Television shows don’t have to be warm and cuddly to capture the hearts and minds of viewers. Some of the most beloved programs of all time center on darker aspects of humanity.
Over the years, HBO has produced some of the most “downbeat” series, where despair and hopelessness are a feature, not a bug. Collider’s Jeremy Urquhart recently ranked the 10 most “hopeless” television shows ever, with several HBO programs making the cut.
The No. 1 most hopeless show? Oz, which debuted in 1997 as the inaugural hour-long television drama in HBO history, setting the stage for several iconic series to come.
What makes Oz ‘hopeless’?
Created, written and produced by Tom Fontana, Oz ran for six seasons and 56 episodes on the premium cable network from 1997-2003. It focused on life at Oswald State Correctional Facility, a fictional men’s prison.
Throughout its run, Oz was an “especially gritty, violent, and overall miserable TV show that honestly made a good many R-rated movies of the same era look tame in comparison,” Urquhart writes.
“It probably wasn’t until Game of Thrones that an HBO show ended up being truly more violent than Oz, and even then, there’s an extra sense of unease and grit to the violence in Oz, since Game of Thrones does have those fantasy elements that create a bit of distance between the images on screen and the viewer,” he added.
“With Oz, it does kind of feel like you’re just watching a bunch of people trying (and, more often than not, failing) to survive life inside a maximum-security prison. Some of the impact is lessened later on, after Oz does a few things that could be considered shark-jumpy in nature, though for the most part, this is about as tense, deadly, uncompromising, cynical, and hope-free as TV has ever gotten.”
A who’s who of TV stars
Without question, the main cast of Oz was strong, featuring Ernie Hudson, Terry Kinney, RIta Moreno, Kirk Acevedo, Harold Perrineau, Eamonn Walker, J.K. Simmons, Dean Winters, Lee Tergesen and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.
However, it was the series’ long list of guest stars that really stands out, including:
- Edie Falco
- Christopher Meloni
- B.D. Wong
- Lance Reddick
- Lord Jamar
- Luke Perry
- Leon Robinson
- Jon Seda
- Rick Fox
- Kathryn Erbe
- Luis Guzman
- Reg E. Cathey
- Patti LuPone
- Bobby Cannavale
- J.D. Williams, Chuck Zito and more
These days, you can find the critically-acclaimed series (Oz is rated 93% on Rotten Tomatoes) available for subscribers on HBO Max, Hulu, Sling TV, Amazon Prime Video, The Roku Channel and YouTube TV.
