-putting combination of whimpering cowardice, followed by rank depravity. The prison blocвЂ™s mastermind and overseer, and basically the showвЂ™s central character, espouses an intellectually enlightened set of ideas about incarceration - but heвЂ™s pretty much a jerk: arrogant, self-righteous, and un-charming, with an almost pathological lack of empathy. The first season in particular is devoid of truly sympathetic characters. Oz, in contrast, has proved to be completely relentless. On the other hand, there was invariably something likable about the anti-heroes of those shows, along with intermittent moments of humor and humanity. The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad - they all feature what we can politely call mature themes, and story lines that treat the audience as intelligently engaged rather than seekers of the distracting fluff of traditional network television. This was definitely cinematic television.Д«ut whatвЂ™s really striking about watching the show now is how much more radical it is than its successors.

Oz debuted on HBO way back in 1997 and is now frequently credited as the granddaddy of whatвЂ™s come to be regarded as televisionвЂ™s New Golden Age: Made with total disregard for the mores of commercial television, it featured high production values, complex plots that played out over multiple hourlong episodes, and rated-R levels of harsh realism (in terms of language, violence, and nudity).

I am now about halfway through Season 4, and, wow, I think I am the most ardent decade-plus-late fan ever. And there it was on Amazon Prime: the whole six-season series.

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