idk if there's interest in this or not, but I felt like re-watching The Prisoner, so here goes. This is an appreciation/watch-along thread for all things related to the classic TV show The Prisoner, in honor of its 50th anniversary. I'm going to go through ~2 episodes a week and post reviews/analysis/random thoughts. There will be no major spoilers until we get to the last two episodes (it's a rather difficult show to spoil, to be honest). Feel free to watch along and post your thoughts.

What is The Prisoner?

The Prisoner is a cult classic TV series produced by Patrick McGoohan that ran from 1967-1968. The show was pitched to TV executives as a standard spy drama similar to Danger Man (also starring McGoohan). What they got instead was a surrealist sci-fi allegory of modern society with powerful counterculture themes and a unique visual style.

The Prisoner has been enormously influential in sci-fi and counterculture scenes.

How can I watch The Prisoner?

There are streaming copies of Prisoner episodes all over the internet. I believe it can also be purchased from iTunes and Amazon Prime.

So what's this show all about, anyway?

Best way to answer this is to give a synopsis of episode 1, which does a fine job of quickly establishing the world of The Prisoner.

Ep. 1: The Arrival

After angrily submitting his resignation, a British spy awakens to find himself in “The Village,” a cheerful but mysterious island community that seems to be a kind of retirement home for retired spies. Like all residents of The Village, our hero is given a number (No. 6) for a name.

We learn that the island is overseen by a fellow known as No. 2, who appears to take orders from a person or persons known only as “No. 1.” Discovering the identity of No. 1 and which side (if any) he/she/it is on will serve as one of the central mysteries of the show. We also learn that No. 2 is willing to engage in all kinds of mind games to induce No. 6 to reveal why he resigned. Why 6 resigned any why 2 is so concerned about this is another essential mystery.

Episode 1 is all you need to understand the premise of the show. You can watch the rest of the episodes in any order, except for eps 16 and 17, the last two of the series.

Some notes:

Note that the cab driver initially addresses 6 in French, and gives the evasive explanation that “French is a universal language.” We can't necessarily assume that it's the British who are running the island –-more on this in the next episode.

It's significant that No. 2 gets replaced with a new No. 2, which will happen often in the series. 6's arch-enemy isn't any individual, but rather the system itself: the institutions and bureaucracy of the Village.

a lovely series... one of my favorites during my childhood.
I currently dont have access to the series on disc though so I am working from memory.

FWIW... the wife calls my car Orange Alert!

What a great idea for thread! I hadn't watched any episodes of The Prisoner in decades, but after reading your post, I had to immediately rewatch episode 1.


I found them all on YouTube.


Actually, the Asian cab driver initially addresses him in English with "Where to, Sir?" And then after their conversation about why she then addressed him in French, she says that "(a)s a matter of fact, I thought you might be Polish or Czech" and then goes on to say that they're quite cosmopolitan.

Ep. 2: The Chimes of Big Ben

6 escapes! Or does he? (SPOILER: we have 15 more episode to go).

This is one of the best episodes in the series, thanks in part to a fine script and Leo McKern's deliciously evil No. 2. We learn that 6 resigned “as a matter of conscience.” Was he asked to do something unethical? Did he become disillusioned with what his agency was up to?

It also becomes clear at this point that the Village is working with cooperation from both sides of the Iron Curtain: 6's bosses are helping No. 2, as is a secret agent from Estonia (then part of the Soviet Bloc).

There's a significant conversation between 6 and 2 midway through the episode where No. 2 acknowledges that he too is a prisoner who knows too much to be allowed to escape. 2 also claims that it doesn't really matter which side runs the village, since both will eventually realize that they are mirror images of each other. The Prisoner is ostensibly a Cold War spy drama, but McGoohan was completely uninterested in telling a conventional East vs. West spy story. For McGoohgan, the Village was intended to be a representation of any kind of society that stifles individualism, whether in the Soviet Bloc or in a capitalist society.

Good catch. Poland and Czechoslovakia were both under Soviet occupation at the time, so this is another hint that both sides of the Cold War might be involved with the Village.

Exactly.

Looking forward to re-watching episode 2 later today, especially after your excellent analysis.

Episode 1

No. 6 states his birth date as 4:31 am on the 19th of March 1928. That is the actual time Patrick McGoohan was born.

Astrology and Numerology were popular back then. Along with Zodiac signs where something called Life Path numbers where you sum up the numbers of your birth date in a certain manner down to a single digit. His Life Path number is 6 (coincidence? maybe.)

