Love it or mock it Prisoner has enjoyed enduring popularity in the decades since it was first produced. As with many long running serials, there are different phases a series passes through during its run with different styles and flavours and varying levels of quality. The series is perhaps the world’s only television serial to prove popular in repeated screenings decades after the original episodes were produced, particularly in the UK, despite the series not appearing there until after actual production on the series had almost ceased.

Thousands of fans throughout the world devote considerable time energy and money to their love of Prisoner, many religiously retaining videotaped copies of each of the 692 fifty minute episodes originally produced in Australia between November 1978 and September 1986.

The series has also spawned several theatrical spin-offs in the United Kingdom which have been successfully staged in several cities there. Shortly after its Australian premiere the series was sold to the US and successfully screened in many areas. It achieved high ratings for a couple of years, but the US saw only the show’s first three years and subsequently it has been largely forgotten there.

Prisoner airs on 111 Hits 6:30pm Weeknights