From the stony ground up: The unique affordances of the gaol as ‘hub’ for transgressive female representations in women-in-prison dramas

One of the major considerations in creating a premise for an enduring television series is choosing what is variously termed the ‘hub’ or ‘precinct’. Focusing primarily on television series Wentworth (2013--) and its antecedent, Prisoner (Cell Block H) (1979-1986), this chapter looks to practices of screenwriting, script editing and serial drama development through the lenses of television studies and genre theory, to suggest the unique appeal of women-in-prison series is broader than a general fascination with life on the inside. Given the environment from which such series are commissioned, within an industry awash with debates around gender diversity on commercial screens, it is our contention that this hub serves to complicate and reiterate female representations in the mainstream, enriching understanding of female transgression on television. We argue that the prison-as-hub more broadly does much of the work of facilitating the internal logic of the interconnected lives and storylines of the characters. Further, in the case of women-in-prison dramas, the setting necessitates a cast of mostly female-identifying characters, who then fill most (if not all) of the archetypal characters making up a typical cast. We contextualise these ideas within a broader investigation into how the prison hub functions within script development processes, and suggest this is a more productive conceptualisation of the 'hub' than the more common 'world-building'. With the form of serial drama and soap demanding a constant generation of narrative, the prison hub is ideal for servicing story with its legitimate comings-and-goings. The setting comes inbuilt with dramatic stakes, hierarchies, and forced interactions between characters while delivering conditions for authentic conflict in a confined setting. It is perhaps these factors that pave the way for the greenlighting of a female-centred series, with transformative possibilities.