Do you remember Prisoner?

Everyone had TV shows they weren’t allowed to watch. For my kids, it’s Girls Of The Playboy Mansion and anything with Miley Cyrus in it. For me, it was Prisoner. Which is why I totally found ways to watch it ALL THE TIME when I was growing up and my parents weren’t looking.

I was listening to a radio interview the other day with a woman who was talking about how Prisoner was actually a ground-breaking feminist show, focussed as it was around women of all ages and demographics and the issues which landed them in prison such as domestic violence or welfare fraud.

I never realised that at the time, of course. I was 12.  I just loved Prisoner because there were rude words in it and it seemed awfully exciting and nothing like anything else on TV. The fact I wasn’t allowed to watch it and it was on at 10:30pm added immensely to its appeal.

Just imagine that show being pitched to TV networks today…..

“Well, it’s a drama set inside a women’s prison with women aged 20-70 and some of them are gay including one of the guards who is nicknamed The Freak and who is a little bit sadistic and it’s quite political because of the reasons the women are in prison.

Many of them have children on the outside and are victims of domestic violence. They might be there for murdering an abusive husband or stealing to try and feed their kids. None of the women wear any make-up and they all wear the same drab prison uniforms in every episode.

Nobody takes their shirt off. There’s no beach. Nobody is sexy. There aren’t any men so there’s no romantic storylines.”

‘Oh sure’, the network bosses would say. ‘But can Jennifer Hawkins be in it? And can the prison be near a beach so she can wear a bikini?’

It’s disappointing to see that there was more ground-breaking TV being made 30 years ago, with more interesting stories being told and more diverse-looking actors than there is on commercial TV today where everything feels so bland and samey.

And where the slightest suggestion of something edgy is immediately shouted down (wasn’t there some giant hoo-ha about a reference to masturbation in Packed To The Rafters and didn’t the world almost end when Home & Away had a short lesbian storyline?).

Here is a reminder of the theme song ‘On The Inside’

And here is a ‘Where Are They Now’ interview with some of the cast including Bea and The Freak (skip to the 1:25 min mark) ….

What TV shows are you loving and what do you miss from the past?