‘Wentworth’ Season 5 Air Date News & Update: Bea Smith Replacement Foxtel’s Closely Guarded Secret? Find Out Why.

"Wentworth Season 5" will be make or break for the Foxtel series, necessitating keeping the replacement of Bea Smith (Danielle Cormack) a closely guarded secret. The "Wentworth Season 4" finale, "Seeing Red" had been an especially harrowing experience for the Foxtel series fans with the death of Bea Smith.

In the "Wentworth Season 4" finale, Bea Smith was brutally murdered by prison officer turned inmate Joan Ferguson (Pamela Rabe). Shocked fans struggled to retain hope that Bea Smith may survive onto "Wentworth Season 5." 

However, Parent Herald cites TV Week in quoting Katrina Milosevic, who plays Boomer in the "Wentworth" series, that 15 stab wounds would realistically be fatal for Bea Smith. With Bea Smith undeniably absent from "Wentworth Season 5," fans of the Foxtel series naturally wonder who will replace as top dog come the new episodes.

Franky Doyle (Nicole Da Silva), and even Allie Novak (Kate Jenkinson), had seemed the more natural choices to replace Bea Smith as the new prison top dog in "Wentworth Season 5." However, Parent Herald cites reports that Foxtel sources indicate that "Wentworth Season 5" will not be raising someone from the existing inmates to replace Bea Smith.

Parent Herald further cites the possibility that Franky Doyle may eventually follow in the steps of Bea Smith given that Nicole Da Silva is now juggling "Wentworth" with her new series "Doctor, Doctor." Still, Foxtel would have made the choice of a Bea Smith replacement in "Wentworth Season 5" much harder to guess.

Fans of the Foxtel series are aware that "Wentworth" is an adaptation of 1979 original "Prisoner" as The Screen Australia highlights. As an adaptation, the "Wentworth" series stands at a disadvantage of being spoiled by "Prisoner" and German remake "Hitten."  

"As Wentworth has a big global online community sitting around it we have been very careful to avoid any chance of spoilers in the windowing of any remakes," Jo Porter told The Screen Australia earlier on. Foxtel indicated that the unorthodox move to kill off Bea Smith was a decision to keep the "Wentworth" series a strong offering on air. 

Understandably then, keeping the momentum by guarding against all spoilers how Bea Smith will be replaced is one of the priorities for "Wentworth Season 5." Luckily fans won't have too long to wait for new revelations as Foxtel is anticipated to air "Wentworth Season 5" in May 2017.