just finished 9
 

it's great to see the start of Maggie Kirkpatrick.. she's a brilliant actress.. there definitely seems to be a divide in the series from where she comes in.. the start of a new era.. did Val Lehman feel side-lined at all by having another major player on board from that moment on ? roll on vol 10!!

it's great to see the sexy mk come in with those sexy leather gloves yum!!!!!!

That's a very good point you make.

I've often wondered how much of a factor that might have been in Val's deicison to quit the series in 1983 although she's never cited it as a reason in any of her interviews and in one of the DVD commentaries actually mentions that she often sees MK whenever she's in Sydney so it would seem that the two actresses are quite good friends.

Nevertheless, there can be little doubting that up until the arrival of the Freak in #287 Bea Smith had been the central character in the series yet by the time she came to be transferred to Barnhurst in #400 MK's character, the Freak, had gone on to become probably the most talked about not to mention most infamous character in Prisoner's history to date. Indeed, many cite the arrival of the Ferguson character as the sole reason for Prisoner becoming cult viewing and for it still being talked about 25 years after the serial finished production in Australia.

The other thing also is that Joan Ferguson was always on top of the prisoners, constantly getting her own way and outsmarting them and that this was often at the expense of Val's character, Bea Smith. So, perhaps Val tired of the storylines, I guess we will never know.