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Based on Piper Kerman’s 2010 memoir, Orange is the New Black starred Taylor Schilling (plus an excellent ensemble cast) and told the story of an upper-middle-class woman sentenced to 15 months at Litchfield Penitentiary. Premiering with the entire first season on July 11, 2013, word of Netflix’s brilliant new series spread like wildfire. The show ran for seven seasons and even became the first Primetime Emmy Award-nominated series for original online-only web television. So why then does nobody ever seem to talk about it anymore?
How Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black Set the Standard for Streaming Television
In addition to being the first nomination, Orange is the New Black racked up sixteen total nominations, four Emmy wins, and even became the first series to score nominations in both drama and comedy categories. Absolutely hilarious and, at times, heartwrenching, OITNB quickly expanded beyond Piper’s fish-out-of-water story to explore the lives of dozens of compelling characters, humanizing everyone from inmates to guards and giving audiences a peek into the realities of life in a minimum-security women’s prison. The stacked cast included Laura Prepon, Uzo Aduba, Danielle Brooks, Natasha Lyonne, Kate Mulgrew, Laverne Cox, and more, even launching several of their careers into the mainstream.
Upon release, OITNB generated more viewers and hours watched in its first week than any other Netflix Original, surpassing House of Cards and Arrested Development. Even three years later, in 2016, it remained Netflix’s most-watched original series. Critics used words like “sharp,” “groundbreaking,” and “powerful” to describe its near-perfect first four seasons. Though some fans dropped off around season five, citing the riot plot as sluggish, the show’s final two seasons were largely well-liked, and it ended on a positive note, giving its characters a solid send-off. In its era, the consensus was that OITNB was a masterpiece, setting the bar high for what every streaming service would try to achieve, both critically and commercially.
So even though the streaming boom was essentially built on the back of OITNB, it’s rarely talked about today, and the why remains speculative. It could be because it ended at exactly the wrong time, with 2019 arguably being the peak of the streaming era, when other favorites had overshadowed the show’s legacy. It could be because fans dropped off, whether due to a dip in the quality of the later seasons or simply moving on to other shows. It could even be because many of the cultural conversations OITNB started, about prison reform, gender and race inequality, and trans representation, have since been widely discussed and no longer feel revolutionary or urgent.
Regardless of the reason, it’s worth remembering that Orange Is the New Black was one of Netflix’s original masterpieces that helped usher in an era of intelligent, high-quality original content from streaming networks.
Why do you think people have forgotten about OITNB? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
