TV on Tape: The Prisoner Movie Review

The Prisoner was a very special kind of science-fiction show. Although it took place in a strange, otherworldly place that sometimes seems to be in the future, it wasn't about aliens or spaceships or time machines. It owed more to Kafka than Heinlein. The story of a secret agent who resigns his post and is abducted to a strange place called the Village, it created a cult following still going strong today.

Actor Patrick McGoohan played “Number 6” for the show's 17 hour-long episodes. The show began in 1967, when the world was in love with spies. McGoohan had already turned down the role of Ian Fleming's super-agent James Bond, having been offered it before Sean Connery. He had created and starred in Danger Man (also known as Secret Agent Man), an unorthodox “spy series” about an agent who relies on his intellect rather than gadgets and fists. The filming of one Danger Man episode took McGoohan to the grounds of a hotel in Portmeirion, Wales. A strange, whimsical-looking place that looked like it belonged in Lewis Carroll's Wonderland, it got McGoohan thinking. Two years later he'd sold networks on The Prisoner.

For The Prisoner, McGoohan also played a secret agent who disdains his profession. As “Number 6,” McGoohan resigns against his superiors’ wishes, and is abducted to the weird, surreal Village, which seems to have no other purpose than to crush Number 6's individuality. Escape is rendered difficult by “rovers,” strange bouncing bubble-creatures that can envelope straying Villagers. McGoohan revealed in interviews that the rovers were originally conceived as hovercraft-like vehicles, but this idea was scrapped when the prototype sank in Portmeirion's harbor. A handy weather-balloon provided a substitute, and the infinitely weirder bubble-rovers were created on the spur of the moment.

The 17 episodes of The Prisoner took on questions of identity and authority with a characteristically British sense of humor. The final episode saw Number 6 finally uncover the identity of the mysterious “Number 1,” with a typically unexpected twist. There's never been a show quite like The Prisoner, and its possible there never will again. Fortunately, the magic of video has preserved its unique charms for posterity.

1968-69 (in the U.S)/C GB Selected cast: Patrick McGoohan, Virginia Maskell, Guy Doleman, Paul Eddington, George Baker, Angelo Muscat. VHS, LV MPI, MOV, TVC