The creator and executive producer of Orange Is The New Black have acknowledged the criticism that has been aimed at the show’s fifth season.
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The Netflix comedy-drama, which debuted in July 2013, had its fifth season released in full on June 9. However, many fans of the show were disappointed by the 13 episodes of the latest installment, with season five currently scoring just 73% on Rotten Tomatoes – a sharp decline from previous seasons, including the 98% that was attained by Orange Is The New Black‘s second season.
Production on the fifth season of the show was marred by the departure of key writers from earlier seasons, including Carly Mensch – who left OITNB to create the Netflix series GLOW.
Speaking to The New Yorker, OITNB creator Jenji Kohan and executive producer Tara Herrmann acknowledged that the change in writing staff had a negative impact on the show’s fifth season.
“We had lost a bunch of the original writers,” Herrmann said. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just a new dynamic —people were attached to the characters as viewers, not as creators.”
Kohan then added that some of the plots in season five read like “fan fiction,” before speaking ‘with nostalgia’ about the show’s “O.G. writers.”
Only two writers from season five of OITNB have been rehired to work on season six.
Meanwhile, OITNB star Adrienne C. Moore hinted that season six will deal with the “repercussions” of the riot which occurred in season five.