History Series / Oz

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: You don't say. Among the many memorable deaths throughout the series included being crucified to a floor, eating themselves, via grounded up glass placed in their food, thrown into a television set, suffocated in a makeshift tunnel, stabbed by a nail gun, having their face melted off by a steam pipe, strangled by a barbell, electrocuted by a light fixture, crushed by an elevator, and asphyxiated by exposure to anthrax.

* KarmaHoudini: Ryan O'Reily commits numerous heinous acts and in the end faces minimal punishment for his crimes, mainly because he's able to manipulate others to do the dirty work for him; and then arrange their deaths as well.

** Diane Whitesly gets away with murdering Scott Ross.

->''"So, what have learned? What's the lesson for today? For all the never-ending days and restless nights in Oz? That morality is transient? That virtue cannot exist without violence? That to be honest is to be flawed? That the giving and taking of love both debases and elevates us? That God or Allah or Yahweh has answers to questions we dare not even ask? The story is simple. A man lives in prison and dies. How he dies--that's easy. The who and the why is the complex part. The human part. The only part worth knowing. Peace."''

* NotSoFakePropWeapon: The prop knife in the prison production of ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'' was switched for a real one.

* DecoyProtagonist: The first episode focuses on Dino Ortaloni, only for him to be burned alive by the Homeboys at the end of it.

* SinisterShiv: The WeaponOfChoice for inmates of Oz. One of Augustus Hill's narration segments even breaks down all the different varieties found in Oz.

The show was Creator/HBO's first original hour-long drama series, and was considered a forerunner of "Peak TV" series like ''Series/TheSopranos'' and ''Series/TheWire''. The series was revolutionary in being uncensored, featuring only 8 episodes per season, and featuring numerous characters who would become central to the story immediately, fade away, be killed, or be transferred unexpectedly.

The show was HBO's first original hour-long drama series, and was considered a forerunner of "Peak TV" series like ''Series/TheSopranos'' and ''Series/TheWire''. The series was revolutionary in being uncensored, featuring only 8 episodes per season, and featuring numerous characters who would become central to the story immediately, fade away, be killed, or be transferred unexpectedly.

The show was HBO's first original hour-long drama series, and was considered a forerunner of "Peak TV" series like ''Series/TheSopranos'' and ''Series/TheWire''. The series was revolutionary in being uncensored, featuring only 8 episodes per season, and featuring numerousharacters who would become central to the story immediately, fade away, be killed, or be transferred unexpectedly.

The series received a {{novelization}} told from [[POVSequel the perspective of a single inmate]]--the book, ''Oz: Behind These Walls: The Journal of Augustus Hill'', exists InUniverse--and a sequel short film titled ''Zo'', in which Tergesen and Winters reprised their roles.

** Three years had passed and Augustus Hill still never forgot about his encounter with the sociopathic mass murderer Malcolm Coyle.
** Burr Redding received orders to kill women and children while in Vietnam, the atrocities he witnessed shattered any possibility of Redding considering himself a "brave hero" for his service.

The series received a {{novelization}} told from [[POVSequel the perspective of a single inmate]]--the book, ''Oz: Behind These Walls: The Journal of Augustus Hill'', curiously exists InUniverse--and a sequel short film titled ''Zo'', in which Tergesen and Winters reprised their roles.

** The novelization confirms that he abandoned his plan after multiple inmates laughted at him for even considering the idea.

The series received a sequel short film, ''Zo'', in 2021, in which Tergesen and Winters reprised their roles.

* TookALevelInBadass: Tobias Beecher, starts out as a helpless rich lawyer in first season by the end he's a cynical grizzled con with a beard to prove it. [[spoiler:Eventually becoming tough enough to kill a hard as nails white supremacist guard with nothing but his ''[[{{Wolverine}} sharpened fingernails]]''.]]

* NiceHat: Adebisi's perpetually tilted knitted hat. Nobody is quite sure how he gets it to stay there.

''Oz'' is a six-season (1997-2003), one-hour LGBT drama created by Creator/TomFontana that follows the daily lives of the inmates and staff of the Oswald State Correctional Facility, nicknamed Oz. Inmates are divided between the main prison (Genpop) and "Em City", a unit with more perks for the prisoners at the price of more surveillance.

** Another special mention is [[CompleteMonster Adebisi]] preventing Wangler from stealing the money Rebadow raised for his terminally ill grandson.

* BloodySmile: Having been fatally wounded by Said, Adebisi walks out of his cell and flashes all of Em City a bloody smile before he collapses to the ground, dead.

* BlatantLies: Prisoners to each other, prisoners to guards, guards to prisoners, guards to each other...

* AnyoneCanDie: During any given season, there's at least twenty recurring characters that are playing a pivotal role in at least one arc. If you got a line somewhere in the first two seasons, chances are you got a name, multiple character arcs, and a tragic death scene by the end of the show. With at least one or two notable character deaths per episode there was pretty huge cast turnover so collectively, there was well over 200 named characters [[spoiler: and over half of them died over the course of the series.]] By the end only [[spoiler: 5]] of the many prisoners that appeared in the pilot are alive and even [[spoiler: Warden Glynn]] has died.

The show was HBO's first original hour-long drama series, and was considered a forerunner of "Peak TV" series like ''Series/TheSopranos'' and ''Series/TheWire''. The series was revolutionary in being uncensored, featuring only 8 episodes per season, and featuring LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters who would become central to the story immediately, fade away, be killed, or be transferred unexpectedly.

* AnyoneCanDie: this show routinely killed off well-established characters. By the end only [[spoiler: 5]] of the many prisoners that appeared in the pilot are alive and even [[spoiler: Warden Glynn]] has died.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: During any given season, there's at least twenty recurring characters that are playing a pivotal role in at least one arc. If you got a line somewhere in the first two seasons, chances are you got a name, multiple character arcs, and a tragic death scene by the end of the show. With AnyoneCanDie being strongly in effect (with at least one or two notable character deaths per episode) there was pretty huge cast turnover so collectively, there was well over 200 named characters [[spoiler: and over half of them died over the course of the series.]]