Who is number one? Where is the Village? What is Number Six's secret? Why did he resign and why do the guardians want to know? Most importantly how did such a unique, surreal television series emerge from that most formula bound of companies, ITC. We can only guess at the answers to some of these questions but like it or loathe it, we can't ignore The Prisoner.
Made in 1967, the series has been described many ways. A gigantic ego trip, a science fiction epic, fatuous nonsense, a quirky spy adventure, television's only true work of art, a fascinating allegory of the individual's struggle against a vapid society. The key to its continued success is probably that it can be interpreted in as many ways as there are viewers. Maybe the village is run by 'them'. Perhaps it is controlled by us, big business, aliens or it doesn't exist at all except in the mind of a secret agent having a nervous breakdown. Number Six may have been John Drake, the Danger Man. He could be Number One testing his own creation, the last sane man or he could even have been a traitor. By keeping nearly all its elements symbolic or vague, the programme hasn't become as dated as so many sixties films and programmes have. Its themes are timeless. The abuse and effects of power. A person's individual rights to be what they want. The tyrannies of secrets or majority rule. Freedom of speech. Facing the consequences of one's actions. There may be only seventeen episodes but within them are layers of dilemmas and issues that reveal themselves the closer the viewer looks, rather like a fractal image. Ironically the viewer realises that the obvious mysteries are completely unimportant. It doesn't matter what Number Six's name really is. Or why he resigned or who really runs the Village because it is the battle itself that is important. The Prisoner's personal quest for the answers is in a way, the answer itself.
The opening episode Arrival set up the series superbly. Often pilot episodes are a bit uneven with so much to introduce but at the end of fifty minutes we have a perfect picture of the Village, its philosophy, its rulers and seeming omnipotence. We've also been introduced to the hero and his two goals: to escape and discover the identity of Number One. All conveyed with beautiful dialogue and direction so good you have not noticed it until afterwards. Other major episodes are: The Chimes of Big Ben which introduces Leo McKern's formidable Number Two and one of the Village's most successful plots to break Number Six with a phony return to London via a piece of modern sculpture. Free for All, a razor sharp indictment of modern democracy and the election process in which Number Six nearly loses his soul in a futile bid to win the leadership of the Village. Checkmate features an intricate escape attempt by Number Six with a group of fellow prisoners that is undermined from within. It also showcases the famous image of a chess game played with human pieces, a metaphor for the episode and possibly the whole series. Dance of the Dead, easily the darkest episode with its spiky, episodic story filled with various kinds of death and a particularly fearful incarnation of Number Two played by Mary Morris. By contrast Hammer into Anvil is fairly upbeat in which Number Six successfully turns the tables on Patrick Cargill's sadistic Number Two by pretending to mastermind a giant conspiracy against him. But at the end he is still a prisoner and there is even the possibility that he is not pretending, that he really is one of the Village's superiors.
However all its ambiguities would have gone virtually unnoticed if first and foremost, the series had not been so well made and entertaining. Perhaps I was unfair to criticise ITC for being formula bound because its chairman Lew Grade had the wonderful quality of being prepared to follow his hunches once in a while and just give someone the nod without having to pass it through endless committees. So when Patrick McGoohan told him his idea, Lew Grade took a few puffs of his cigar and replied, "It's so crazy it might work. Let's do it. Shake." The series enjoyed high production standards and benefited immeasurably from its setting and part inspiration Portmerion, the beautiful Italianesque resort created by the architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis. The scripts frequently sparkle with witty word duels between Number Six and his fellow villagers, not to mention a stream of epigrams sometimes profound and some just ironic. "Humour is the very essence of a democratic society." "Questions are a burden to others, answers a prison for oneself." "Be seeing you." Patrick McGoohan is simply superb as the Prisoner, whether prowling about like a caged animal, urbanely challenging his captors or grimly enacting his latest plan. He is supported by a host of talented character actors, many of them familiar faces on British television. Behind the camera McGoohan recruited a group of supremely skilled craftsmen with a wealth of film making experience to draw on and the result was a very glossy production.
How much of The Prisoner's success can be attributed to McGoohan? Certainly a great deal, it was his idea, he was its executive producer and contributed (some would say meddled) in practically every aspect of its creation almost down to what sandwiches were served at lunch. Yet I'm wary of attributing the series wholly to him because television is a very collaborative medium. Producer David Tomblin and script editor George Markenstein had a lot of input at the conception of the series for instance. As the series progressed though McGoohan's obsession with his creation grew until by the final pair of episodes he was not only starring and producing but directing and writing as well. By the end of the year he had alienated Markenstein with his increasingly erratic behaviour, as a result he lost his script editor. Many of the technicians also left soon after when it became clear that programme was to be truncated an there was a chance to work on a new season of The Saint. After the series was shown there was uproar from critics and the public over its surreal final episode Fallout which had managed to answer everything and nothing. McGoohan left the country with his superstar reputation severely dented. His future career brought him a lot of work but the in high-profile movies he would always be supplying effective supporting performances rather than taking the lead roles he used to. It is tempting to draw a parallel between the secret agent quitting his job and the actor refusing the chance to be a Hollywood star. He was first choice for the role of James Bond but turned it down and suggested a relatively unknown actor called Sean Connery. Lew Grade had wanted twenty six episodes, a commercial package that would be easy to sell overseas but McGoohan didn't feel the concept could last that long. So a 'first season' of thirteen episodes was filmed with Once Upon a Time, possibly The Prisoner's greatest episode, planned as its transmitted conclusion. It features a three day battle of wits and wills between Leo McKern's Number Two and Number Six after they are locked together in a chamber filled with props. Number Six is regressed back to his childhood in order to discover why he is a rebel but he fights back and turns the tables on his interrogator. Much to the alarm of ITC it had taken a year to make these thirteen episodes, compared to say the thirty Man in a Suitcase episodes which had been filmed in the same period. Consequently the series was vastly overrunning its budget in McGoohan's quest for perfection and ITC decided to call a halt, requesting another four episodes to wrap up the series. After a short break to appear in Ice Station Zebra, McGoohan returned to find that the production team had made the rather slapdash Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling in which Nigel Stock played Number Six trapped inside another's body, a story which seemed to have little to do with the concept of the series. Very unhappy he insisted on a re-edit With time running out as the series had already begun to be transmitted, the remaining crew turned out three increasingly bizarre stories: Living in Harmony, The Girl Who Was Death and Fall Out. The last was the conclusion of a two parter to which Once Upon a Time formed part one, its ending reshot to provide a cliffhanger.
Whatever else it may be The Prisoner is well worth trying if only because it wants you to think and there's precious too little of that desire in television, whether back in the sixties or now.
Gareth Preston