(September 29, 1967; director: Don Chaffey)
Here is everything that I know about The Prisoner, the classic British TV series that originally aired from 1967 to 1968.
1) It’s a classic British TV series that originally aired from 1967 to 1968.
2) The PBS station in Dallas used to rerun it when I was a teenager a hundred years ago, but it was at an odd hour. 1 AM on Saturday nights or something like that.
3) I watched two or three episodes back then and liked them, but never managed to see the whole series of seventeen.
4) It’s got a great aesthetic that combines the late 60s fascination for slick secret agents with offbeat, trippy, “rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies” vibes.
5) It’s all streaming on Amazon Prime. For now, at least.
Also, I want to write about it. So let’s go, weirdos…
The first thing to appreciate here is the amazing opening titles sequence that gives us the whole back-story. You don’t see this sort of thing on TV anymore. Television shows don’t need to do sort of thing anymore. It’s still cool, though.
There’s a thunderbolt sound and then the music kicks in and Patrick McGoohan is a secret agent. We know this because he’s Patrick McGoohan, who just played a secret agent in another series titled Secret Agent (or Danger Man as it was called in the UK). Also, he walks fast and drives his little Lotus Seven–the teeny tiny British-made sports car that most Americans today probably couldn’t even fit into– way too fast in a parking garage.
This is clearly a man who lives a life of danger.
He storms into an office (cue another thunderbolt as he throws open the doors), does a lot of angry yelling that we don’t hear over the groovy theme music and then formally tenders his resignation. He’s done being a secret agent. WHY? We don’t know. Maybe he’s tired of James Bond getting all the glory.
So, he goes home to his posh London flat, packs his bags, has designs on heading to a beach retreat only to get knocked out on sleepy gas piped into his living room.
Next thing, he wakes up in a strange place and that’s how the show STARTS. One minute and forty-five seconds is all we need to know what’s up.
In this episode, it’s McGoohan’s first day in his new home, a secluded community located amid mountains and next to a large body of water. The weather is sunny and mild. The grass glistens. The people are polite. You can drink tea and play cricket or badmitton or whatever the hell British people like to do. Everything is neat and clean. It’s so perfect that it feels more like a dream than reality.
Only problem: You can’t leave. Also, you don’t even know where you are. All maps within this territory go no further than the surrounding mountains and sea.
Also, there’s a big bouncing white balloon, a surreal hobgoblin in this peaceful world, that attacks and smothers all subversives. It’s probably controlled by someone somewhere, but the balloon seems eerily alive. It seems to notice things.
It doesn’t take McGoohan long to learn that this is a place of containment for people who possess top secret information. It’s the world’s most placid prison. Is the British government behind this or is it someone else? When he meets the second-in-command, in a purple room full of swiriling lights and lava lamps, McGoohan is questioned about why he quit his job. So they seem to be outsiders, but who knows at this point?
Meanwhile, McGoohan works out a rough escape plan because that’s what a guy like him does. He’s also wary of double-cross artists.
And it’s no spoiler to say that his attempt at jumping the fence doesn’t work because we have sixteen more episodes of this series to go, along with a whole lot of questions.
One intriguing thing about this first episode is that we’re not even sure yet if we even LIKE McGoohan. We don’t know anything about him. He’s a total mystery man.
This episode is full of bright color schemes, but we’re still in the dark.
That’s a great place to kick off a series.