Product Description

(HBO Dramatic Series) The Millennium ended with a bang at Oswald State Correctional Facility Level Four--aka Emerald City--as racial tensions reached an all-time high. Now following a two-week lockdown and the appointment of a new Unit Manager things are definitely changing but not necessarily for the better. Prison officials are looking for ways to end the hostilities and return Emerald City to normal...but when was Em City ever normal? And if anyone thinks the worst is over for Oz they're wrong--dead wrong.Running Time: 960 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 026359901720 Manufacturer No: 99017

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1808 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2005-02-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: AC-3, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 3
• Dimensions: .55 pounds
• Running time: 960 minutes

Amazon.com
The heightened reality of Oz remains consistently engrossing in the fourth season of HBO's volatile prison drama. All 16 episodes were written or cowritten by series creator Tom Fontana, and are bookended by the wisely sardonic observations of paraplegic prisoner Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau), whose terse, philosophical ruminations about life in "Oz" give the series its literate edge. The 2000-2001 season finds Oz in the wake of racial warfare; tensions remain high among the factions that make the "Em City" cell block a hotbed of seething animosity among the skinhead Aryans led by Shillinger (J.K. Simmons); Muslim splinter groups led by Kareem Said (Eamonn Walker), the fearsome Adebisi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Supreme Allah (Lord Jamar); and the resident Mafia, Latinos, and lowlifes who make up Em City's embroiled population of newcomers, hard-timers, and death-row inmates. Unit Administrator McManus (Terry Kinney) sets up a centrally located penalty cage for anyone who causes outbreaks of violence (which are shockingly frequent and frequently lethal), but loses his job in a mid-season plot development that spins Oz into a maelstrom of internal politics and brutal retaliation.

Through it all, Fontana and his collaborators (including guest director Steve Buscemi) maintain impressive focus on dozens of finely drawn characters. Laced with homosexual tension, jealousies, religious fervor, and threats of betrayal, the season's most compelling conflicts involve impulsive killer Ryan O'Reily (played with cagey menace by Dean Winters) and his brain-damaged half-brother Cyril (Scott William Winters); and the manipulative Keller (Christopher Meloni) and his prison lover Toby Beecher (Lee Tergesen), a lawyer and convicted murderer whose survival seems perpetually uncertain. Tenuous order is barely maintained by warden Glynn (Ernie Hudson) and Catholic counselor "Sister Pete" (Rita Moreno), but the bulk of Oz's fourth season is devoted to chaos, as shifting loyalties keep all prisoners (and all viewers) in a state of anxious anticipation. The criminal histories of many inmates are shown in flashback, and one death-row scenario (involving guest star Kathryn Erbe) reaches its inevitable conclusion. By the time episode 16 ends with a blazing inferno, you'll be wondering about the fate of Rev. Cloutier (Luke Perry) and anxious for the tumultuous events of season 5. (Commentary accompanies two episodes: Fontana and Moreno offer informative anecdotes on "You Bet Your Life," but the Fontana/Winters/Tergesen commentary on "Famous Last Words" is raucously undisciplined and for hardcore Oz fans only.)--Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Ever-increasing level of drama.
This is a positive review, but first I feel obligated to warn potential viewers of just how bloody this season is, even compared to previous ones. A man getting his neck snapped while giving a blow job, a child getting mutilated (mostly off screen, thankfully) and an inmate being buried alive are some of the more shocking twists. These scenes are not too common, nor are they the main point of the show, but they are there.

In season four, racial tensions in Oz are at the breaking point. A white boy shoots down several black inmates and so the black population decides to take things into their own hands. Muslim leader Kareem Said and former section leader of Em City Tim McManus have a plan to stop the resultant violence...if they live long enough.

Taking up just as much time are the stories of the prisoners' daily lives. Season four has sixteen episodes instead of the usual eight, so all the characters we've come to know and love (or despise) get their time in the spotlight. Struggles with faith, friendship, love and family are the primary plot points this season as several inmates develop new relationships and find lost family members and/or religious beliefs. Many of the vilest inmates struggle for redemption, and some of them get it. Others don't.

