Later on of course, its still melodrama, sure; but they delve so much deeper. With the power connotation's so developed by this point, the concept of sex in prison is looked at alot harder. Tergeson and Maloni showed some real balls taking on those roles the way they did, I mean Im no homophobe but some of those scenes were decidedly unsettling, to say the least. Not the sort of thing you want to be watching with, for example, your grandparents, amongst others.

By this point the have all made the roles their own, you can tell they're that much more comfortable. As an early blueprint for things like The Soprano's as far as featuring a range of directing and writing talents its rather interesting as well, to see who contibuted. And the later episodes do get that much more hyperrealistic and almost surreal in parts. And Seth Gilliam/Clayton Hughes doing his Travis Bickle bit in S$ Ep. 7...crack up.

Chuck Zito, one of the few cast members to have actually served time in prison, when asked if he thought Oz was realistic, basically said that the writers in Oz basically take everybody's worst nightmares about prison and prison gangs and amplify it up a bunch of times (Sorry Ill find the actual quote) and make it seem like prisons are like that all the time. I think thats a pretty apt description of Oz, but it's still compelling as hell.