Real-life charges against onetime TV prison guard

[Bob Jersey]

Maggie Kirkpatrick, 74, once the brutal corrections officer Joan "The Freak" Ferguson on Australian-made international hit soap Prisoner(: Cell Block H), avoided jail time after being convicted in a 30yr-old sexual abuse case involving a young female fan of the show... the victim only reported the crime two years ago, and the judge in the case said "that a jail term would have been appropriate if it wasn't for the fact there had been nothing else alleged against Kirkpatrick since then."

The Age (link)

B

[Mark Jeffries]

American viewers of "Prisoner:  Cell Block H" would not recognize Kirkpatrick, since "Joan the Freak" was not introduced until right after WGN in Chicago, the last American station to carry the series, dropped it.  When the show was introduced to America as a nightly strip instead of the twice-a-week hour episodes as in Australia, it was hot as a pistol, but sometime after TV's first out lesbian character Franky Doyle was killed at the end of the original 20-ep run (because Carol Burns, the actress who played Franky, didn't want to stay) the ratings went into the toilet in the U.S. and most of the indie stations carried it dropped it as soon as they could.  WGN, running it at noon Chicago time after its original late-night time slot (before its long time 10:30 p,m. movie--and yes, the noon time slot that "Bozo's Circus" had vacated only a few months before the move for 7 a.m.), held onto it for a long time, at the end not all that far behind Australia (the show took a hiatus during Australian summer and the Christmas holidays).

It happens that Fremantle has done a reboot of the series for FoxTel cable in Australia called "Wentworth," with most of the original characters back, although played by new actresses (and the new "Queen Bea" is much, much hotter than Val Lehman--or for that matter, a lot of the original cast expecting Peta Toppano and Kerry Armstrong).  Oh, yes--"Joan the Freak" has been in the reboot since episode 1.  It just wrapped its third season, won the Aussie equivalent of the Emmy for best drama series and the first two seasons are currently on Netflix, if you're interested.  Unless the Netflix contract doesn't allow it, I would think that Fremantle would try to capitalize on "Orange is the New Black" by getting either "Wentworth" on cable somewhere or the original on one of the classic TV subchannels (but the show may still be too much for the aging viewers of those channels).

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
spotl...@gmail.com

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[Bob Jersey]

Mark Jeffries, to moi, in part:

Unless the Netflix contract doesn't allow it, I would think that Fremantle would try to capitalize on "Orange is the New Black" by getting either "Wentworth" on cable somewhere or the original on one of the classic TV subchannels (but the show may still be too much for the aging viewers of those channels).

They've likely been looking as far as a cable outlet, and given the 'Idol' connexion, would have been logically thinking about FX's group, which is pretty busy as it is... as for the classic, if Retro can juxtapose The Doctor and "The Doctors"*, there's always a possibility...

B
*A chicken chain restaurant had the latter on in midday when I stopped in for lunch... what a headache...