en français; Qu'est ce que vous voulez?_ des renseignements, nous voulons des renseignements, pour qui travaillez vous?_ vous le saurez en temp utile!_ vous n'en n'aurez pas!_ de force ou de gré vous parlerez! _qui êtes vous?_ je suis le numéro deux_ qui est le numéro un?- vous êtes le numéro 6_( je ne suis pas un numéro, je suis un homme libre!!!_ AH AH AH!!!

Be seeing you! (also in French, "Être à vous voir"),

All you said is true. "The Prisoner" was a sequel to Patrick's previous series, "Secret Agent", and picks where the last episode left off. The main character is very disgruntled with the way an assignment ended and how the agency (presumably MI6) withheld details about his previous mission and vehemently resigned. Hence the scenes in the opening of the show. The Village is a community of R.E.D. agents who have resigned or retired suddenly and seemingly divulging their reasons. The whole organization and staff are trying to ascertain these reasons and the residents seem to be from different countries and intelligence organizations. This leaves one wondering who is actually running this place. Of course. Everyone is under surveillance and life is strictly structured. Conformity and obedience is everything. Sound familiar??

I saw as a summer replacement show when I was seven. I thought it was way cooler than STAR trek.

I was 10. It took Jackie Gleason’s program spot after he retired the Miami show. The series grabbed me from the start.

I was nine and watched every episode during its original run here in the USA.

I hope to visit Portmeirion someday and, since it's in Wales, pick up a new Corgi while I'm at it! That said, permit me to offer some thoughts into why the psychology professor couldn't adequately explain The Prisoner. Briefly, it's because psychology focuses on individuals, and this series is about society. For a fuller explanation . . . I've spent the last 12 years working toward a PhD in Sociology, Because I struggle with narcolepsy, I'm settling for a MA in the subject, but I took and passed all the courses for a PhD, so I learned a lot about Sociology. There's a particular school of thought in sociology known as Symbolic Interactionism. This school of thought essentially says that we communicate through a variety of symbols; that we build our ideas of what society is and how it works around those symbols; and that those symbols are unique to a particular society. This is counter to Carl Jung's idea that symbols are universal, and so counterintuitive to many people. Within Symbolic Interactionism is a theoretical orientation known as Social Constructionism. This theory comes down to the idea that society is mutually constructed by its participants. While the classic text defining this field of theory is "The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge," I think it better to think of "mutually constructed social reality" because too many people seem to have the notion that we actually influence reality through the ways we think about it. But what social constructionism is actually about is how we construct our notions about what society is and how it works: it's about what we consider "commonsense" or "everyday" knowledge that "everybody knows" and "everybody accepts as true." And here's why sociology better explains The Prisoner better than psychology can. If you look at Number Six as an individual. much about The Village makes no sense. Things seem to happen at random, and Number Six is caught up in a maelstrom of social chaos. But when you use what we refer to as your sociological imagination, you can see The Village as a reflection of the society from which Number Six came. From his London flat to what he did for a living, Number Six knew what he was doing and why. He knew who he was working for and why it mattered. He knew how to fit in. But when involuntarily thrust into a different social setting, Number Six intuitively understood that it was simultaneously similar to, yet subtly different from the society he came from. The trick, then, would be to figure out what the differences were and how to use that knowledge to his end of asserting his individuality and eventually escaping back to the social reality in which he could enjoy his personal freedom as he saw fit. This is the journey that took Number Six to being Number One. On the way, he learned how to manipulate The Village to his advantage. You see this in "Hammer Into Anvil", as Number Six uses what he's learned of The Village's demand to be in control at all times, exemplified by Number Two's paranoia, to take revenge for the death of someone he knew and cherished. You see Number Six's growing mastery of The Village and how it worked in "The Girl Who Was Death", when at the end of the episode, Number Six turns the camera on that's been monitoring him as he tells the children a bedtime story after Number Two turned it off to deliver a final message to Number Two: "I'm aware that you've been watching -- I hope you enjoyed the story I told. Be seeing you . . . ." The final two episodes, "Once Upon a Time" and "Fallout" show that Number Six has fully adapted to his new social reality to such an extent that he is no longer bound by it: he can recreate it in his own image, even destroying The Village if he chooses. Yet, despite doing so, he carries The Village back with him as he returns to the society he is familiar with: at the very end of the series, The Butler opens the door of Number Six's flat and follows him in, closing the door -- and the series -- behind them both. But despite being back in London, signs of The Village remain. This is a sensation familiar to many people who have traveled abroad. My US Air Force career took me to both Guam and Okinawa. The interesting thing is that I felt more out of place on Guam than I did on Okinawa. Going to Okinawa, I knew that I was going to an island where the language, dress and customs were significantly different from what I knew in the States. But Guam was, at times, unfathomable from my Mainlander's experience -- my wife described it as being "halfway overseas". We drove on the righthand side of the road, spoke English, and used US currency. But we never really understood the people and their culture until my office got an administrator who was born on the island. So the first time I watched The Prisoner, sometime around 1984, it didn't have the impact I felt in 2017, when we watched it again on KZfaq. Then, with this body of experience and education, I understood it. I realize I've probably gone on too long, and I thank you for your indulgence. But I hope that some of what I've shared helps inform your experience of The Prisoner. In the meantime, "Be seeing you!"

@@johndemeritt3460; Interesting analysis. I don't know enough to disagree with it. Patrick MaGoohan (RIP), would (I think), agree with you. I loved Guam, cared not much for Japan, but on the other hand, stayed long enough in neither to definitively make judgements. Patrick MaGoohan pretty much explains his brain child "The Prisoner", in a 1977 Canadian TV interview which is easy to find on You Tube.

