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.

*Spoiler/plot- The Prisoner, 1967, A life-long English secret agent abruptly resigns from his job and is kidnapped into a strange fantasy village on a isolated seashore of an anonymous country. The village staff work their vast interrogation techniques on the X-secret agent or #6 to find out why he left his job and reveal all his mission secrets.*Special Stars- Patrick McGoohan, Angelo Muscat, Unit Production Manager: Bernard Williams.*Theme- Man will not be controlled when his freedom is at stake. *Trivia/location/goofs- British, TV series of 17 episodes. Portmeirion, Wales is where The Village is. The location was built by an eccentric artist and building salvager from the 17th century. Every episode has another new actor playing the role of evil antagonist against the show's hero, #6. The Rover is a large weather balloon. *Emotion- An excellent TV series for action, drama and to explore real modern societal issues through story telling. This TV show takes you on a mind-bending trip that pushes your imagination to the limit. Take an unforgettable journey to The Village, run by sophisticated 'jailers' whose one mission is to 'break' the new inhabitants and find out everything the inhabitants/villagers know about their recent top-secret government jobs of spying. It takes you alongside Britain's best secret agent, John Drake or #6 men whose missions are to preserve Britian from all manner of threats and by any means necessary. This film has become a cult classic with discussions about it's minutia and plot meanings of this multi-layered thought provoking TV show. Ahead of it's time interesting. A Blog telling about Patrick McGoohan's later in life dealings with a TV writer, just before McGoohan's death. LINK:http://www.2ndwindproductions.org/peopleilike/patrick-mcgoohan

The Prisoner was never intended to be a permanent TV series. The original plan was for something like six episodes, but it was extended mid-stream. No TV executive cancel led it; it was Patrick McGoohan's baby, and his decision. At least that's what I've read. Makes sense. Do you real think you could get seven seasons out of this theme, and maintain the quality? No. 6 joins a bridge club, No. 6 gets a dog, No. 6 gets married, No. 6 has grandchildren ....The series was so eerie because there was an element of truth to it, perhaps more than we knew at the time. With the trials of high level British officials for spying in the 1960s, the question "Whose side are you on?" was very real. There may have been an actual "village" for spies, of some sort, and the fellow sitting at the desk in the credits when McGoohan turns in his resignation may have been the connection. There certainly were "villages" for training spies.It should be noted that the Danger Man series pre-dates the James Bond franchise, and, along with Secret Agent, suggests some inside knowledge of the spy game. And then there's Ice Station Zebra in 1968. Ummm, wasn't this stuff supposed to be secret? How did McGoohan and company know? There really were American spy satellites sending back canisters of film, beginning in 1960. Of course, the Russians must have known, so it was only secret to the American people, I guess. Watch Nova: Sputnik Declassified, the documentary about America's Project Corona, the real basis of Ice Station Zebra. The Prisoner is the heir to George Orwell's distopian Nineteen Eight- Four. To watch this today, after the end of the Cold War, it might seem quaint. But then consider China, their long history of brainwashing, and their modern pattern of arresting political prisoners, who are then released as meek and apologetic as lambs. I'll bet you could get arrested for bringing DVDs of The Prisoner in to China. Patrick McGoohan was an extraordinary actor. He was able to project immense intelligence without hardly doing anything. And what makes The Prisoner so fascinating is his ability to convey a sense of his steely strong willpower, his ability to maintain his sense of self despite everything they could throw at him. The Prisoner is British television at its best, and, in my opinion, the finest television series ever created.

