Orange is the New Black

A prison is a place of confinement and restriction, but Orange Is the New Black found unexpected laughter, tears, conflict and camaraderie behind those mysterious walls. In its debut season, the series did an exceptional job of subverting our expectations of what a woman’s prison drama might be like. Orange began as the tale of a white woman whose life went sideways and viewers may have assumed that Piper Chapman’s (Taylor Schilling) discomfort at her prison life would be the show’s central thread. But creator Jenji Kohan had some tricks up her sleeve. She and her writers deftly wove the sagas of incarcerated women of all races, beliefs and personality types into a rich tapestry of humor, satire, poignant regret and unexpected heartbreak. The percolating energy of these indelible individuals animated Orange‘s complex, funny and perceptive exploration of race, class, power and the persistence of a ragged kind of hope – all centered in a failed prison system that incarcerates more people than at any other time in its history. For exposing a prison system shrouded in mystery and making it a place of possibility and connection, Orange Is the New Black wins a Peabody Award.