@@Johnnycdrums, thanks for your response! I'll have to look up that interview . . . do you know if it's on KZfaq? If so, might you provide a link? Thanks!

I saw on it PBS in Dallas Texas they showed episodes once a week.

Well summoned up. Especially as regards the casualties.

Thanks for all the information, gothling1955!

@taylor ape The Main reason for McGoohan doing `Ice Zero` was to use his fee to help fund the finale of the Prisoner. Though Lew Grade had put a lot of ATVs cash into it, it had gone over budget-hence McGoohan taking the film part. This especially helped to finance the vast expense of final episode `Fall Out`. Until Gerry/Sylvia Anderson's 1974-76 "Space 1999" `The Prisoner` at 1967-8 was UKs costliest (Per episode) ever television production.

One irony is that when the public uproar happened with the last episode he hid in Wales in a cottage for a while.

@gothling1955: a connect between Danger Man aka Secret Agent Man is in the lyrics of the Secret Agent Man theme song by Johnny Rivers: "They've given you a number and taken away your name."

The Rule of Six sounds like something that could have been invented for the show.

It's freemason global control. Millions of people aren't even aware. THAT is the ultimate irony. You'll all wake up tomorrow thinking our world is "normal".

So true. It's more revelant today than ever.

YES

"" M ylife is my own " the five words that sums up the whole series

Some episodes are more on the Bonkers scale ⚖ than others are.

@@Robert_Manners Yes some were alright, others plain awful and potty too in comparison. The Girl Who Was Death was a favourite of mine though too!

That's what hipped me to the show. Also I think some of the lyrics to Back in the Village off the Powerslave album are from the show.

That has to be the best part of that story: that McGoohan was literally called up by a hair metal band, and he approved (in his brusk way) their homage.

Maiden does two songs, back in the village is the second.

That was originally written as an episode of "Dangerman", but McGoohan like the script so much, he decided to re-tool it for "The Prisoner".

@@socoman99 Really! I'd love to see the original script.

Same here! I first properly watched the series during the C4 1992-Feb 1993 screening and turned 18 during that run. Used to put aside my A-level homework to watch those episodes. Good memories.

@@Ashworth6 It's amazing to think it's coming up to 30 years ago since that channel 4 screening. I remember wanting to buy the VHS 📼 boxset that contained the alternative edit of the chimes of big Ben, however I was not earning enough as a student at that point in the early 1990 's to do so. One day I was in HMV and discovered that since no one else clearly had been able to, the staff had decided to split it up into individual tapes/cases. To my amazement I found that the tape with the alternative edit on was there for a bargain price of £10. I was in shopping with a friend who called me over to look at something else. After 5 minutes I returned to pick it up and purchase it, to my surprise and disappointment it had been sold during the 5 minutes while I was away. I had to wait until the year 2000 when I purchased the region 2 DVD 📀 release to finally get the chance to see it.

I was 12. mind blown Then. lol!

I also was 16 when it came out and it blew me away. I still watch it and enjoy it in 2022.

Man,I think you nailed it! Well put.

McGoohan has stated that the whole point of the show was that he was NEVER free. Our “freedom” and autonomy is an illusion.

I will slightly disagree. While freedom is an issue, after all prisoners are by definition not free, McGoohan’s emphasis is on the state of individuality instead. Remember the actual line is, “I am not a number, I’m a free man”. Decades ago McGoohan gave an interview to Warner Troyer on Canadian television. He summed up the show thusly, “It was a place that is trying to destroy the individual by every means possible; trying to break his spirit, so that he accepts that he is No. 6 and will live there happily as No. 6 for ever after. And this is the one rebel that they can't break.” But of course the genius of McGoohan is that we can all find a different meaning in this show, one that is personal to us. How many shows can claim that?

#6 is #1 🎊 🎉

Nothing to do with the BBC Carmine! (They could never have afforded it for one) It was made for Lew grade's `Associated Television` one of the U.K commercial channels. It was at that time the most expensive U.K TV show to be made.

Thank you!

7 episodes with the final epi being the twoparter even with 17 episodes, it became the first tv miniseries

"Living in Harmony" is great! McGoohan once said he had always wanted to play in a Western, and he was a natural!!

''brazen bit of allegorical television'' is so right!

whatever happened to Roy Thinnes? It was an awesome series btw.

@@clinpsydoc I thjink he is still alive - but he did not age well.

I think a lot often depended on the number two. Leo McKern is one of my favourite little mentioned actors and I'm also a big fan of Kenneth Griffith who I thought rescued The Girl Who Was Death and reappeared as The President at the end, Mary Morris and several others (eg Darren Nesbett who I occasionally ran into at a bookshop off St Martin's Lane). But it could also surprise - I mean they dragged a performance out of Patrick Cargill as an especially brutal no 2.

@@WolfGratz There was also John Sharp as the somewhat misogynist No 2.

Hahahahahahahaha!

And the show cannot be reproduced, analyzed, indexed, dissected, or categorized. It is what it is. It is not a product, it is unique.

As written by George Orwell

watching the beatles films in the 1980s they were just insane. However looking at them now - wow they were ahead of the curve! by about 50 years.

Except the latter was awful

I recommend The Avengers as well!

I think it has quite a bit in common with The Fugitive.

I will say, I got that it was an allegory when I was 17. Everyone thought I was crazy.

I'm watching it for the first time...and my favorite show is twin peaks lol!

From what I've read, The Girl Who Was Death was actually a leftover script for a never produced pilot film that they ended up using out of desperation. Knowing that fact, I find the episode much easier to enjoy. The bit where No. 6 drinks his pint, only to find "You. Have. Just. Been. Poisoned" written at the bottom of his mug is a highlight.