By J.D. Lafrance
What if James Bond tried to resign?
It is this intriguing premise that lies at the heart of influential British television series The Prisoner. Coming off the spy show Danger Man, actor Patrick McGoohan and writer George Markstein created a decidedly unconventional follow-up (some say sequel) that turned the espionage genre on its head. It was a show unafraid to defy expectations right down to the uncompromising final episode that so infuriated viewers back in the 1960s that McGoohan famously went into hiding. It’s legacy of messing with viewers’ minds lives on to this day in T.V. with the likes of The Sopranos, Mr. Robot and the recent revival of Twin Peaks, but no one did it better than The Prisoner.
The opening credits are a marvel of efficient visual storytelling by brilliantly establishing the premise in only a few, dialogue-free minutes. Top-secret government agent Number Six (McGoohan) resigns rather emphatically from his job. Unbeknownst to him, he’s followed home and as he packs to leave for somewhere else, smoke is piped into his place. He loses consciousness and so it begins….
He awakens in a quaint, remote seaside resort known as “the Village.” One almost might say it is an idyllic place except that he is forbidden to leave. The denizens act nice enough – maybe a little too nice – but in a way that feels slightly off. This is best encapsulated in the often-repeated phrase, “Be seeing you,” that the villagers say to one another and that quickly goes from provincially charming to downright creepy.
Each episode sees a different Village administrator, known only as Number Two, try to find dissimilar ways to get Number Six to reveal why he resigned while he devises ways to escape and figure out the identity of the mysterious Number One who supposedly rules over the Village. His captors don’t want Number Six running around in the world with the kind of knowledge and secrets that he knows. After all, information is power and they want to know what he knows. Naturally, Number Six resists (“My life is my own.”), and it is his resilience the Village will put to the test repeatedly, and therein lies the main source of conflict.
Patrick McGoohan brings his trademark intensity and intelligence to the role. In every episode we see Number Six thinking and scheming of ways to outwit his captors and escape. While the actor displays a wide range of emotions, he also plays the role enigmatically, never revealing too much as Number Six resists any kind of inquiries from the powers that be.
The actor famously turned down playing James Bond on two different occasions and “The Girl Who Was Death” sees the show at its most playful as the spy genre and detective shows are satirized, complete with overly complicated plots and an insane, power-hungry baddie with the requisite femme fatale. This episode certainly conveys McGoohan’s feelings about the spy genre and why he had no interest in playing Bond.
Watching several episodes back-to-back is like a experiencing an acid trip – the more you watch the more you lose touch with reality as you become deeper immersed in this strange world as the show goes from a spy fantasy story to a science fiction/horror hybrid fused with ‘60s era psychedelia and “pop art.” It as if artist Jim Steranko had decided to take a break from drawing Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD and decided to go into art direction for The Prisoner.
The show’s overriding theme is free will as Number Six resists Number Two’s repeated attempts to get him to divulge his reason for resigning. The Village is a false utopia. In “Arrival,” Number Two claims that it has everything one could want. Everything that is, except for freedom – the commodity that Number Six values most. Number Two controls every aspect of the Village, including its inhabitants and anyone who steps out of line is dealt with in ruthless fashion as a big white malleable sphere known as a Rover emerges with a horrific sound and absorbs said troublemaker. There are hidden surveillance cameras everywhere, eerily foreshadowing the way we live today.
The Prisoner also explores the abuse of power. The government that Number Six used to work for thinks that they own the secrets in his head and do everything in their power to extract them. To this end, they have an entire Village under their control to aid in this endeavor. It is all about control – who has it and how they exert it. As the show begins, the Village administrators have all the power, but over time Number Six gradually wrests control and repeatedly resists their various methods to extract information from him.
“A. B. and C” is an excellent example of the lengths that Number Two will go to extract information out of Number Six – dream manipulation – while also serving as a showcase for the show’s style, employing rear screen projection right out of a Classic Hollywood movie, and skewed camera angles and quick cuts inspired by Orson Welles’ adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial (1962), which only draws attention to the artifice of the dream.
While there is some dispute over who came up with what, McGoohan is often credited as the driving force behind The Prisoner, starring in every episode, and writing and directing several of them. This is a rare actor as auteur project – an accomplishment that has rarely been equaled on T.V. with the notable exception of Twin Peaks: The Return where David Lynch directed and co-wrote every episode and also appeared in many of them. The Prisoner was clearly a passion project for McGoohan and it shows in every detail, right down to the décor of Number Six’s home and the blazers everyone wears, that this was all thought out beforehand and with great care.
