Here are six shows to watch if you’re missing Litchfield
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGES BY NETFLIX AND BBC
It’s been five years since Orange Is The New Black finished up its seven-season run. Five long years! We miss seeing Litchfield and its incredible LGBTQIA representation on our screens. Needless to say, there’s a void in our TV watchlists that needs filling and quick.
Join us as we look at six shows to try if you liked Orange Is The New Black…
Bad Girls
Before there was Orange Is The New Black, there was Bad Girls. The UK TV show followed life in a women’s prison and, over seven years and eight seasons, dived into similar themes to the American show. This included repeat offenders, separation from families and the relationships between inmates and staff.
Bad Girls was also an incredible show for LGBTQIA representation. First airing in 1999, its portrayal of sapphic relationships and trans identities was far more authentic than anything else on screen, and marked a new era of queer representation.
Wentworth
Wentworth is perhaps best described as the Australian version of Orange Is The New Black. The show looks into the life of Bea Smith, who goes to prison after she is charged with trying to murder her husband. Like Piper, she has to learn how to survive life in custody.
The Australian show is definitely darker than its American counterpart. It unflinchingly offers a hopeless and purposeless version of prison life that multiple inmates deeply struggle with. So, if you want a jail time sitcom, be warned that Wentworth is definitely a drama rather than a comedy. But if what you’re looking for can be summed up in the sentence “lesbians in prison”, this is a show for you.
GLOW
Orange Is The New Black’s creator Jenji Kohan served as an executive producer on GLOW and we can definitely see her influence. Set in LA in the 1980s, this Netflix show follows a women’s professional wrestling circuit. Like the modern-day prison show, GLOW features an ensemble cast of strong women thrown into unusual circumstances.
Both shows also strike a balance between humour and serious topics, such as LGBTQIA stereotypes, sexual harassment and eating disorders. The situation and decade the story takes place in may be different to Orange Is The New Black, but GLOW has an incredibly similar vibe and outlook, making it sure to be a favourite of any fan.
Orphan Black
Like Orange Is The New Black (and every show on this list), this is an ensemble show, focused on a diverse range of women. Orphan Black is a science-fiction thriller series looking at the lives of several human clones, trying to figure out where they come from as someone starts hunting them down. Both the original series and its spin-off Orphan Black: Echoes are gloriously queer too!
Time Season Two
This BBC show follows three women beginning their prison sentences – Orla, a single mother incarcerated for tampering with the electricity meter, Abi, serving a life sentence and moving to a new prison after being attacked at her last one, and Kelsey, a pregnant heroin addict.
A standout from this show is Bella Ramsey. They play Kelsey and walk a very subtle line between determination and desperation. Like Wentworth, their show and performance is darker than Orange Is The New Black, but it’s a gripping look into inmate life that any fan of the prison comedy is sure to love.
Jailbirds
This is a reality television version of Orange Is The New Black. Premiering on Netflix in 2019, the same year our beloved drama ended, Jailbirds fellows the female inmates of Sacramento County Jail in California. There is a strong focus on the individual prisoners and what life in prison means to them. As we learn more about them, we see their relationships to each other develop. One even ends in a marriage between two inmates!
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