Orange Is The New Black’s Jenji Kohan Is Producing An Amazing Show About ’80s Women’s Wrestling
YES PLEASE.
This is a great time to be a fan of Orange Is The New Black. After waiting around a year for new episodes (excuse me, WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ALEX), the show’s fourth season is dropping on Netflix in just 16 sleeps. Slightly before that, the show’s creator Jenji Kohan will also be giving a huge talk at Sydney’s Vivid Ideas festival alongside Josh Thomas. Now, to top it all off, news has come through that Kohan has a new project in the works.
The nine-time Emmy Award nominee has just signed on as executive producer of a new Netflix comedy based on a real-life women’s wrestling league from the 1980s. Named after the original group, the show will be called G.L.O.W., an acronym which stands for “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling”. Though the series will be a fictionalised version of events, this isn’t the first time these women will be on TV. The wrestlers used to regularly exhibit their talents in a series of the same name which, as was legally required of all shows in the late ’80s, began with a rap.
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Knowing Kohan’s approach to storytelling, it’s safe to assume the Netflix version will be somewhat more complicated. Though it will of course feature “big hair and bodyslams”, G.L.O.W. will also explore the life of “an out-of-work actress who finds one last attempt to live her dreams in the form of a weekly series about female wrestlers”.
Kohan’s joined by an amazing team to make this happen. Fellow OITNB producer Tara Hermann will also be serving as executive producer, as will Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch. Flahive and Mensch, who will also be the official showrunners, come to G.L.O.W. after both writing and producing Homeland, Nurse Jackie, and Weeds. Aside from them all being ridiculously talented and well-suited for the gig, you may have noticed something distinctive about that group of people.
There aren’t yet any details of when G.L.O.W. will be hitting our screens but, if you’d like to hear more about the show’s backstory, the real-life wrestlers have also starred in a recent documentary of the same name. It’ll reportedly be eventually hitting Netflix as a companion piece to the series, but you can watch it right now online for just $2.99.