Prisoner Cell Block H

Please someone buy the rights of prisoner cell block h as we need it back in the uk. as its been about 3 years since it was last shown on channel 5 back in 2001. there are 1000s who want the series back on tv. like i must say. thank you channel 5 for showing the holl 692 episodes. but with the time of 4:40am from episodes 1 - 80. and episodes 180 - 692. but i think most people did get complete episodes 81 - 179 as it was on a better time 11:20pm - 11:50pm and i must say channel 5 did cut a lot of the series out. like the edna pearson episodes was cut to bits.
so please there must be a tv station what can buy the rights and show the series in full again. please

BRING BACK PRISONER CELL BLOCK H PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It would be great to have prisoner shown again from the beginning as I only saw episodes from around number 500-692 when ITV showed it.

I wonder who would show it though, C5 have said they dont want to repeat it, ITV wont show it again either, what about Channel 4, Granada Plus or UK Gold.

The problem with the Edna Pearson episodes is that at the time they were originally aired it was considered to too closely mirrored to a real life incident (although since prisoner was made at least 6 months in advance of screening this was just co-incidence - and since the credits of every episode carried the text 'The characters, events, firms and corporations depicted in this photoplay are fictitous. Any similarity to actual firms or corporations, or to actual persons or events living or dead is purely co-incidental' I don't know why they couldn't have drawn on this) and the storyline was cut to shreds. Cut-down versions of these episodes made it to the UK and C5's tapes were mainly the same tapes that were used by ITV (it made sense since they were allready in the country).

TV4 in Sweden has shown the complete unedited Edna Pearson storyline and will presumably do the same when their rerun gets to it.

I should point out at this point that TV4 is carried in PAL on analogue Thor II (receivable in the UK) and so any UK viewer who really wants to see Prisoner (in English btw, they just subtitle it into Swedish) can do so with investing a tenner or so in equipmenr.

Anyway, I think it will be back on C5 again at some point, for reasons I have stated so many times, and once in the last week, that I won't bother to again unless requested to do so.

Yeah, I have seen nearly every episode, give or take 3 or 4. I would love to see it again. They need to show 2 epsiodes a day, even if at 3am, nothing else is on then.

Déjà vu, anyone?

That would be so cool if Prisoner was screend again . I remember the Edna Pearson storyline on Border infact it was Vivean Gray i think her name was who played her alias Mrs Mangle from Neighbours and Mrs Jessop from the Sullivans .

Yip the Prisoner lot have had a long enough smoko time to get back to work .There is a Prisoner reunion party in Melbourne next Feb .

Definately. Prisoner was one of the best written drama serials I have ever seen, it was such compulsive viewing. Most people mock it for the wobbly sets, but this shouldn't detract from the high calibre scriptwriting and mostly excellent performances. And of course Ian Smith, Neighbours Harold Bishop was a major influence in the show both behind the scenes and on screen.

Of course it was messed about quite a bit by ITV as all of the regions treated it differently. For instance, I think it was Central that got through the entire series and then started showing it again, whereas it used to come and go on Carlton London, and never got shown in it's entirety. Then of course there when YTV acquired Tyne Tees, they decided they wanted both stations to be showing the same Prisoner episodes. This meant that Tyne Tees who were behind YTV at the time had to miss a chunk out.

Can't see many of the main channels picking it up anymore, and I guess wherever it may end up, it would probably be tucked away in a late slot. It used to have a significant after pub audience, it would be ideal on say ITV2 or Living. I can't see it being a UK Gold type of thing.

However, for all prisoner fans out there, there is a DVD available at the moment with 12 of the best episodes including the fire, tunnel escape disaster, the arrival of the freak, and the Ballinger siege. Essential viewing.

Here's the link from Amazon :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000AV3GP/ref=sr_aps_dvd_1_2/026-1342796-8452423

Yes Tyne Tess were behind YTV but this was because Tyne Tees were on their second run of the series, anyone know how many episodes were missed out? I also understand Border skipped eps to be in-line with Granada broadcasts, is this true?

My region, HTV, finnished in 1996 and they used to move it about a lot, sometimes on Tues nights, sometimes Thursdays and sometimes it went out twice a week on Sun/Tues or Tues/Thurs.

Carlton London were the worst I think, they started it in 1987 (on Thames back then) and didnt even get to the end dropping it at episode 598 in Mid 1998, Meridian also dropped it at episode 586 in 1999.

Which of course are non existant. As is so common, one person saw one episode of Prisoner and wrote a critique on it citing wobbly sets as a weakness. Every journalist since then has copied it and thus Prisoner has become notorious for wobbly sets which it doesn't actually have.

In fact Prisoner's sets were some of the best constructed on television at the time. The 'wobbly sets' fiction (and it really does hold no substance) comes from the first scene of the first episode where Sally Lee thunders down the stairs and the banister wobbles alarmingly. In fact the stairs on Prisoner was never a set, it was in fact the fire escape stairs of the building where it was filmed - that wobbling took place on an actual real life fixture (which in itself is worrying). Prisoner's sets only actually wobbled once that I can ever remember, in contrast UK television sets of the time (and it is only in the UK that this 'wobbly walls' jibe is levelled at Prisoner - and indeed it is only in the UK that Prisoner is ridiculed. You won't find many people in other countries citing it as a tacky piece of cult crap) were appallingly constructed - Fawlty Towers in particular had very, very bad wobbling, but of course that is never noted).

So yeah, it's a myth. Prisoner (Cell Block H, if you really must add that appendage) DIDN'T have wobbly sets at all.

Oh yes, that was my fave episode especially when Ruth Ballinger told Myra to choose the next person to be shot at the end of episode 551. At the time I never expected it to be Myra as she was the top dog, Nora Flynn who took over wasnt a patch on her.

My fave season was the last one with Rita Connors as top dog, and my fave character Lexie was in it too!

Yep I desperately want to have Prisoner back on UK TV even though I have all 692 episodes on tape. I don't care what time or what channel as long as it comes back. Why not join the campaign at On The Inside website to have the series repeated.

Ah yes, Nora Flynn, 'The Council', and so on and so on. How Prisoner made it out of the rut it slipped into in 1985 I shall never know. Fortunately 1986 saw something of a renaissance and it really did end on a high (and tbh, I wonder why on earth it did end after the brilliance of the 1986 episodes).