Patrick McGoohan's idea for a television series, The Prisoner, is still a source of fascination and admiration. This kind of guerrilla TV cannot be done now under the protective, moneyed auspices of men like Lew Grade (extinct species) who funded and promoted the series. The Prisoner lasted 5 months with 17 episodes, then it vanished for ever. I think this was for the best. It would be pointless and unkind to analyze each episode as to what I think they mean or who is running The Village and who is spying on who. It is more fun to watch events unfold in the haphazard way The Prisoner has. There is no story arc, per se, but there is an evolution in the behavior and tactics of No. 6 (McGoohan) that glues the series together.I hadn't seen The Prisoner in probably 40 years, since it first aired in the USA. I liked it then but somehow lost interest. The lava lamps didn't help. The era of the swinging, mod sixties is preserved like an old cameo in this show. The primary colors, the 'flip' hairdos, the tight crotchy pants and pointed breasts behind stripes on everyone's ubiquitous matelot tops, all shod in Keds tennies and Espadrilles (actually, I wish Espadrilles would come back, very comfortable); all contribute to the charm and fascination. Having just re-watched the series after all that time makes me sorry that I ignored it for so long.There are admittedly some cheesy elements to the props and acting but those little goofs add to the vintage charm of the show. Rover, the 'scary' guardian of the Village, is similar to Gort the metallic cosmic policeman in The Day the Earth Stood Still. He's always there, attached to some sort of Great Lava Lamp under the water from whence he sallies forth to nab anyone attempting to leave The Village. Rover is nothing more than a weather balloon inflated with helium which makes it bounce and wobble like the flowing shapes in a lava lamp (again, the lava lamp). Depending on one's transgression Rover will either absorb you (pressing face against surface of balloon and viewed from the other side) or hauled off or chased back to No. 2's door for punishment.The howler with Rover is that every time someone is absorbed it is the same face, some one from the tech crew who volunteered for the job of face-absorption when testing Rover's scare factor on screen. The factor is very low. Rover is also center stage for some very bad editing in an early episode. Nadia, an Estonian spy who has also retired and landed in The Village (so she says), is supposed to have escaped by trying to swim 30 miles, but Rover hauls her back to the beach. In the process the actress who is supposed to be playing a bronze-medalist in swimming from years ago, is seen flailing and paddling and lifting her head for air when she is supposed to be unconscious. Fortunately these technical glitches are few and far between and become a thing of the past by the 5th or 6th episode. Patrick McGoohan himself carries the show with ease. He was a good-looking man and a fine actor, though he hams it up from time to time with too much vehemence. There were times when I expected him to twirl his mustache (in a manner of speaking), his acting having taken a sudden Simon Legree aspect to it. There is a very camp over-the-top atmosphere about the entire thing.No. 2 is the second most important repeating character. The actors change all the time, which makes things interesting and was a brilliant solution for preventing rote acting on the part of the leads. There are a number of famous faces playing No.2 who you will recognize from older English films and television from the 50s to the 90s. Leo McKern (Rumpole) and the very unusual looking Mary Morris being among them.The Prisoner was McGoohan's brainchild and he was in full control of every aspect of its production. The Prisoner was a powerful influence on other screenwriters, like Douglas Adams with his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Terry Jones and Monty Python's Flying Circus, and later, Terry Gilliam with his films Brazil and Twelve Monkeys. For his part, McGoohan was clearly influenced by the pop goofiness of A Hard Day's Night and Rod Serling's disorienting and disturbing Twilight Zone.interview with the producer Bernard Williams. He doesn't give away McGoohan's secret intentions but he speaks candidly about the creation of the show.With the A&E complete DVD (2004)collection there is included the original version of the episode The Chimes of Westminster. A&E has not troubled itself to make this listen-able so don't waste your time. The sound is totally inaudible, though I liked the primitive grainy film. Perhaps The Prisoner might have been even more effective in black and white. And A&E has scrambled up the playing order of the earlier episodes in a manner far removed from the original broadcast order.I made a list of the correct order and follow that when watching, though it's inconvenient to have to be switching around from one disc to another all the time. But A&E have been pretty chintzy, using 10 dvds for 17 episodes and two Features. Don't expect a solution to the series when it ends. There is one, sort of, but IS there. The sound and picture, however, for the rest of the episodes have been cleaned up and is very good for its age.