‘Orange Is the New Black’ Debuts ‘Timeless World’ in Season 6

After a season tied to time, season six of Orange is the New Black will no longer have an eye on the clock. In fact, executive producer Tara Herrmann said the show is now set in a “timeless world” where the clock does not dictate storytelling.

“The theme song is Regina Spektor’s ‘You’ve Got Time,’ which is all about time and how these women are in there,” Herrmann told The Hollywood Reporter. “We know from the real inmates that we have talked to that when you are in there, you do lose track of time. So now we say that we’re living in a timeless world.”

Herrmann continued, “While there is a clock on peoples’ sentences and that sort of thing, let’s just throw caution to the wind and decide that we’re now working in the current age. That’s why a lot of the sentences are somewhat vague. And, if you’re following it that closely, I think we’re doing something wrong!”

By freeing the show from the tethers of time, OITNB can focus on the story without focusing on continuity issues, like making sure pop culture references line up with the correct time period.

“Some places that we tried to keep with the rule were little things like books, for instance,” Herrmann told THR. “If we referenced a book, we would say, ‘Oh, but it didn’t come out by then.’ Those were the tiny ones and then the bigger ones — just the political climate that we’re in. It feels like we are doing a disservice and that we were hand-strung by it, as storytellers.”

However, the show’s themes will still feel timely as the characters deal with the aftermath of last season’s three-day riot. The inmates have been split into two buses and taken to two separate prisons. Not everyone was taken to the new max prison, where most of the season will take place, and some characters will not be seen in the new episodes.

“After season five, there had to be ramifications for the riot. We took the risk of slowing things down and telling big arcs, but slowly,” Herrmann told THR.

Although the show was already renewed for a seventh season, Herrmann said they did not “save” stories for another season.

“Everything that we have is all in there. We end up with nothing in what we call our ‘slush’ at the end of the season — we’ve checked it all off. [Creator Jenji Kohan’s] motto is that there is always more story to tell.”

All 13 episodes of Orange Is The New Black season six are now available on Netflix.

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