We lock down the 10 best prison TV dramas of all time.
FromPorridgetoPrison Break, TV audiences have long had a fascination with incarceration.
With bars reducing the options for action, the consequences are always amplified.
A captive audience is one thing, but a captive cast is better.
Prison Break
IfPrison Breakhad been a one-and-done limited series it would have secured a higher placing on this list.
Prison Breakneeds to take a permanent break from breaking out of any more damn prisons.
The Wentworth prison of the late 2010s is slick and modern, and the action is gritty and violent.
Whether you preferWentworthor its predecessor undoubtedly comes down to personal taste, and quite possibly age.
Yes, the haircuts of the early 1980s were crimes in and of themselves.
Prisoner Cell Block Halso has the edge in villainy.
Patrick McGoohan is the eponymous prisoner, or Number 6 as hes more commonly and indeed exclusively known.
We never learn his real name, nor do we ever discover who has captured him, and why.
It doesnt get more 1960s than this.
Sweat does most of the hard work: the cutting; the tunnelling.
She makes living ciphers of her son and husbands.
Piper doesnt feel that she belongs in prison.
Not with these others, these criminals, who clearly deserve their fate.
But Egerton is no one-trick pony.
What follows is an exciting, edge-of-the-seat thriller that incorporates elements ofMindhunterinto the mix.
The next morning Naz wakes to find that Andrea has been stabbed to death.
All signs point to his guilt, and evenheisnt sure if hes innocent.
Oz
Oz isnt justthe best prison series of all time.
Theres an argument to be made that its one of the best dramatic series of all time.
Its a battle between two ideologies, but, ultimately, its a battle for the inmates souls.
The show is bleak, brutal, and gripping.
Death isnt just a reality on the wing: hes almost a cellmate.
Before Oz arrived in 1997 there had never been a show quite like it.
Ozis a gem of the genre, albeit one that shines very darkly indeed.
