Prisoner has an interesting concept and a lot of potential. The concept of a prison officer handcuffed to a dangerous inmate and forced to work together has the makings of a tense, character-driven thriller at its core. The first episodes set up that uncomfortable tension fairly well, and plant the seeds for a rivalry that might someday develop into mutual admiration.
Sadly, that hopeful set-up doesn’t last.
As the season goes on, Prisoner starts to lose its focus, abandoning its strongest character-driven elements for an increasingly convoluted conspiracy plot. In the final episodes, the tension that has been carefully built throughout the series collapses into hurried twists, questionable decisions, and a finale that is both underwhelming and surprisingly hollow.
The story is about young prison officer Amber returning to work after maternity leave. What is to be a routine first day back, she is immediately assigned to a high risk transport of Tibor Stone, a dangerous inmate due to testify against the powerful criminal organization Pegasus.
Tibor’s testimony is likely to bring down Harrison Dempsey, the head of the criminal empire with tentacles deep in the city. With so much riding on one witness, the transport mission is soon targeted and it’s not long before Pegasus makes a violent attack.
In the midst of chaos Amber and Tibor are handcuffed together, and made to run a deadly race across London as they try to get to the courthouse alive.
It’s a setup that ought to have delivered a gripping, high stakes thriller. Instead, the show slowly buries its best ideas under unnecessary political subplots, double-crosses and ever more implausible twists that weaken the overall story.
It’s doubly frustrating because the first few episodes are pretty good. The tension seems real, the pacing is good and the uneasy partnership between Amber and Tibor adds real intrigue. There is even an early mystery about possible betrayal within the investigative team which adds another layer of suspense initially.
But the show quickly undermines its own momentum by revealing major plot developments far too soon, robbing itself of much of the suspense it worked so hard to create.
Also the writing of the characters becomes a big problem as the season progresses. A lot of the supporting cast feels thinly drawn, more like plot devices than real people. Some are introduced as if they will be minor characters only to suddenly become major players later without enough set up to make those moments feel earned.
Even Tibor Stone, who at first appears to be one of the more interesting characters, doesn’t have enough depth in the end to make an impression. He’s made out to be a dangerous, unpredictable inmate but the show never quite gets under the skin of what makes him interesting.
Amber, on the other hand, tends to make decisions that seem to contradict her training and experience. There are a lot of moments where the plot relies on characters making clearly bad choices, and those forced decisions become harder and harder to overlook as the season goes on.
In the final episodes Prisoner clearly values shocking twists over coherent storytelling. Sadly, those twists often don’t seem earned, and the finale leaves many storylines feeling unfinished or outright pointless.
In the end, Prisoner is an infuriating watch. The writing is inconsistent, the characters are shallow, and the final act is a mess, but it starts with a genuinely strong premise and shows flashes of potential, and therefore isn’t the gripping thriller it could have been.
The Bottom Line: Pass It.
