The third season of the Emmy award-winning series Orange Is The New Black has now been released on Netflix – a full six hours ahead of schedule.

The uproarious drama was set to be shared on the streaming site this evening, but Netflix delighted OITNB fans this morning when it announced over Twitter that the series was live.

Safe to say we know what we’ll be doing this weekend!

This dark and gritty yet hilariously real drama-comedy has proved a huge hit with audiences since being unveiled two years ago.

So what's its sercret? Firstly, it is one of very few shows that competes at the top of the ‘quality TV’ genre that has a cast made up of almost entirely women.

While many shows have strong leading female women (think House Of Cards and Breaking Bad) that are the driving forces in the show, they still, to a certain extent, are there to play counterpart to the predominantly male leads.

While Claire Underwood and Skyler White are undoubtedly the portrayal of sound reason and logic in their respective shows, it is still the characters played by Kevin Spacey and Bryan Cranston that take the lead. 

But not in Orange is the New Black. With a cast that boasts a host of totally diverse women, and characters with real depth, the show brings a sense of brutal realism to its audience.

The show is based on the 2010 memoir of Piper Kerman, whose seemingly perfect middle-class life was interrupted when she had to serve a 12-month prison sentence for drug offences that were committed years earlier.

So where are we now?

At the end of season two Piper (Taylor Schilling) had ratted on her former lover Alex (Laura Prepon). Vee (Lorraine Toussaint) had escaped from prison, only to be run over by another fugitive.

We can’t wait to see where season 3 is going to pick up from. So, cancel all your weekend plans, the OITNB race is on!