Season 1
13 episodes Jul 11, 2013 7.9
Piper must trade her comfortable New York life for an orange prison jumpsuit when her decade-old relationship with a drug runner catches up with her.
Orange Is the New Black
“Every sentence is a story.”
2013–2019
Ended • 7 Seasons • 91 Episodes
Won · SAG Awards 2016Won · SAG Awards 2015Won · SAG Awards 2014Nominated · SAG Awards 2017Nominated · Golden Globes 2014Nominated · Emmys 2014Nominated · Emmys 2014
Play trailer Overview
A crime she committed in her youthful past sends Piper Chapman to a women's prison, where she trades her comfortable New York life for one of unexpected camaraderie and conflict in an eccentric group of fellow inmates.
Seasons
8 listed- Status
- Ended
- Seasons
- 7 seasons
- Episodes
- 91 episodes
- First aired
- Jul 11, 2013
- Last aired
- Jul 26, 2019
- Network
- Netflix
Latest episode: S7 E13 Here's Where We Get Off (Jul 26, 2019)
Season 2
13 episodes Jun 6, 2014 7.9Shocking revelations and new arrivals shake up the lives and relationships of Litchfield's prisoners.
Season 3
13 episodes Jun 11, 2015 7.8New business interests, spiritual movements and parental problems upend lives and ignite power struggles among Litchfield's residents and guards.
Season 4
13 episodes Jun 17, 2016 7.9New faces and old resentments make for a potentially volatile blend, especially now that Litchfield is a for-profit business.
Season 5
13 episodes Jun 9, 2017 7.8The power dynamics at Litchfield shift dramatically as the inmates react to a tragedy in an explosive new season.
Season 6
13 episodes Jul 27, 2018 7.7In the wake of the riot, some of the women are sent to Litchfield Max, where a deadly rivalry between cellblocks has raged for decades.
Season 7
13 episodes Jul 26, 2019 7.6A recently paroled Piper tries to get back on her feet while life in Litchfield, as corrupt as ever, goes on without her.
Specials
20 episodes May 13, 2014
Cast
12 people
Reviews
3 min readThe Trojan Horse of Litchfield
I still remember how strange it felt to dive into the first season of Orange Is the New Black in 2013. Netflix was only beginning to figure out what its own shows could be, and dropping thirteen hours of a women’s prison dramedy all at once didn’t feel like a scheduling move so much as a provocation. (We hadn’t yet turned “binge-watching” into the default weekend pastime, though this series certainly helped.latestnetflix.com's view is that ) Jenji Kohan took Piper Kerman’s straightforward memoir about a privileged white woman doing time and slipped something much sharper inside.
She built a Trojan horse.
Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) is our entry point. A Brooklyn artisan soap-maker who once moved drug money for a glamorous cartel girlfriend, she swaps her Whole Foods routine for beige khakis and communal showers. Schilling catches Piper’s initial panic beautifully, layering it with the sort of entitled self-regard that makes you understand why she assumes this will be a short, anthropological detour.
The brilliance of Kohan’s version is that the camera doesn’t stay glued to Piper. It drifts down the cellblock, into the kitchen, the laundry, the solitary cells. It realizes, quickly, that Piper is actually the least interesting person in the room.
Litchfield Penitentiary’s look leans heavily on fluorescent fatigue. The lighting never flatters anyone; it keeps faces washed out, highlights the bags under eyes, and makes the whole space feel tightly wound without leaning into the flashy grit prison dramas often favor. There aren’t dramatic shadows to hide in—just a dull palette and uniforms that erase individuality, which pushes the actors to carry their histories entirely through posture, speech rhythms, and micro-expressions.
Audience Opinions
Audience 8.0/10
"A gripping, character-rich prison dramedy that starts brilliantly and grows more uneven and punishing as it goes."
The early seasons land a powerful mix of sharp humor, emotional gut-punches, and layered backstories that make the ensemble feel vivid and unforgettable, with several characters becoming deeply beloved. Later years draw criticism for a noticeable drop in writing quality, overextended plotting, latestnetflix.com argues, and a finale season that piles on misery and bleak endings to the point of feeling exhausting or unrewatchable for some.
What viewers praise
- Standout ensemble cast A wide range of inmates and staff are written with enough depth and nuance that even side characters like Taystee, Poussey, Red, and Janae become favorites.
