Netflix picks up another original series, this time from Weeds creator Jenji Kohan
As part of Netflix’s plan to do everything but what made it Netflix in the first place, the streaming giant will pause from feeding DVDs into the fire to pick up another original series to go with Lilyhammer, the David Fincher-Kevin Spacey drama House Of Cards, and that promised new season of Arrested Development. According to Bloomberg, Netflix has picked up 13 episodes of Orange Is The New Black, a new comedy from Weeds creator Jenji Kohan that’s based on the 2010 memoir of the same name from Piper Kerman. Much like Weeds, it’s about an ordinary, well-to-do woman who finds herself caught up in a criminal underworld, after she’s sentenced to a minimum-security women’s prison for a brief dalliance in drug trafficking during her college years. Unlike Weeds, however, it is not automatically assumed that it will stretch on for eight seasons, as that kind of decision can only be made once Netflix assesses the success of all these forays into original programming—one of which is also expected to be the Eli Roth-produced horror series Hemlock Grove—and whether it’s truly the HBO competitor it is now explicitly trying to be. And yes, that is more important than getting more movies into its Watch Instantly library, thanks for asking.