Orange Is The New Black: 6 Reasons It's Netflix's Best Original Series
1. It's Netflix's Game Of Thrones... Sort Of
Ok, I realise that sounds like a ridiculous statement. At face value, there's little connecting HBO's big-budget, starry fantasy set in a fictional medieval world with Netflix's true-to-life drama set at an all female prison, but the similarities are there.
Orange is the New Black has a huge number of characters; more than I can be bothered to count, and certainly more than the number of names it's possible to remember on a given series. However, these aren't just background players: the show is a massive ensemble piece, with dozens of characters of equal importance. They all get their moment, have their own arcs, and become fully-fleshed out characters thanks to their present day stories and their unique flashbacks. There's no one main character, and even where there is apparently one (as Piper started life as such, before taking more of a backseat) they're not necessarily the most interesting.
The characters all mostly exist in various shades of grey, too; yes, they're criminals, and they do bad thigngs in prison too, but for the most part we know and understand the events that led them there, and they also show how funny, intelligent, and kind they can be as well. Game of Thrones is the only other show on TV that manages to balance so many spinning plates, and invests such time in a number of parallel storylines and character arcs, and carry characters who are so effortlessly watchable,, and that you care about and root for, while being morally complex.
Looking past the characters, the viewing figures also make for an interesting parallel. Netflix have long guarded such figures, but Nielsen did manage to get ahold of some of them, and found that in the first weekend of Orange is the New Black Season 4 being available, 6.7m people watched the premiere episode. That week's Game of Thrones episode, meanwhile, was watched by 7.6m (although that number does climb a lot with other factors added-in).
Orange is the New Black is (according to some measures) Netflix's most-watched show. It's also Netflix's best.
Agree or disagree? Share your thoughts down in the comments.