The Prisoner
A man at his breaking point storms into his supervisor's office. A storm of rage sounds as he literally slams his resignation down on the desk. Speeding home, he's packing for a well-deserved and much-needed vacation, it seems, when a gas is pumped into his apartment...
He awakes- not in his bedroom, but an amazingly close replica. Beyond the window isn't the familiar city of London, but a Village where he has been taken. The Villagers appear to be from both sides of the Iron Curtain- then again, so do the jailers. In a place where everyone is referred to by their number our man struggles to retain his own identity. The authority behind the Village, No. 2, is always probing and engaging our No. 6, to determine why he resigned from such a highly classified government intelligence job. Our hero in turn is always gaming the Village, the system and No. 2 himself to determine just who is running the Village- who is No. 1?
The Prisoner is one of the all-time classics of TV, a reminder that it is as capable of greatness as any other medium. Patrick McGoohan created the classic allegory of a man and a community- what compromises must be made for an individual to fit into a society... and what compromises can we not afford to make?
Aside from a very few references to the "other side" (and whoever thought we'd ever feel nostalgic for the simple old days of the Cold War?) the show is amazingly undated. The Village is such an eclectic myriad of architectural and clothing styles that one can't tie it down to any particular time. It's anytime you see the Village... or anytime you stop and think about your own society, and your place in it. The episode parodying the farce that are elections in a democracy that suffers from more media than real information is still as funny and as sadly true as it was four decades ago.
There are a few who thought the ending should have given more solid answers, but that would defeat the purpose. The Prisoner wasn't there to give us hard, definitive answers but to frame the questions in a way that would make us re-think our own society, and where we stand in it.
He awakes- not in his bedroom, but an amazingly close replica. Beyond the window isn't the familiar city of London, but a Village where he has been taken. The Villagers appear to be from both sides of the Iron Curtain- then again, so do the jailers. In a place where everyone is referred to by their number our man struggles to retain his own identity. The authority behind the Village, No. 2, is always probing and engaging our No. 6, to determine why he resigned from such a highly classified government intelligence job. Our hero in turn is always gaming the Village, the system and No. 2 himself to determine just who is running the Village- who is No. 1?
The Prisoner is one of the all-time classics of TV, a reminder that it is as capable of greatness as any other medium. Patrick McGoohan created the classic allegory of a man and a community- what compromises must be made for an individual to fit into a society... and what compromises can we not afford to make?
Aside from a very few references to the "other side" (and whoever thought we'd ever feel nostalgic for the simple old days of the Cold War?) the show is amazingly undated. The Village is such an eclectic myriad of architectural and clothing styles that one can't tie it down to any particular time. It's anytime you see the Village... or anytime you stop and think about your own society, and your place in it. The episode parodying the farce that are elections in a democracy that suffers from more media than real information is still as funny and as sadly true as it was four decades ago.
There are a few who thought the ending should have given more solid answers, but that would defeat the purpose. The Prisoner wasn't there to give us hard, definitive answers but to frame the questions in a way that would make us re-think our own society, and where we stand in it.
