Jenji Kohan’s New Netflix Show Sounds Like Weeds Redux

Jenji Kohan, the delightful mind behind Nancy Botwin, El Andy, and that animal-loving Mexican cartel enforcer from Seasons 4 and 5 of Weeds, has created a new show for Netflix called Orange Is the New Black, an adaptation of Piper Kerman’s best-selling memoir. Are you excited? Or did the last few seasons of Weeds really sour you on Kohan’s scribbling abilities? Maybe you just can’t bear to watch a Jenji Kohan show that doesn’t include Andy Botwin, champion of Ms. Pac-Man, purveyor of fine Danish bicycles, and survivor of crippling lovesickness.

Orange will premiere at 12:01 am on July 11, brilliantly time to coincide with that moment in a summer when you finally realize that you’re not going to have one of steamy fling with a lifeguard and give yourself over to marathon stretches of TV consumption. The show sounds a lot like (spoilery spoilers ahead) a combination of Nancy’s Season 1 employment predicament and Nancy’s time in prison between Seasons 6 and 7. Take it away, Hollywood Reporter:

‘Orange’ stars Mercy‘s Taylor Schilling as Piper, an engaged Brooklyn resident whose decade-ago relationship with a drug runner in college results in her arrest and multiyear detention in a federal penitentiary. Lacking any real-world experience to deal with her harsh new environment, Piper immerses herself in women’s prison culture and finds acceptance, tears, laughter and love amid an outspoken group of inmates.

The show also stars Laura Prepon (Donna from That 70s Show) and that erstwhile pie fucker Jason Biggs as Piper’s fiance. If you set your expectations somewhere between too high and Hemlock Grove, you shouldn’t be disappointed.