As in previous seasons, everyman Tobias Beecher centers the show. His romance with sociopath Chris Keller hits a new low as the pair spend months trying to find ways to hurt each other after breaking up. Do they love each other enough to put aside their differences when one really needs the other? Meanwhile, Tobias's growing friendship with Kareem Said forces both to examine dark parts of their souls, while his ongoing (since season one) war with Vern Schillinger takes away part of his family, which in turn takes part of his sanity. Through all the horror, his attempts to keep his compassion are courageous and admirable, though he doesn't always succeed.

Various other plotlines thread through. Some work and others don't. On the positive end there are stories like that of the four death row inmates in Oz's walls; their conversations made for some of the most touching and best written scenes in the show. On the other hand there are a few ideas that border on absurd, such as Oz becoming a hotel for Chinese refugees and a romance between a woman and the man that murdered her husband.

Fortunately, most of the season and all of the acting is good enough that a few stray plot bunnies are forgivable. Season four of Oz is an emotionally intense, often shocking roller coaster that you won't want to stop watching. Make sure to clear a lot of time for yourself before you turn it on.

Season 4 is Oz at its Best
To most fans of HBO's Oz, season four is split up into two parts. Why the creators decided to make it one season escapes me considering the two parts have about as much in common as any other seasons do. The most likely reason is that the length between the two parts was only six months as opposed to the regular year. This only helps the fans though as all sixteen episodes are packaged in one set and costs the exact same as the others. Oz has always been one of the most graphic shows to ever air on TV so if you don't like violence, nudity or anything of that sort, Oz is probably the worst show you could watch. If you are a fan of a character based drama where the rich storylines that are continuously brought up over the shows six year run, Oz is the show for you.

Oz is short for the Oswald State Correctional facility a prison where the inmates are among the worst you'll ever see. The bulk of the show revolves around one unit called Emerald City where the inmates are given extra privileges provided they hold a job, behave, and strive to become better people. Of course this doesn't exactly matter and every episode features at least one death of an inmate. The show does deal with the better side of some inmates and shows us that there is some good in prisoners.

Season 4 Part 1 is about when Tim McManus, creator of Emerald City is fired and his replacement Martin Querns turns out to be worse than he is. Querns believes that violence is the only problems and lets the most dangerous inmate Simon Adebisi does as he pleases as long as violence is kept to a minimum. Querns transfers most of the white inmates out of Emerald City and the remaining white inmates plan to get rid of him. This part of the season has a shocking ending only Oz would provide and things return to normal.

Season 4 Part 2 is more like a typical Oz season. McManus is back and tries to retain order while several prison gangs attempt to take control of the drug trade. Irish inmate Ryan O'Reilly tries to keep his mentally retarded brother Cyril from having violent outbursts and McManus arranges a basketball game against former NBA inmate Jackson Vahue. Narrator August Hill's stepfather, a Vietnam vet by the name of Burr Redding arrives to take control of the Homeboys and the drug trade. All in all this is one of the most action packed seasons of Oz.

Oz is unlike any show I've ever seen. Things that happen in each episode than one might consider irrelevant show up years later to haunt whoever committed the action. Characters you think are dead miraculously show up out of nowhere. Oz also features many actors who appeared on shows like Lost, all four Law & Orders (Christopher Meloni and B.D. Wong were cast members of both Law & Order SVU and Oz at the same time), Homicide: Life on the Street, The Wire, and many more. Oz is one of the best written shows I've ever watched and I'm sure if you give it a try you'll be hooked I know I was.

It just goes to show that even the best have bad moments...
Until a few months ago I had never even heard of Oz. My boyfriend brought home the complete first season one day so we popped it in the DVD player and I've been hooked ever since. I quickly bought seasons two, three, and I've just completed the fourth season. Seasons one through three were the absolute best television there is. Being an Oz fan I much enjoyed season four but in all honestly it lacked what the first three seasons had.

One thing I didn't like is that they had so many different stories going on at the same time it was like they would spent three or four minutes on something that could have had potential (especially the main characters)if they would have only detailed it out more and left all of the bull stories out. I'm talking about the Chinese refugees, the aging pill, and etc. Especially the aging pill - what was the point in that?!? And most of what was going on never had a conclusion, it just left you hanging. It almost seemed like they just pulled a bunch of random ideas down from space and threw them randomly into this season. I was very disappointed but I still think the show is the best there is.