The year after the Collins English Dictionary declared “binge-watch” the word of the year, Orange is the New Black premiered on Netflix. In June 2013, we met Chapman (Taylor Schilling), Morello (Yael Stone), Red (Kate Mulgrew), Burset (Laverne Cox), Flores (Laura Gómez), Vause (Prepon), Diaz (Dascha Polanco), Nichols (Natasha Lyonne), Taystee (Danielle Brooks), Pornstache (Pablo Schreiber), and Larry (Jason Biggs). In 2016, OITNB became Netflix’s most-watched AND longest-running original series, attracting more viewers than its other top original performers Arrested Development and House of Cards.

So what made the crime dramedy so compelling? The cast of women (and men) I rattled off earlier—plus the many additional characters that joined the show’s seven seasons. The actors delivered the show’s sharp writing with a blend of bittersweet wit, pathos and raw honesty.

Based on the book

Showrunner Jenji Kohan (Weeds, GLOW) brought the idea for a TV show to the real-life Piper Kerman (Chapman in the show), whose memoir Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison was gifted to Kohan by a friend. The opening credits were even compiled of real-life former prisoners—blink and you’ll miss the one who just happens to be Kerman herself.

Kohan has since cited that Piper Chapman was her “Trojan Horse” into the world of the fictional Litchfield Penitentiary, an upstate New York minimum-security prison (filmed at the real, supposedly haunted, former Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Centre) as a way to spotlight underrepresented groups on television.

The hard truths

Orange is the New Black set out to humanize prisoners, who are often looked down upon in society. It also examined race discrimination, sex and gender roles, corruption and issues within prison—such as overcrowding, poor conditions and guard brutality.

Piper was our “way in”—much like she was the transporter for her ex-girlfriend’s (Vause) drug money—and the story started out as a way to reconcile youthful mistakes and relationships gone wrong. It immediately entered fresh territory as well: Privilege, race and LGBTQ+ issues were unabashedly laid bare right in the pilot. It quickly became apparent that the show was an ensemble of amazing storylines that Piper was simply an introduction to.

Cells of a good show

The structure is a huge part of what made Orange is the New Black good and unique. As much as screenwriters are told not to use flashbacks—and for heavens’ sake, never ever open with one if you don’t absolutely have to—OITNB does it. A LOT. The flashbacks serve to set up the current story, and since the present sees everyone stuck in prison together, it is a perfect way to prevent characters from long-winded explanations. Each flashback also seems to be perfectly punctuated with a transition back to the present that feels as though the character was just as lost in the past as the viewer is. It’s a sight to study, screenwriters!

It might be dressed up as a story about an upper middle class blonde, white woman “self-surrendering” to prison — one who was originally supposed to be played by Katie Holmes, but cast to Schilling— for 15 months for a crime committed 10 years earlier, but OITNB is really all about relationships. Hands-down that’s why audiences kept coming back; to see not only how it worked out, but who everyone worked out with (or not) in terms of relationships and friendships. Would Chapman end up with her current fiancé or the ex-girlfriend who named her in the trial that lead to Chapman’s incarceration? What would become of the mother-daughter team of Daya and Aleida? And what about Caputo and Natalie, Nicholls and Morello, Taystee and Cindy…? I won’t give away spoilers, but the unique pressures that living together in a prison setting puts on any relationship dynamic made these bonds stand out, strengthen and sometimes splinter beyond repair.

Corruption was also a theme woven throughout all seven seasons of the show. Through humanizing the prisoners and depicting a range of archetypes on the “right side” of the law—which often acted anything but lawful—OITNB delved into systemic flaws in the justice system and how privatization affects everyone involved. The last season, in particular, examined how prisoners move on from their time behind bars, and how some didn’t. In the process, it also depicted immigrant struggles through the show’s new ICE detention center.

Though OITNB  ended in 2019, its beginnings were in an era of television where boundaries were being broken down.

In Retrospect

The first season alone received 12 Primetime Emmy® Award nominations, including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Directing. When the Emmys changed up the rules the following year, OITNB was entered in the drama category instead, becoming the first series to receive nominations in both categories.

The series racked up 150 nominations overall spanning the Emmys, Golden Globes®, Writers Guild of America Awards, Producers Guild of America Awards, and a Peabody—winning 53 of them, including an Outstanding Supporting Actress nod for Uzo Aduba (who played Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren).

Even more notable was Laverne Cox’s (Promising Young Woman) four Primetime Emmy nominations for Guest Actress. As a Black transgender woman, she made history as the first transgender person to be nominated for any acting category at the Emmys.

While OITNB featured plenty of salacious drama, the decision to end it didn’t involve much. Kohan felt the story was coming to its natural conclusion, and Netflix agreed. You can still binge all seven seasons on the streamer.