Punishment is an Australian television soap opera made by the Reg Grundy Organisation for Network Ten in 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 it was quickly removed from the schedules. The remainder of the 26 episodes produced were shown out-of-ratings later that year. 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 programme 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.

Cast

Episode list

Reception

In 2020, Fiona Byrne of the Herald Sun included Punishment in her feature about "long forgotten Australian TV dramas that made viewers switch off." Byrne expressed surprise that the show was Gibson's next role after his appearance in Mad Max. She stated "Perhaps sensing that better options were available to him overseas, Gibson took off after the pilot episode, but the Punishment cast was still strong". She noted that Network Ten "lost faith in its grim, dark drama" so they launched it in a poor timeslot, leading it to be pulled after only three episodes.

Home media

Available at (National Film and Sound Archives)