10 Most Groundbreaking TV Shows Of The '90s

10. Oz

We often commend the likes of Breaking Bad or The Wire for revolutionising storytelling on television, but the show that really started this trend was Oz. Despite its lengthy six-season run, there were only 56 episodes produced, which suggests that HBO went for quality over quantity. Interestingly, every episode was written (or co-written) by the show’s creator, Tom Fontana. Oz introduced the world to what cable television had to offer, in terms of top quality storytelling, and the benefits of being able to swear, and being able to use nudity and uncensored violence to progress the story in a way that wouldn’t have been possible on network TV.

And it’s not just its wonderful storytelling that puts Oz on this list, it’s also the fact that it was HBO’s first ever 1-hour original drama series. The premium cable network may be household name today, but this wasn’t always the case. If Oz hadn’t taken off, then HBO might not have made any more drama series, and it certainly wouldn’t have achieved the status that it has today without the prison-based drama series. Can you imagine a world without the likes of The Sopranos or Game Of Thrones? It doesn’t sound like a very nice place, that’s for sure.

Perhaps Oz was a little before its time, as it is often left out when people discuss the best examples of storytelling on television, but who knows where we’d be if this gem never happened.