The Headquaters in which they monitored him has maps on the walls of the constellations. The building was in a green dome shaped structure like an observatory.

march = 3
19 = 1+9 = 1+0 = 1
1928 = 1+9+2+8 = 2+0 = 2

3+1+2 = 6

or even
1+9+3+1+9+2+8 = 33 => 3+3 = 6

The series wallows in a Lewis Carroll-like absurdism, and it is very much Alice cast into a misanthropic and very angry character indeed, is very, VERY English, and watching it you become acutely aware how influential it has been. In its turn it looks to me it is influenced by the movies of Powell and Pressberger (its clipped, slightly off kilter dialogue reminds me of Stairway To Heaven), a pinch of John Buchan, definitely a little Wilde and possibly Wodehouse, and possibly earlier British TV dramas like Quatermass. In its turn, it's clearly been an influence on numerous films and other TV shows and other artistic endeavours, including Monty Python, Repo Man, Pink Floyd's The Wall, Gilliam's Brazil, Zardoz, and Twin Peaks, and many others.

And it also is very reminiscent of other weird British TV of the same period, such as Adam Adamant, Dr Who, and The Avengers, but is a much darker affair than those.

Here's a thread I did in 2010 on this, but didn't continue after episode 8. You might enjoy it tho.


http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/63...oilers-875797/


BE SEEING YOU!

The boat on TV show Miami Vice was called the "St. Vitus Dance."

In Ep. 01 of The Prisoner (at around 17:30) while No. 2 is showing No. 6 around the Village, they come across a group of people on or near a boat. The people are moving around weirdly and No. 6 asks, "what are they being treated for? Saint Vitus Dance?" St. Vitus Dance was a disorder of uncontrolled movements.

I bet there are a ton of references to or homages to The Prisoner.

Ep. 3: A. B. and C.

No. 2 steps up his game and introduces drugs that allow him to see into 6's dreams. For maybe the only time in the series, we get to see No. 6 do proper secret agent 007 ****: dressing up in a bowtie and having rendezvous with spies and whatnot. 6 of course manages to flip the script on the bad guys–there's one great shot at the end where No. 6's shenanigans cause No. 2 do a double-take. It's a imaginative and frightening sci-fi vision of a surveillance state that can even intrude into the privacy of dreams. Other than “Inception” I'm not sure what else to compare it to.

There was a bit of a mishap in production which caused some of the episodes to be aired out of order. The No. 2 who appears here will reappear in episode 10, although it's implied that he gets sacked at the end of this episode. There's a debate among Prisoner fans as to what the correct viewing order should be.

Two key things we learn from this episode:

1. 6 was not planning on selling out when he resigned.
2. 2. No. 2 is under pressure from No. 1 to crack 6 as quickly as possible, and will be “replaced” if he takes too long.

So why doesn't No. 2 just take a tire iron and beat the information out of No. 6?

That would make for terrible TV, but also it's suggested in a number of spots that 6 is not to be physically harmed by order of No. 1. It seems that getting the information about his resignation is more of a secondary goal, and that the main purpose of all these mind games is to break down 6's sense of individuality and his will to resist. Perhaps they don't really care about the information at all.

My pet theory is that 6 is being groomed to eventually become the next No. 2 someday.

Ep. 4: Free For All



“Humor is the very essence of a democratic society.” --No. 2

McGoohan gives us a dark, counter-culture take on democracy as No. 6 runs for office to become the new No. 2. Of course, in the Village, democracy is pointless when the people have no sense of self-determination. Even when they're given the freedom to rebel, they just mill about.

The plot sort of falls apart at the end –as is often the case with The Prisoner, McGoohan was more interested in crafting a metaphor than making a story-driven show. There's a pointless chase scene and a fist fight that must have been thrown in to satisfy some TV execs. It's not entirely clear how No. 2 gets out of this election exercise other than possibly breaking 6's spirit a bit. By far the best part is the relentlessly cheery, non-English-speaking assistant No. 58 who seems to do a better job of putting 6 on tilt than any of 2's mindgames.


Note: we've had a tea-drinking scene in every episode so far! It's mentioned that 6's file says he gave up sugar for medical reasons, yet we've seen him take three cubes of sugar in a prior episode in order to deliberately spite No. 2. Here, when in a drugged state, 6 takes no sugar, which seems to please his interrogator. It would seem the drugs have sapped his rebelliousness and induced conformity.

Ep. 5: The Schizoid Man



One of the more memorable episodes in the series, No. 2 sets up an elaborate mind**** designed to convince No. 6 that he is actually an impostor sent to impersonate the real No. 6. And then things get weird. Naturally 6 manages to impersonate the impersonator and nearly gets away with it, only to be foiled by a smartly-written ending. There are references to a "mental bond" and an attempt to steal 6's "soul." We're left with the notion that 6's sense of identity is unbreakable even when all facts are against it.

Note: The episode makes note of the date (Feb 10) several times, but conspicuously avoids mentioning the year. I'd always assumed the show was set in the late 60's, but there's really no reason it couldn't take place in the far future. It's likely that McGoohan deliberately wanted to avoid tying The Village down to any particular place or time. Certainly, the show still seems relevant today 50 years after its production.

