“I am not a number, I am a free man …”
I just watched an episode of this classic series, and I must say it was funny to see that even though the effects are pure 60s era cheese, the series is just as wierdly creative as I remember it being - far superior to much modern-day science fiction, with its multi-million dollar budgets.
Any other Prisoner fans out there? Or haters, for that matter? 
Questions are a burden to others.
Answers are a burden to oneself.
That would be telling.
Be seeing you.
Who is number one?
You are…number six.
And you . . .
I take it from these replies that there indeed exist other Prisoner affectionados out there …
You are in the village.
What do you want?
Information?
The best Number Two was Leo McKern.
One of my favorite lines was from the second to last episode, with LM returning to command the Village.
He watched the surveillance footage of Number Six, and noticed how Number Six paced.
“Why do you care?” he asked the screen.
“WHY DO YOU CARE?” he said once again to the screen.
He picked up the phone, waited, and on the screen you could see Number Six walk towards the phone, and pick it up.
“Why do you care?” Number Two intoned.
“I know your voice.” Number Six replied.
“I’ve been here before. Why do you care?”
“You’ll never know.” And with that, Number Six hung up the phone, and dashed out the door.
To me, those were the kind of exchanges that made the prisoner great. Good writing, well defined characters, and the facility to say so much, with so little.
I liked it. A bunch of crazy mind games and subtle spy mumbo-jumbo. Thought the village personell wore extremely fruity uniforms- hard for me to take evil goons seriously when they are decked in beachball striped shirts and wearing beanies.
And what is up with all the pictures of those wierdass bicycles??? kinda creeped me out!
Excellent show.
Soon to be a movie starring, last I heard, Mel Gibson was slated to star, but I think he pulled out. Patrick McGoohan still owns the rights to the show and has been developing a film deal for years. A pity Leo McKern died recently as he could still be a great Number 2.
Did anybody see the Simpsons parody on The Prisoner btw? My favorite moment:
Homer’s boat punctures the bounching white balloon. Number 2 screams at a subordinate “Exactly what use was a large inflatable ball supposed to accomplish in keeping people on the island?”
Somebody please explain the last episode of TP to me, btw. If you just needed proof of 60s drug use, that’d give it to you.
Trivia: McGoohan is an extremely devout Catholic who named his production company “Everyman” after the famous morality play.
More trivia: The village in Wales where the series was filmed still receives hundreds of thousands of visitors per year courtesy of the show; it’s a major cottage industry to them.
I’m too young to have seen the original airing of the show in the US, but PBS did play a few episodes a few months ago. I enjoyed the episdodes I saw, and I wish they had played more.
Our local library has 15 episodes on tape (is that all the episodes there are?)
I’ve watched the first 10, can’t wait to finish the last 5.
“Number 6: The whole world as the Village?
Number 2: That is my dream. What’s yours?
Number 6: To be the first man on the moon.”
I went to IMBD - I felt sorry for Patrick McGoohan.He’s listed as Number 6
bah, not 15 ep’s, 15 volumes…
they do have all there is.
I am not a number!
I am, however, a Prisoner fan.
CJ
The big bouncing white balloon.
The “big bouncing white balloon” was named Rover, if anyone cares. And IIRC there were 17 episodes. Incidentally, there was a long gap between the filming of the last two episodes, which is why McKern’s hair is different between the two – he’d gotten a haircut for another job he was doing.
I’m not even going to try to explain all the supposedly deep and meaningful symbolism (the pennyfarthing bicycle, the rocket, the little butler guy, etc.), but there is, of course, a big fan club even now (“Six of One”, I think it’s called) who will happily spend hours explaining it all to you. Google will undoubtedly put you in touch with them. I, OTOH, can’t be bothered.
I recommend The Prisoner Conmpanion , a badly-written, but fact-crammed book on the series.
There is apparently another Prisoner Companion I didn’t know about until now:
And I’m sure there’s a plethora, or maybe even two plethorae, or websites on the series.
Great stuff. I suspect purists would hate me, but I like the less weird episodes – “Hammer into Anvil”, “Chimes of Big Ben”, “Arrival”, and “The Girl Who Was Death” – more than the off-the-wall ones, especially the last one.
Count me as a Prisoner fan.
So … perennial question: anybody got any ideas as to what order the episodes ought to be in?
(For the uninitiated; there’s the broadcast order of the original run of the series … and there’s an “official” order which is different … and there’s internal evidence in the series which suggests both are wrong. Generates hours of pointless but entertaining debate.)