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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carrie Fairchild" data-source="post: 261832" data-attributes="member: 673">Punishment - 1981 <img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGEbw7hW0AEdOm4.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />With Prisoner a success internationally and it's original US broadcaster KTLA-5 willing to financially back more of the same, Grundy's started work on a male version of the show. Punishment followed the lives of the staff and inmates of Longridge Prison in New South Wales. Grundy's dream team Reg Watson and Alan Coleman would be responsible for creating and directing respectively, with $85,000 being spent on building elaborate double storey interior sets. Punishment was unusual at the time in that Grundy's were producing it first with an eye on international sales, with sales to Australian network coming second (Paradise Beach and Breakers would take similar approaches years later). As it happened, Prisoner's network Ten bought the Australian rights although the pilot did air first in the US on KTLA-5.Much of the action was based (a bit too closely it would appear) on the original Prisoner format. Barry Crocker played straight laced Governor Alan Smith whose officers included sympathetic Mike Rogers (Ross Thompson) and bent screw Jack Hudson (Ken Wayne), who were basically the Meg and Vinegar Tits of Punishment. Fresh off his success in Mad Max, Mel Gibson added a bit of star quality to proceedings as prisoner Rick Munro. He departed after the pilot, leaving behind repeat escapee Robbo (the Doreen of the show, played by George Spartels), lifelong inmate Larry (the male Lizzie played by Mike Preston) and top dog Arthur (Jon Ewing) who was supposed to be the male Bea. Wanting to draw in the female Prisoner audience, a number of wives and girlfriends dropped in and out played by the likes of Kris McQuade, Anne Haddy and Cornelia Frances.Bruce Best came onboard as producer after the pilot and realised that no clear plans had been made for storylines beyond the initial episode. Faced with writing for a bunch of Prisoner character clones and getting little or no feedback from Grundy's or Ten, Best decided to reinvent the show as a grittier drama in order to distance itself a bit from it's predecessor. He also threw soap convention out the window by filming with single cameras rather than the standard multi camera technique. Ten clearly weren't enamoured with the end result as they premiered the series in a Friday night death slot in February 1981 before puling it off the air after only 3 episodes. The final 23 episodes weren't aired until November during the non ratings period. Bruce Best has admitted in hindsight that the show may have been just too gritty while star Michael Smith pondered that maybe it didn't work "because the audience knew they were watching a clone". In addition to this, he raised a good question about the fact that Ten were airing three hours of prison drama a week "How many nights do you really want to sit at home watching people in prison?".</blockquote>

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