Ep. 6: The General


McGoohan gives us a dark vision of the future of education. Mechanized, standardized, everyone flawlessly learning rote facts without any real comprehension thanks to the General's scientific speed-learning method. But of course it's all just another one of the Village's tools to enforce compliance. With today's massively-open online courses, this is another episode that seems so far ahead of its time --it's almost more relevant now than in the 60s.

The episode fires shots at some of the excesses of the flaky, hippy-dippy side of modern education as well. There's a charming Alice-in-Wonderland-style scene where an art student is practicing standing on his head to "gain a new perspective."

There's a cliched twist ending that will surprise no one who watches 60's-era science fiction. It's a theme that's been handled much better in places like Star Trek or The Twilight Zone. My favorite part of the episode is the completely dope top hat and shades look that the high-level bad guys are wearing for some reason. Yet another example of this show's unique visual quirks.


Note: Because of a production mixup that I mentioned earlier, this episode features the same No. 2 who was sacked in episode 3. You can make up your own explanation as to why he might have been given a second chance to run the Village.

What's the deal with the bicycle?

It's a bit inscrutable, but McGoohan has said in an interview that it is an ironic symbol of human progress:

"Oh, dear. Yeah, well, we're all supposed to come from these things [apes], you know. It's the same with the penny farthing symbol bicycle thing. Progress. I don't think we've progressed much."

Ep. 7: Many Happy Returns

Amazing episode, probably the best in the series. 6 escapes The Village and makes his way back home. Episode 2 teased us with a faked escape into a mockup of London, but this time the writers toy with our expectations and show that really truly does return back to the UK this time. Of course he eventually winds up back where he started.

The writing is just ambiguous enough to make it unclear whether or not the British government is in on The Village. There's a bit of ominous dialogue at the end that suggests the head spymasters are in on the conspiracy. But if that's the case, why bother with having the milkman replace the pilot? Why send the policeman out to verify 6's story? It's a very clever ending that can be interpreted in very different ways.

Similarly, in one scene 6 says his real name is "Peter Smith," but it's not clear whether or not he was merely joking.

Why does 6 bother coming back to his apartment? He has to know he's walking in to a trap. I think the best explanation is that his identity is too precious for him to abandon. He has to try to reclaim it, even at the risk of being re-captured.

Really enjoying remembering these episodes!

Where is the Village?

In Episode 2 it is suggested that The Village is somewhere near Poland, but this turns out to be a ruse. Interestingly, in Episode 7 we get fairly solid evidence that the village is located off the coast of Morocco. Of course, this tells us nothing about the purpose of The Village, or who runs it.



Of course, in reality, The Prisoner was shot in the charming Welsh village of Portmeirion. You can visit it if you like and see the famous ship and other landmarks that are largely unchanged. I'm told 6's house is now a souvenir shop.

I've been there 2 or 3 times. It's such a great place to visit, doubly so if you like The Prisoner.

Ep. 8: Dance of the Dead



First half of this episode was rather unremarkable. 6 befriends a cat, plants a message on a dead body and sends it off to sea (message in a bottle not good enough?). Just another day in the office, really. But then things start to get really groovy with a costume ball that turns into kangaroo court and No. 2 goes around in a Peter Pan costume. This was by far the most disjointed and bizarre episode so far, definitely meant for fans of the psychedelic sci-fi of the late 60s.

The new No. 2 is the highlight of the episode, wonderful performance. I don't know she pulls off the diabolical supervillain act while dressed as Peter Pan, but it works.

We learn form this episode that 6's idyllic stay on the island will not last forever. If 2 can't break his will before too long, more aggressive methods will be used that will employ methods that will completely scramble his brain.

6's Lotus 7: second best spy car of all time? (Bond's Aston Martin DB-5 GOAT, obv)

Ep. 9: Checkmate



6 becomes a pawn on a chessboard in a literal sense in the opening sequence. The visual metaphor is memorable, but seems a bit too obvious. This episode revolves around 6's efforts to recruit his fellow prisoners into an escape attempt --but how can he know whom to trust? It's much like The Handmaid's Tale; no one really knows which prisoners are collaborating with No. 2. In an ironic twist, 6 correctly identifies the right prisoners, but fails to appreciate the fact that they too might suspect him of being a traitor.

Because this episode was originally intended to air earlier in the series, there are some minor continuity flaws. When sending out a mayday signal, No. 6 doesn't know what coordinates to give, even though he figured out the location of the island in Ep. 7. 6 also seems far too naive in believing he can ever trust any of his fellow prisoners, a mistake he won't make in other episodes.


Note: On the chessboard 6 plays the role of the Queen's Pawn, the same position occupied by Alice in Alice in Wonderland.