The Prisoner’s legacy is impressive. It has gone on to inspire comic book writers (Grant Morrison), musicians (The Beatles), films (The Matrix), and T.V. shows (Lost). The less said about the mediocre six-episode miniseries remake on AMC in 2009 the better but hopefully it motivated some to seek out the original, which continues to provoke and remains even more relevant today than when it first came out. We are even more prisoners of our own making, trying to control every aspect of our lives and that of others through technology. McGoohan was warning us of these dangers way back when but clearly his admonition was not heeded.
“We’re so desperately concerned with saying ‘We’re free!’ And I want to know, how free are we? I think we’re being imprisoned and engulfed by a scientific and materialistic world. We’re at the mercy of gadgetry and gimmicks” – Patrick McGoohan, Columbia Daily Spectator, February 6, 1978.
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Watching several episodes back-to-back is like a experiencing an acid trip – the more you watch the more you lose touch with reality as you become deeper immersed in this strange world as the show goes from a spy fantasy story to a science fiction/horror hybrid fused with ‘60s era psychedelia and “pop art.”
You have framed the experience of watching this supreme television masterpiece superlatively J.D.! After some behind the scenes discussions with other members of our group, it was generally agreed that this placement was the major surprise of the countdown. Yet it is a glorious one, and all things considered a boon to the project. A British spy show extraordinaire, and one that sets aside convention for a far more profound exploration. Methinks you nailed all the themes too – free will, abuse of power, control, etc., and I love that comparison of McGoohan to David Lynch as an all-encompassing force on the show. I did know that the actor turned down James Bon repeatedly. Really a fantastic review here J.D: breezy, concise and a real joy to read.
Terrific review!! One of the most cerebral and innovative shows ever created for television. I would imagine it could be argued it is the best in the genre. The countdown results would appear to confirm this contention.
I don’t have it ranked this highly but it is in my own top 25. A superb work of speculative fiction that still holds relevance to this day.
I have been comparing our recent political climate to the Prisoner. I would say it is like the Prisoner, you know that show from the sixties with Patrick Mcgoohan . They would say never heard of it, just like the people on the island. Very creepy, I keep waiting for a giant bubble to engulf me.
I love this series! Awesome theme tune, superb performance from McGoohan and stunning location. I have visited the location used for the village and I highly recommend it to fans.
Wonderful review of my father’s favorite show. I’d love to get hold of the DVDs. I don’t think one can argue it is one of the most intelligent/complex shows in television.
I too remember those opening credits. Nothing like The Prisoner has come down the pike, and I can well understand why the voters have given it such a high spot in the countdown. Of course this great review spells it out in no uncertain terms. We have the complete DVD set, but I think it may have also released on blu ray. McGoohan was quite a talent.
A television landmark. Thrilled to see how high it landed. A fair number of the episodes are as thought-provoking as McGoohans’s own inspiration for The Prisoner. And regardless of what McGoohan may insist and what the critics contend, I pose that No. 6 is John Drake of “Secret Agent Man.” The blu ray set has the episodes looking like they were filmed yesterday.
A real joy to read. Thank you!
Bravo The Prisoner! I had it in my own Top 5. More than anything, THE PRISONER was McGoohan’s attempt to make a set of comments on what he saw as the lingering insistence on social and political control that society was attempting to exert in limiting individualism and freedom of expression. In that sense, he fit quite easily with other sixties radicals who were if not actively calling for a revolution at least expressing a wish for it. The show is a kind of Thoreau meets James Bond. Congratulations on a fantastic review, Mr. Lafrance.
Brilliant! At a certain height on a list like this, it’s more reasonable to assume that The Prisoner is just not going to show up at all.
SO glad to be wrong!
If only it had shown up just two spots higher. 😉
Interesting. Never heard of this show before so of course have never seen it. Why was it only on for 1 year?
Essentially that was the story—it’s actually longer than the intended 7 episodes as originally devised. Sometimes Americans have trouble understanding that shows have specific set arcs, rather than how much of American television is ordered, i.e. keep making them as long as money rolls in regardless of characters or actual plots.
A brilliant series and an excellent overview. The only thing to let it down was the last two parts that formed the final, which were a unsatisfactory mess.