Oz - Series 4

Oz seems to be losing its way in Series 4. Many of the familiar characters from the three previous series are bumped off in various ways, and one (Whittlesea) disappears between the last disc of Series 3 and the first of Series 4 through a very silly plot device involving a trip to London. Was her contract up, we wonder?

Several new characters, who look like they are becoming major players in the series, are preremptorily killed off before they can make any sort of impact or written out in some way - warning bells should ring in your head every time someone has a bit of good luck or is granted parole, because basically they've got about 15 minutes screen time left!

Various new storylines are tried out and then either forgotten about or simply fade away - at least one (the 'medicine' storyline) not only seems totally unrealistic but is never explored after its initial half-hour or so; it is seemingly included simply to bump off a couple of minor characters and set up a rather silly 'escape' storyline for an inmate and an even sillier 'being struck off the medical register' one for one of the hospital staff. Neither come to any kind of fruition. There's an equally silly 'Shawshank-esque' tunnel digging thread at one point. Several familiar characters play 'cat and mouse' over whether they will be leaving the series in various ways, making it feel like the writer was testing the audiences reaction to see if they would countenance the character's disappearance.

The body count is extremely high, and though the series retains its earlier integrity in the form of hard-hitting performances and some of the storylines, there is no major build-up to the end of the series and it all ends rather frustratingly.

I LOVE OZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love OZ - its absolutely amazing and another super HBO offering. However, i feel that some things going on in this season of OZ are just ridiculous. They just would never happen. Not that many things in Oz have been realistic as such but i think it almost gets a bit silly in places towards the end. Still enjoyable though and cant wait to check out 5 and 6!

series 4 is basically 2 series in 1. 16 hours of pure entertainment!

the series reaches a creschendo around episode 8 and then calms down a bit until a dramatic climax at 16. The story lines are brilliant, the action intense and gritty and some of the characters are wonderful.

this really did set a standard which i personally dont think has been surpassed by these long tv series.

there are even some guest star cameo's, steve buschemi directs one episode (which is noteably more violent) and method man appears in a few episodes.

Cant wait to see series 5 and 6, although i will feel slightly lost and empty when i've seen them all!

not for the feint hearted however!

if i was asked why did i join love film one of my reasons would be the oz series this is my idea of entertainment at the very best nothing in my opinion comes near to it if i had the money i would buy the whole series and watch it all again,if this makes me a sad case so be it