#Hbo oz series cast tv#

I sort of pathetically adapted it as I got each rejection. I found that very moving, and so thatвЂ™s where Emerald City came from, and the idea of glass so that everybody could see everybody else at any given moment.Д«ack then there were only four networks, and none of them were the least bit interested in my version of a prison show. When I talked to prisoners who were in places like Emerald City, they were very clear that it was worse for them because they had no privacy. But there was never a place where the two were together, and it was important to me that you had the old and the new butting up against each other. While developing Oz, I spent about two years going to prisons all over the country, and I saw that there were two kinds - these old Gothic horror chambers, and new, experimental prisons. That was my first swing at seeing what writing a prison show might be like. While I was doing Homicide - where the bad guy didnвЂ™t always get arrested - I thought, вЂњMaybe the more interesting story is what happens to these people when they go to prison.вЂќ In David SimonвЂ™s nonfiction book thereвЂ™s a section about a prison riot in Baltimore, and I decided to expand on it for an episode, and bring back some of the murderers we had seen in previous seasons. Tom Fontana: I grew up watching cop shows where at end of the episode the bad guy traditionally got arrested and went to prison while the cops sat around in the last scene and did a funny little joke. As Fontana quickly discovered, his show never stood a chance at making it onto a broadcast network. That germ of an idea eventually grew into Oz, which he developed in collaboration with Levinson. It was during the making of Homicide that Fontana found himself contemplating what happens to criminals after they entered the penal system. Elsewhere before collaborating with Barry Levinson and Paul Attanasio on NBCвЂ™s acclaimed police series Homicide: Life on the Street. The Buffalo-born writer was a creature of network television, getting his start as a writer and producer on the beloved NBC medical drama St. Tom Fontana never set out to be a premium cable pioneer. Oz creator Tom Fontana (Photo: Getty Images) (Sorry, Keller and Beecher вЂshippers, that means no Chris Meloni, who joined in Season 2.) Read on to discover which famous hip-hop star played the role of narrator Augustus Hill before Harold Perrineau, how Simon Adebisi acquired his name (and famous hat) and the unsung heroine behind both Oz and the premium cable boom.

#Hbo oz series cast tv#

To commemorate the prison dramaвЂ™s milestone anniversary, Yahoo TV talked with 13 key players in OzвЂs groundbreaking premiere and eight-episode first season. Two years after Oz premiered, HBO debuted a new show from David Chase called The Sopranos, and the rest is Peak TV history. Simmons, Eamonn Walker and Dean Winters were just some of the future stars who passed through Emerald CityвЂ™s glass cells - attracted the attention of critics, as well as those within the industry. OzвЂs serialized storytelling and ensemble cast - J.K. Set in Emerald City, an experimental incarceration unit inside the fictional Oswald State Correctional Facility, the show offered an addictive fusion of gritty prison drama, dark comedy, graphic violence, and even a touch of soap opera romance. ItвЂ™s HBO.вЂќДЄnd Oz was the kind of bold, provocative experiment that only could have aired on a restrictions-free cable network looking to shake up its image. ThatвЂ™s the date that Tom FontanaвЂ™s sprawling prison drama, Oz, premiered on HBO, setting a channel best known for replaying movies and the occasional cult comedy series like The Larry Sanders Show on a course to becoming a dramatic powerhouse that lived up to its famous tagline: вЂњItвЂ™s Not TV.

ItвЂ™s a brave new world, one that began to take shape 20 years ago on July 12, 1997. In todayвЂ™s Peak TV landscape, television creators have a multitude of content-hungry outlets eager to attract an audience for their wares: Streaming services and premium cable compete alongside basic cable and network television, while viral video-generating Internet hot spots like YouTube and Funny or Die are cranking out original programming as well.