How fans got Wentworth back on TV with season 8 coming to Foxtel
Wentworth now airs in more than 150 countries and screens on Netflix. But it was almost scrapped for good. This is how it made a comeback.
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Wentworth may have been inspired by female jail drama Prisoner but it is on track to be on air longer than the show that spawned it.
Prisoner ran from 1979 to 1986, Wentworth started in 2013 and will end in 2021.
However, while Wentworth was a ‘re-imagining’ of Prisoner, and borrowed iconic characters including Bea Smith, Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson, Vera Bennett and Lizzie Birdsworth, it quickly forged its own identity.
Wentworth now airs in over 150 countries – including being dubbed into several languages and screens on Netflix in the USA.
It has now also outlasted Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, also set in a women’s prison, which wrapped up last year.
It is Wentworth’s graphic, violent scenes, intense storylines and LGBTQ characters which have created a fiercely loyal fanbase.
“People tell me they watch Wentworth episodes and they have to sit on their couch afterwards and take a break,” Leah Purcell, who plays Rita Connors (another Prisoner character rebooted) told News Corp.
“That’s what you want. You want good drama that moves people, whether you hate or love a character, if you feel something you’ve done your job.”
The fanbase is so loyal that when the show was planned to end in 2018 after season seven, fans got wind of the decision before it was announced (a loose-lipped actor also let it slip during a TV interview) to save their favourite show.
There were other external pressures – local dramas get funding for a certain amount of hours, which is why even hits like Offspring had ended – it becomes incredibly costing to keep production rolling.
Fans not only started a #savewentworth campaign on social media, there were claims one diehard viewer even flew a drone over the show’s Melbourne set to see if the outdoor jail area had been disassembled.
This is exactly the reason the location of the set is kept a firm secret.
The cast filmed series seven believing they were about to be out of jail for good.
“We weren’t certain whether it was going to come back,” Kate Jenkinson, who plays inmate Allie Novak told News Corp at the time. “When we finished we all said goodbye, not knowing for sure whether we’d ever be on that set again.”
However the fan reaction, as well as the industry reaction when Wentworth won Most Popular and Most Outstanding Drama at the 2018 Logies, saw Foxtel and production company Fremantle decide to keep the cameras rolling.
It was a massive victory for not only fans, but for the local TV industry, with the drama employing actors, writers, producers and behind the scenes crew for months at a time. The show has pumped $80 million into Victoria’s economy and created over 550 jobs since episode one.
Wentworth also puts female actors in lead roles, a fact that doesn’t escape the cast.
“All the cast members routinely say that whatever job comes after this job is going to be a let-down,” Jenkinson said. “It is so rare, for women especially, but just in general, to get material like this which is so extreme, so hard core, so emotional, so brutal, so cut throat.
“It’s usually the men that get to go around snapping necks and scheming and plotting and bringing down the institution. In this show it’s the women which is brilliant to be a part of..”
Rarriway Hick, who plays Ruby Mitchell, says the gender policy goes continues the scenes as well.
“There’s women in almost every department of this show which is so empowering,” Hick said.
“And all the men around have so much respect for women. I’m in my 20s, I’m seeing this industry where there’s all these women in every department and it gives me hope and makes me feel excited and empowered. I look at all of these women and think it’s possible to do anything.”
Hick and Purcell have also given Wentworth two strong Indigenous characters, with the pair adding their own cultural language to scripts.
“It’s becoming less of a thing where you have a token Aboriginal character on TV,” Hick said. “Representation is important. I know we’re in prison which is sad, but sadly you look at statistics and you see there is a large number of Aboriginal people who are incarcerated.
“Just having Aboriginal women on screen is really important. This show is so big overseas too, it’s so important to share our culture with the world.”
Wentworth fans hold conventions where the cast spend hours meeting and greeting – and posing for selfies. It’s a lucrative world – the cast of Prisoner still attend global conventions where fans pay to meet them.
One Wentworth event in Melbourne this year was cancelled due to COVID-19, however there several cast (including some whose characters were no longer on screen) were flown to America for a Wentworth convention.
Katrina Milosevic, who plays Boomer joined Pamela Rabe (The Freak), Kate Jenkinson and Danielle Cormack (Bea Smith) meeting a rabid US fanbase.
“It freaked me out how many people knew us,” Milosevic said. “I got recognised so much in New York. We do Wentworth conventions in the UK too. It’s incredibly humbling.”
Jenkinson, who has been in TV shows including Doctor Doctor and Five Bedrooms, said the fan connection in Wentworth is unique.
“I’ve never been a part of a show that has this much backing and respect from the audience,” Jenkinson said. “I didn’t realise a show could mean so much to people, but it gives a voice to people that perhaps haven’t had a voice.”
She plays one of Wentworth’s most popular LGBTQ characters – who had a relationship with Bea Smith – while this season non-binary actor Zoe Terakes will play transgender inmate Reb Keane.
Jenkinson said viewers appreciate the representation.
“Allie really owned her sexuality” Jenkinson said. “It was never a part of her character she had to explain, she was always openly and proudly a gay woman. That’s really nice to see on screen. Often gay characters have a story that involves explaining why they are the way they are. That’s important for some characters, I’m proud to be a part of a character who never questions why she is who she is. She just simply is. She’s not tortured by her sexuality and I think that’s a healthy representation of homosexuality on screen, being gay doesn’t always have to go hand-in-hand with drama and torture, it’s just who you are.”
Wentworth will end with 20 episodes – 10 have been filmed before COVID, with the final ten still to wrap.
“The creative team behind Wentworth are so devoted to maintaining the authenticity and the purity of that story, at some point you have to know when it is time to close the chapter,” Jenkinson said.
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“The writers and producers have done an exceptional job in keeping the story alive for so long. For a show to have eight seasons on Australian television, especially a drama, is unheard of. I truly believe every single season is better than the last, that’s really rare. For a show like this, dominated by women in front of the camera and behind the camera, to get an audience all around the world is exceptional. It’s something I’m going to be proud of in my career for a very long time.”
Wentworth Season 8 starts July 28 on Showcase