by Moe Zilla

Created on: January 31, 2008

"The Prisoner" remains a legendary television program, despite the fact that just 17 episodes aired in 1967. It's fascinating, thought-provoking, and fun, hiding intriguing surprises in both its ideas and its history.

Patrick McGoohan had already played a cold war spy for four years in a series called "Secret Agent" (or "Danger Man" when it aired in Europe). While that series was still on the air, McGoohan announced he was leaving to create a new series about an agent who resigns from the British secret service. In its opening title sequence, the agent's personal integrity appears to clashes with something in the cold war spy agency, though it's never revealed what. He's shown returning to his apartment, which an ominous figure fills with a white gas. When McGoohan awakens, he's been transported to a strange new city called "The Village."

It's been suggested that this series offers a metaphor for all of society, since episodes reveal that it's impossible to leave "The Village." (A giant mechanized balloon patrols its perimeter, suffocating those who try to leave and then dragging their unconscious bodies back inside.) The title sequence of each episode shows McGoohan confronting the ultimate authorities in charge, demanding to know where he is and what they want without getting satisfactory answers. ("Whose side are you on?" "That would be telling.") It suggests the show will be about the agent's very personal struggle against the de-humanizing powers that be. When he's informed that he is "number six," McGoohan's character shouts defiantly that "I am not a number. I am a free man!"

To which the authorities just laugh.

Each episode offered exciting stories about fighting these sinister powers who hold him captive and have him under surveillance - but they also created a thoughtful abstract statement about fighting to retain one's individuality. In the opening McGoohan speaks to someone identifying themselves only as "the new number two," played by a different actor in nearly every episode. And the city where he's living is apparently part of the sinister scheme, an overly picturesque town in which loudspeakers announce regularly that "It's another beautiful day in the Village." His captors try to break his resistance by surrounding him with a complacent society.

Its "modern" message is accented by a very unique set design, with McGoohan dressed in a stylish but black and white uniform, and his captors ensconced in an elaborate surveillance center with giant globes

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