So late pass me if you must, but I just discovered HBO Go has every episode of pretty much every show of the network's last 14 years. Last night I watched the premiere episode of "Oz," which I haven't seen since it originally aired in 1997. I was obsessed with the show back then, at least for its first two and a half seasons, before something happened -- which I can't quite recall -- that went so over-the-top it turned me off to the show completely. I've been meaning to rewatch the show to see if they hold up a decade-plus later, or if I was just impressed because the level of violence and general crazy-ass shit happening blew my teenage mind. And after watching the first episode...well, I'm not sure what I think.

It's certainly way cheaper-looking than I remember, especially compared to today's cable dramas, but I guess you can't really hold that against it. JK Simmons, Lee Tergensen and Eamonn Walker are all pretty great, so the acting certainly holds up (and I completely didn't realize that LaGuerta from "Dexter" is the prison nurse). I thought it was cool they spent half the episode establishing one particular character only to kill him off at the end, letting the viewer know that no one is safe right off the bat, which is a pretty bold thing for a show to do even these days. But I sense a vague air of cheesiness floating through it that I definitely didn't feel when I watched it originally.

Obviously, "Oz" ushered in the golden age of cable dramas we're currently enjoying, so it's an important show, but I'm wondering if anyone else has revisited the show post-"The Wire," "The Sopranos," "Dexter," "Breaking Bad" etc. and what you think of it in retrospect.