Punishment (1981)

Genre

soap opera

Country

Australia

Length

1 season, 26 episodes

Rating

8.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This Australian TV series is set in a men's prison. It attempts to show prison life with a serious tone, similar to another show about women in prison but with more realism.

melodramaticgrittyrealisticdatedseriousslow-movingearnest

What happens

Punishment is an Australian television soap opera made by the Reg Grundy Organisation for Network Ten in 1981. It debuted in Melbourne and Brisbane on Saturday 14 February 1981, and a few days later in Sydney on Friday 20 February 1981. Set in a fictional men's prison, the series attempted to present a male version of its female counterpart Prisoner, which was set in a woman's prison. Attempts by the show's makers to differentiate the series from Prisoner saw Punishment imbued with greater realism; however, the formula did not attract high viewing figures. Network Ten deemed the new series a failure after only three episodes had gone to air, and in Melbourne and Sydney it was removed from the schedules after the fourth episode had been shown. Several more episodes were shown in Brisbane, as their Network Ten affiliate TVQ-0 had scheduled two episodes per week as opposed to the weekly broadcasts in Melbourne and Sydney. The series resumed at the end of the ratings period in November 1981, and then continued in Sydney in a late night slot - often after midnight - with the series being completed on 27 April 1982. Only the first 13 episodes appear to have been broadcast in Melbourne. Unusually for a soap opera, the series was taped using the single camera technique. Grundy produced Punishment mainly to complement Prisoner in international sales, to a point that the pilot was initially telecast in the United States before debuting in Australia. KTLA, the Los Angeles television station that helped launched Prisoner in the United States, originally expressed interest in doing the same with Punishment; it is unknown if KTLA had screened any episodes of Punishment, in light of its failure on Network Ten in Australia. The program created by Reg Watson was produced and directed by Alan Coleman. The regular cast featured many notable Australian actors. Mel Gibson played a prisoner in the first two episodes. Kris McQuade played the girlfriend of Gibson's character and was phased out of the series after the first few episodes due to Gibson's departure. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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