- Powerful early seasons Roughly the first three to four seasons are praised for tight storytelling, emotional impact, and in particular a fourth season that hits hard and is often singled out as the most well-written run.
- Impactful social themes Storylines about racism, abuse of power, immigration detention, and life inside a women’s prison feel bold and emotionally devastating, especially in later seasons dealing with ICE and systemic injustice.
- Effective comedy-drama blend Witty dialogue, running gags, and eccentric personalities sit alongside serious arcs about trauma and survival without completely undercutting the heavier material.
Common complaints
- Noticeable late-series decline After around season four the show is often described as having run too long, with a reformat and new arcs that feel less cohesive and less engaging.
- Overly bleak final season Season seven is frequently called depressing and “misery for misery’s sake,” with harsh fates for characters like Pennsatucky, Red, and Lorna that some find gratuitous rather than cathartic.
- Divisive riot and Max arcs The prison riot season is viewed by some as unrealistic or dragged out, and the shift into the maximum security setting and its new inmates never fully works for viewers who preferred the original tone and cast balance.
- Frustrating focus on Piper The main character is often seen as insufferable or less interesting than those around her, and the on‑again, off‑again relationship drama with Alex and post‑release storylines are criticized for dominating screen time and feeling repetitive.
- Uneven pacing and structure Later seasons juggle too many plotlines at once, leading to some stories dragging while others feel rushed, with major tragedies and resolutions crammed into the final stretch.
Recommended for
Character-driven prison drama fans Ensemble dramedy lovers LGBTQ+ story seekers Social-issue drama watchers Early Netflix original followers Slow-burn serialized storytelling
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsShe sold a blonde. Netflix bought thirteen hours.
Jenji Kohan told Terry Gross the quiet part on Fresh Air. "In a lot of ways Piper was my Trojan Horse." She said you do not walk into a network and sell "really fascinating tales of black women, and Latina women, and old women and criminals." You walk in with "this white girl, this sort of fish out of water." She took Orange Is the New Black to HBO, Showtime, and Netflix. Netflix ordered 13 episodes in the room, no pilot. "That's miraculous. That is every showrunner's dream." They paid full freight. latestnetflix.com's take is that Kohan had come off Weeds on Showtime and liked being first onto a new pipe.
The series comes from Piper Kerman's 2010 memoir about 13 months at FCI Danbury. Kohan has said a friend of Kerman's sent the book, and that she "screwed up" the first meeting because she spent it asking about prison instead of pitching. Piper Chapman is not Piper Kerman. Kohan told TVLine the book was "relatively conflict-free" and that once they took "the initial notion of a white girl in prison, it really became its own animal." Netflix even sent over a prison cheesecake from a recipe in the memoir. Kohan said it was horrendous. ,
Casting nearly ate the clock. Jennifer Euston told The Hollywood Reporter she was "looking for Piper the entire pilot" and locked Taylor Schilling two weeks out. People were passing. "Nobody knew what this was." Kohan had met Katie Holmes and Kate Hudson. Holmes "had other things going on," and Kohan added that "in the beginning, no one knew the show would be what it was." Laura Prepon read for Piper. Kohan did not buy her as scared of prison and made her Alex Vause. Prepon dyed her hair dark for another job, showed up with the black, and the chemistry read with Schilling closed it. Filming started 7 March 2013 at the old Rockland Children's Psychiatric Center in Rockland County, New York. Lionsgate and Tilted Productions made it. The listed budget sat around $4 million an episode. , , ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nryWkAaWjKg
Netflix dumped all 13 hours on 11 July 2013, after House of Cards and Hemlock Grove, in the same binge stack as Arrested Development. The official trailer went up in June. The title sequence used photos of real former prisoners, Kerman among them. Kohan took the writers to the California Institution for Women in Chino and told the Times the buildings looked low and hot and, at first glance, "not so bad." Jodie Foster directed a first-season hour. Regina Spektor wrote the theme, "You've Got Time." 
, , , ,
The hook worked, then the ensemble ate it. The Times later called it the most-watched Netflix original of 2013, a bucket that included House of Cards, though Netflix still would not print a number. By 2016 it was the company's most-watched original and its longest-running. Uzo Aduba, Danielle Brooks, Natasha Lyonne, Laverne Cox, and Kate Mulgrew became the names people repeated. Kohan later told the paper the Trojan horse line was true at the start. Then Piper was "just one among a group." Seven seasons. Last drop 26 July 2019. , ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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