by David Stimpson

Created on: January 29, 2007   Last Updated: July 20, 2010

2007 sees the 40th anniversary of that enigmatic, and often described allegorical, 1960's television series "the Prisoner," in France "Le Prisonnier" and Germany "Nummer 6" produced, directed and starring Patrick McGoohan.
During the past four decades dedicated fans have tried to fathom the depths of "the Prisoner", to de-brief, to put answers to those numourus questions posed by both the Prisoner and his village. To interpret actions, to seek out the symbolism and discover those so termd "hidden meanings" said to have been entered into "the Prisoner" during the time of production. Well all I can say is that after all these years any such "hidden meanings" have failed to reveal themselves, if they were ever there in the first place!

Now 40 years on and you would think that we would know "the Prisoner" very well indeed, to have arrived at an understanding of the Prisoner himself and of the vilage in which he has been incarcerated. That there would, after all this time, be no remaining mystery surrounding "the Prisoner" series, and in the case of the more seasoned fan you would be right to think that. I myself am a seasoned fan of "the Prisoner" of some 40 years standing, and during the past three years I have carried out the most in-depth study into both "the Prisoner" and all related material ever to have been carried out to date, if I may make such a bold statement. And stemming from my researches are two conclusions; Firstly that there are certain aspects of "the Prisoner" which defy explanation for one reason or another. Secondly just when you think you have satisfactorily completed your research, you will find that there is still something of "the Prisoner" which will need consideration and including in any such in-depth research.

And of course there is the constant need for information on the subject of "the Prisoner," this by those people who are new, having just discoverd "the Prisoner" for themselves. Such new and fresh fans today have a distinct advantage over the many who viewed the series in 1967-68 and later in 1976. Because today there is an abundance of written information on "the Prisoner," in magazine articles, essays, books and on "Prisoner" based web sites on the Internet. 40 years ago very little had been written about "the Prisoner" save for articles in the TV Times and in "press release" information, certainly nothing on todays scale of writing. But even then after reading all you can on the subject of "the prisoner" you are very often

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