"The most shocking part of HBO's prison drama "OZ" wasn't the graphic violence or the full frontal nudity. It was the gradual dissolution of Lee Tergesen's Tobias Beecher, a yuppie doing hard time for killing a girl while driving drunk. Repeatedly degraded by a neo-Nazi (JK Simmons), Beecher learned the only way to survive was to become as savage as his cellmates. Tergesen's hauntingly tragic turn was, in a word, captivating."

© 1997 Entertainment Weekly