The Prisoner (1967)

Watchseries; I assumed this show was about life in the British prison. Boy was I wrong? Patrick McGoohan who should have been knighted is delightful as number 6. The audience nor number 2 and the others don't why he resigned his top secret post. They are clever not to tell the audience rather using the intro montage of back history. We the audience don't know his name as well. He is transported to a self contained and controlled village by the sea. The village is very picturesque with concerts, lovely shops, parks, and culture. This prison doesn't seem so bad after all. The village inhabitants are quite friendly and pleasant. The village symbolizes an ideal utopia community that was tried in communal living during the time period. But 6 wants out ever since his arrival. He is a challenge to the controllers here. The show is beautiful with lovely art direction and costumes. You have to ask yourself what constitutes a prisoner.

I assumed this show was about life in the British prison. Boy was I wrong? Patrick McGoohan who should have been knighted is delightful as number 6. The audience nor number 2 and the others don't why he resigned his top secret post. They are clever not to tell the audience rather using the intro montage of back history. We the audience don't know his name as well. He is transported to a self contained and controlled village by the sea. The village is very picturesque with concerts, lovely shops, parks, and culture. This prison doesn't seem so bad after all. The village inhabitants are quite friendly and pleasant. The village symbolizes an ideal utopia community that was tried in communal living during the time period. But 6 wants out ever since his arrival. He is a challenge to the controllers here. The show is beautiful with lovely art direction and costumes. You have to ask yourself what constitutes a prisoner.

The Prisoner watchseries. The best non-comedic TV show I've ever seen, and certainly one of the most unique TV shows of any genre. A terrific blend of Kafka's drama/satire, fantasy, and spy action/thriller. There is also a healthy dose of humour in it, but nothing over-the-top like we have in today's TV shows. Although it consists of 17 episodes, I would consider the first 12 to be the core of the series. After those 12 we have mostly filler episodes, like the dull one in the Wild West, or the one in which McGoohan barely even appears. The last two episodes, the less-than-grand double-episode finale, are a bit too abstract and quite tiresome at times even. From the last 5 episodes I would only name "The Girl Who Was Death" as being quite good.

The best/most fun episodes are "Arrival", "Dance of the Dead", "ABC", "The General", "A Change Of Mind", and "Hammer Into Anvil". From the first 12, I would only single out "Schizoid Man" as being much weaker than the others.

Several things went into making this show so much fun. First of all, the location, the Welsh village. Secondly, having McGoohan in the lead; I cannot possible imagine any other actor playing Number 6 in the excellent, off-the-wall yet controlled manner in which he plays him. McGoohan hits all the right notes; his performance is just as eccentric as it needs to be. (For the uninitiated, he was among the 2 or 3 main candidates to be the first James Bond, but refused the role.) Thirdly, the highly unusual, original scripts. Fourthly, the series was filmed in the mid-60s, and the visual quality of TV shows from that decade is superior to anything that came before or after. And fifthly, the acting from all the others was on a high level.

Who would think that the coolest show of 2004 would have been the rebroadcast of this 1960's British classic?

When I lived in the U.K. I heard about this show a lot, and when I went to Wales was told about the town where it was filmed, but I had no idea why people were so durned excited about it.

It can be murky and deliberately obscure, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a show as creative and bizarre....and you have to love the fact that No. 6 always looks so dammed serious!

Seriously, it's worth watching, if only to remember how important good writing and unique ideas used to be in television!

Just watched Once Upon A Time which for me is the best and most important episode in the series, the interplay between Patrick McGoohan and Leo McKern is quite simply brilliant. As for the series like many others I remember first seeing the show as a 10 year old, it left an indelible impression on me then and with time that impression hasn't faded one bit, I still consider it one of the finest television series ever created. I hope Hollywood nor anyone else attempt to remake it, it would be like a sad photocopy of the Mona Lisa, leave it alone please. To Patrick McGoohan and all those involved in creating it I'd just like to say 'THANK YOU'

For those who ask what the series is all about, I'd say watch it, and make your own mind up don't just accept my opinion on it, 'think' for yourself. Be seeing you.

Geez I just did another Imdb review listing some of the top ten tv shows of all time (in my opinion) and I plum forgot this one. It qualifies. 18 hourly episodes about attempts to pry information from taciturn retired spy McGoohan, kidnapped and held in an isolated village peopled by, well, we're not sure who else. There's maybe one bad episode in the whole lot; many shows have you wondering who are the captors and who are the captives among the village's inhabitants. Not sure it's explicitly stated but McGoohan's character could be a carryover from his Secret Agent Man, an earlier series also starring him. McGoohan is exquisitely perfect in the role, a bit eccentric, sometimes almost precious, athletic when necessary, crisply precise and (understandably) paranoid. Occasionally things go over the top, particularly in the final two episodes, but you certainly can't accuse them of playing it safe. Unique, inspired, insightful, distinctive, unparalleled.

When it premiered in the US as a CBS summer series, no less than Isaac Asimov wrote an article in TV Guide praising it. So I was primed. "Arrival" was every bit at interesting as I expected, from the jazzy music and rapid-edited credit sequence all the way to that strange bicycle that assembled itself in the closing credits. The Village was beautiful and charming and hellish, with doors that open for you and mandatory classical music on the radio. McGoohan was perfect--he kept his cool but never wavered from his determination to find out who ran the show.

However, the idiots who ran my local CBS affiliate must have gotten calls from perplexed viewers. Next week, I was all set for episode two... and instead saw some crappy conventional syndicated spy show. Grrr. Since this was before cable, I never saw the rest of the series till PBS ran it.

It's hard to believe that any television network would agree to air something this wild. To this day, I can hear "I am not a number! I am a free man!" followed by maniacal laughter....

I loved the humor, too. One time Number Six had a double. His name--Number Twelve, of course. The whole concept of being labelled "unmutual" was worthy of Douglas Adams's "Share and Enjoy".