Just over a month before the highly-anticipated second season premiere of Orange Is The New Black, Netflix has opted to renew the acclaimed prison dramedy for a third season.
This is the second early renewal for the show, from Weeds showrunner Jenji Kohan, which received a similar treatment shortly before the premiere of its record-breaking first season. The third season, which will likely premiere in 2015, is set to run for thirteen episodes, the same amount as Orange Is The New Black‘s first and second seasons.
Though the first season received surprisingly little awards attention (including a lone Golden Globe nomination for lead actress Taylor Schilling), it was widely hailed as one of the best shows of 2013. Here at We Got This Covered, we ranked it the year’s fourth best show, behind only Mad Men, Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. Orange Is The New Black was also a significant ratings success for Netflix, finishing the year as the streaming giant’s most viewed original series to date.
For those unfamiliar with the series, it centers on a yuppie woman named Piper Chapman (Schilling), who is sentenced to 15 months in Litchfield State Penitentiary for her romantic entanglement with Alex Vause (Laura Prepon), an international drug smuggler, in her wild college days. Thrust headfirst into a dangerous and unfamiliar world, Piper must adjust to the various official and unspoken rules of prison – all the while avoiding Alex, who’s serving time in a cell down the hall.
The third season will find Prepon returning to the part of Alex as a main cast member after being reduced to a recurring role for the upcoming second season. All the show’s main characters, also including Uzo Aduba, Michael J. Harney, Jason Biggs, Michelle Hurst, Kate Mulgrew, Natasha Lyonne and Laverne Cox, are expected to return, too.
Orange Is The New Black debuts its second season on Netflix June 6th.
