Pop Culture Thursday: Orange Is the New Black

I did not particularly want to watch "Orange Is the New Black". Since motherhood, or maybe since I discovered that depression is more like a lonely dog than a cat that longs to escape outside, I've become less interested in watching things that will make me especially sad or angry. And I've always been resistant to the pop culture items that suddenly everyone starts talking about.

I mean, it took me like 4 years to start reading the Harry Potter series. It's not like this resistance is always a good thing, though I do appreciate how it's saved me from The Bachelor.

Hot Guy and I have been watching The Newsroom all summer, it's one of the few shows we both really love. But on Labor Day weekend, they didn't have a new episode. I was distraught. I wanted to watch a good show. So I mentioned that I'd heard a lot of people talking about "Orange is the New Black", not thinking that Hot Guy would be interested. But luckily he'd heard Piper Kerman talking on NPR and was intrigued.

It took us a week to watch all the episodes. And if some other good show doesn't start soon, I'm going to watch them all again. This is definitely more of a Harry Potter situation than a Bachelor situation.

Not that the show has anything to do with Harry Potter, of course. It has to do with life in a women's prison. But it's kind of a comedy.

And though sometimes watching it makes me want to send every politician, judge and citizen who supported mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws (which in some states are harsher than they are for rape and other violent offenses) off to prison themselves, mostly I am just endlessly fascinated. The acting on the show is superlative, so that any character who might stray into stereotype-land otherwise seems whole and real.

Also, any show with a character called, "Pornstache" is my kind of show.

"Pornstache" is not pictured. 

Have you watched it yet? What other shows would you recommend?