Why I love Orange is the New Black

I am a recovering TV addict, at University I watched everything and anything and then I went to live in Canada and I couldn’t cope with the advertising on the TV channels across the pond, there were way too many for my liking and I so I gave up TV. When I returned to the UK I decided that it was time to give it up, I had lived without it for a year so why start up again? But every now and again a TV show takes my fancy and I can’t stop watching. Last Summer my one TV show was Breaking Bad, after it had finished I didn’t think there could ever be another TV show for me, it was just too good.

Then someone on Facebook suggested that if I liked Breaking Bad I would like Orange is the New Black. For nearly a year I refused to start another TV show, I didn’t want to cheat on Breaking Bad, but then The Babe starting going to sleep a little earlier and I stopped being so tired in the evenings and I suddenly had time for a show again and this show is Orange is the New Black and I LOVE IT.

The show is based on Piper Kerman’s memoir: Orange is the New Black: My year in a Women’s Prison. I hadn’t realised that the show was about women in prison when it was initially suggested to me as I might have been quicker on the uptake. I did my dissertation on coping techniques of women in the Gulag and have always been interested in the way groups of women behave.

I am not going to cheat on Breaking Bad, as I still think it is one of the best TV shows of all time. But there is one thing that is better about Orange is the New Black and that is the female characters. As a show almost predominantly about women it would really suck if the female characters weren’t strong but I really hated the female characters in Breaking Bad. I couldn’t relate to Skyler in the slightest and she really just grated on me, but this isn’t how I feel about the women in Orange is the New Black.

I really relate to the character of Piper because she is flawed in a way that I and I am sure other women can relate too. She tries really hard to be good but always ends up making a situation worse. Like when she first gets into the prison she disses the food, trying to start a conversation with the other women, but doesn’t realise she is in the company of the chef. I do things like this all the time. It’s a bit like the time I tried to crack a joke during a break up.

I am also a really big fan of the characters of Suzanne, Nicky, Morello and Poussey, Jenji Kohan has really cleverly written these characters so that you really care about them and their fate. I like the way that all of the characters are multi-layered they have good days and bad days, sometimes they are all getting on and really funny and sometimes they are arguing and falling out. It makes the women real and likeable.

Running behind the characters there are some complex issues being dealt with by the show: mental health, sexuality, how prison changes people, how prison effects the family unit, how women cope when they are released and how much corruption goes on in prison. For me it is fascinating on so many levels, I don’t want to give too much away but go and watch, for me I am now at the end of season two, awaiting more with baited breath.

Love and orange is the new black,