“I’m starting to feel like this is my funeral,” Oz creator Tom Fontana joked, while sitting down for an Atx retrospective on Monday, celebrating his series’ enduring impact.
During the lively, foul-mouthed conversation, moderator Eric Deggans of NPR noted that the prison drama was the first one-hour drama series ever to air on HBO, paving the way toward a Golden Age in small-screen storytelling.
In Fontana’s opinion, Oz was groundbreaking in just one way. “HBO trusted me, as the writer and producer, to make the show I wanted, as opposed to the show they thought they wanted. I thought that gave permission to do [shows like] Sopranos and Six Feet Under,” he said. “I think…we took a chance, and it has allowed other people to make TV shows that take a chance.”
On the panel, Fontana was joined by actor-director Terry Kinney, as well as cast members Lee Tergesen,...
During the lively, foul-mouthed conversation, moderator Eric Deggans of NPR noted that the prison drama was the first one-hour drama series ever to air on HBO, paving the way toward a Golden Age in small-screen storytelling.
In Fontana’s opinion, Oz was groundbreaking in just one way. “HBO trusted me, as the writer and producer, to make the show I wanted, as opposed to the show they thought they wanted. I thought that gave permission to do [shows like] Sopranos and Six Feet Under,” he said. “I think…we took a chance, and it has allowed other people to make TV shows that take a chance.”
On the panel, Fontana was joined by actor-director Terry Kinney, as well as cast members Lee Tergesen,...
- 6/15/2021
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Jamie Andrew Nov 7, 2016
We revisit HBO's sterling and seminal prison drama Oz on the run-up to its 20th anniversary...
Oz is sometimes criminally overlooked in the pantheon of TV dramas, which is a great sin indeed; not only because the show is the obvious grand-or-God parent to a multitude of modern classics (without Oz, it's doubtful whether The Sopranos would've existed), but also because it's an immaculately acted, endlessly compelling, emotionally resonant powerhouse of a show that demands – and deserves – recognition and respect.
See related Netflix's Stranger Things: Shawn Levy interview Netflix's Stranger Things: spotting the movie references
These days we're inured to the darkness that pervades our favourite, highest-rated shows; desensitised to the violence that sweeps down from Westeros to Baltimore, via Fargo and Albuquerque. Anti-heroes have almost become de rigueur, to the point where a return to the chiselled-chinned, morally-flawless supermen of network TV's heyday is...
We revisit HBO's sterling and seminal prison drama Oz on the run-up to its 20th anniversary...
Oz is sometimes criminally overlooked in the pantheon of TV dramas, which is a great sin indeed; not only because the show is the obvious grand-or-God parent to a multitude of modern classics (without Oz, it's doubtful whether The Sopranos would've existed), but also because it's an immaculately acted, endlessly compelling, emotionally resonant powerhouse of a show that demands – and deserves – recognition and respect.
See related Netflix's Stranger Things: Shawn Levy interview Netflix's Stranger Things: spotting the movie references
These days we're inured to the darkness that pervades our favourite, highest-rated shows; desensitised to the violence that sweeps down from Westeros to Baltimore, via Fargo and Albuquerque. Anti-heroes have almost become de rigueur, to the point where a return to the chiselled-chinned, morally-flawless supermen of network TV's heyday is...
- 10/23/2016
- Den of Geek
Dean Winters is just glad to be alive. The actor, best known for playing Ryan O'Reilly on HBO's critically acclaimed prison drama Oz, Tommy's younger brother, Johnny Gavin, on FX's Rescue Me and Liz Lemon's crazy ex-boyfriend on 30 Rock, is finally opening up about a near-death experience he had last year. In an interview with the New York Post, the 45-year-old Winters recounted how he came down with a fever and then a severe bacterial infection at his New York residence in July 2009 that caused his heart to stop beating for two and a half minutes and almost left him on the outside looking in. "I was afraid to go to St. Vincent's, so I went to my doctor's office on Central...
- 6/18/2010
- E! Online
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