Tonight’s TV: The Prisoner

Have you ever watched this short British series from the ’60s? Only 17 episodes but still widely loved today. Patrick McGoohan stars as Number 6, a man who was once a top secret agent but handed in his resignation only to be drugged and transported to The Village. This is a mysterious place where each episode features McGoohan trying to find out where he is, how he came to be there, or how to get out and each week there is a new local boss or Number 2.

One of the local public TV stations is currently running the show on Sunday nights and tonight broadcast Many Happy Returns. In this episode, McGoohan awakes to find The Village empty, the water and electric turned off. After exploring and taking some snapshots (with a camera borrowed from the store), he makes a primitive boat and sets sail. After 25 days at sea, he has a run in with a boat but ends up ashore in England. Returning to London, he meets a kindly old woman who has taken posession of his flat and sports car and confronts his former employers with his photos. They finally believe him and provide a jet to search for The Village. Finding it, the pilot ejects McGoohan, who returns to his Village home to find the kind old woman is actually this week’s Number 2.

The preceeding paragraph seems simple and straightforward but it in no way captures the psychedelic nature of the show. From the color schemes, clothing, furnishings to the pseudo-druggy behavior of the supporting players. Let me say that I’ve never taken LSD or mushrooms but when watching The Prisoner often feel I have an inkling of what that would be like.

Kipp Teague has a wonderful site dedicated to the show with plenty of detail and photographs. There is also a considerable fan club, Six of One. Allegedly Simon West (director of Tomb Raider) is preparing a new major motion picture version, but there have been efforts to do this in the past which never came to fruition.