Fairly old show, from 1997 to 2003. It takes place in a prison. My friend told me to watch it and so i did and i love it. Though i'm only on season 2. The characters are all so interesting they are all so different. So much shit is disturbed. Lots of violence and blood. You should really check it out.
I'm watching it now. With my online Comcast account I can watch a lot of old shows I missed when they were first shown. I've been watching now for about a week and I'm up to season 4. Don't get me wrong, I like it, but it's not very realistic. The prison cliches and stereotypes are endless. Take death row, for example. Women and men together, the cells are straight out of some 1940's prison movie, and when they decided to paint the female prisoners cell (Kathryn Erbe from Law & Order CI) they let her wander free throughout the unit. An inmate (Stabler from Law & Order SVU) agrees to snitch on the resident Aryan Brotherhood boss (the dude in the Farmers Insurance commercials, lol), goes to protective custody, then is not only allowed to leave PC just because he asks, but is put back in a cell with the guy who's arms and legs he broke. And of course the Nazi's shank him. It's like someone's fantasy of prison life who doesn't know much about prisons. But I can't stop watching. I was addicted to it the first episode. At any given time there must be 10-15 story lines going at once, and the characters, though stereotyped, are all interesting and very well acted.
I was pretty into this one when it started, but that was mostly because it was when the 'golden age' began. It started out really strong but after a while there was only so much they could do with a show set inside a prison. I think it was right around season 4 that it became a cartoon, and after a while it was just gross-outs and people getting killed. There were still some interesting arcs and the cast was solid, but by the time they got to the final season it was utterly ridiculous. But I think they were all having fun with it and it wasn't a crushing disappointment so much as enjoyably silly.
This show was where TV shows suddenly became a lot more hardcore, like R-rated movies. The first 2 seasons of this are gold, man, gold... But by season 4 it went downhill a lot.
Love this show! It went downhill after the 4th season. But still a great show. Ryan O'Reilly was one of my favorite characters in the show. Beecher is fricken vicious after season 1. Great story arcs and great acting. Just sucks it ended pretty shitty.
