By Joshua Tyler
| Up to date 15 seconds in the past
Tv was simply starting to experiment with huge concepts within the Nineteen Sixties. The Twilight Zone was going sturdy. The Outer Limits was hitting the following degree, and Star Trek was taking the world the place nobody had gone earlier than.
However nobody had a BIGGER concept than Patrick McGoohan.
Recent off the spy hit Hazard Man, McGoohan was a bonafide UK star. So when Britain’s ITV gave him carte blanche to make his dream present, he delivered a complete curveball: A psychedelic, dystopian anti-spy collection the place nobody has a reputation, the seaside is terrifying, and escape is inconceivable.
The present was referred to as The Prisoner. And it’s both genius or a televised nervous breakdown. Perhaps it’s each.
Why The Prisoner Failed
On the floor, The Prisoner is straightforward: A undercover agent resigns, will get kidnapped, wakes up in a weird resort-like jail referred to as The Village, after which spends each episode attempting to flee or determine who runs the place.
His title?
Quantity Six.
Their reply to each query he asks? “You might be Quantity Six.”
His weekly response? “I’m not a quantity, I’m a free man!”
However the actuality of The Prisoner is that nobody was free. Not Quantity Six, not the individuals controlling him, and undoubtedly not the solid and crew making the present.
Patrick McGoohan, Star and Creator of The Prisoner
Patrick McGoohan performed Quantity Six, however he wasn’t simply the present’s star.
He was The Prisoner’s co-creator, government producer, director, and at occasions, author.
McGoohan had one objective: use his spy present as a platform to wage battle on conformity, surveillance, and an more and more controlling trendy society.
The community paying him to make the present, nonetheless, had very totally different targets.
Patrick McGoohan was scorching off starring within the hit collection Hazard Man, and the community wished extra of that, solely perhaps a bit weirder.
McGoohan gave them Kafka in technicolor.
From the beginning, The Prisoner was an influence battle, each on display screen and off.
Episodes of The Prisoner Have been A Debate
The tv community wished 26 episodes. McGoohan mentioned the story wanted solely 7.
In principle Patrick and the community compromised on 17, however each episode produced after the seventh is a wild, insane rollercoaster of tonal whiplash, and that’s virtually definitely no accident.
One episode has thoughts management and assassination.
The following has an evil butler and cowboy duels.
At one level, Quantity Six runs for workplace.
Later, he switches our bodies with a unique actor.
At one level Six bins a man on the seaside till somebody performs “Pop Goes the Weasel.”
The Prisoner dared its viewers to desert the present and alter the channel.
And all of that weirdness was NOTHING subsequent to the finale.
Titled “Fall Out”, episode 17 completed up the present by breaking all the viewers.
After 16 episodes of questions and mysteries, it offered no solutions. No actual closure. Think about the way you felt after the Misplaced finale, and multiply it by ten.
Patrick McGoohan Went Into Hiding After The Prisoner Finale
As an alternative of giving the viewers what it wished, The Prisoner ended on a psychedelic courtroom trial, a person in a monkey masks, and a closing twist that is likely to be a metaphor… or is likely to be whole meaningless gibberish.
Followers have been so confused and indignant, that Patrick McGoohan briefly went into hiding.
That’s not a joke. He actually fled the nation and hid out for a couple of days.
Think about if Misplaced ended, and Damon Lindelof needed to relocate to a bunker in Canada. We let that man off waaay too straightforward.
Patrick McGoohan didn’t wish to clarify something. Ever. He by no means informed the solid what the present meant. He by no means informed the community what the ending meant. He barely even informed himself. He thought giving solutions was a betrayal.
However The Prisoner’s viewers weren’t tuning in for a riddle wrapped in an enigma carrying a bowler hat. They wished Chilly Conflict period spy drama. What they bought was an existential hostage disaster starring an indignant metaphysical thinker.
Each week, there was a brand new Quantity Two. Typically charming. Typically terrifying. Typically it was Leo McKern in a foul wig.However the present’s actual huge unhealthy, Quantity One? The chief villain behind every thing?
You solely see him as soon as. Within the finale.
The Actual Quantity One
Spoiler: He’s Quantity Six himself.
Get it? He was his personal jailer all alongside.
McGoohan thought it was profound.
It made no sense in any respect within the context of the plot.
Even when The Prisoner had made any sense, the viewers would have been unable to decipher it as a result of ITV aired the present out of order, at random occasions, in several areas.
Some viewers noticed the finale earlier than the pilot.
Others missed episodes completely.
Within the U.S., CBS aired solely 16 of the 17 episodes.
It was like watching Inception with the reels scrambled.
The Finish of The Prisoner
After the finale aired, McGoohan left the UK for good. He moved to California and commenced working with Peter Falk, collaborating on episodes of Columbo.
McGoohan directed and wrote quite a few episodes of the enduring detective present. He additionally guest-starred reverse Falk in 4 Columbo episodes with two of these appearances profitable Emmy awards.
The collaboration between McGoohan and Falk was so iconic that there’s even a brand new guide about their work collectively referred to as In The Damaging Ingredient Immerse: Peter Falk and Patrick McGoohan in Columbo-land.
However Patrick was by no means concerned in something as wild and impressive as The Prisoner, once more.
When it aired in 1967, The Prisoner drew modest scores, however no blockbuster buzz. It ended with confusion, frustration, and a canceled second season. A second season, which, to be truthful, Patrick McGoohan in all probability by no means meant to do anyway.
The Prisoner Failed However Finally Succeeded
It wasn’t till a long time later—after DVDs, retrospectives, and conspiracy blogs—that The Prisoner was lastly hailed as a masterpiece of counterculture tv.
It’s since gone on to affect different creatives. If you happen to’ve seen each The Prisoner and the aforementioned Misplaced, you in all probability seen some very direct inspiration.
Exhibits like Twin Peaks, Severance, Black Mirror in addition to motion pictures like The Matrix and Inception all owe The Prisoner a debt of gratitude too.
For all its craziness, The Prisoner is now seen by most as a each sensible and groundbreaking.
That’s very true of the present’s first seven episodes. The one seven episodes Patrick McGoohan actually wished to make.
All seven episodes are a must-see for followers of the style, but when we’re choosing The Prisoner’s greatest effort, it’s the present’s fifth, titled “The Schizoid Man.”
By this level within the collection, Quantity Six has been trapped within the village for some time. The assorted Quantity Twos who’ve appeared and disappeared, did not extract any info from him.
So, the most recent Quantity Two hatches probably the most diabolical and sophisticated plan but: Persuade Quantity Six he’s another person.
A fancy marketing campaign of brainwashing begins, during which the masters of The Village work to make Quantity Six query his personal identification. They inform him he’s Quantity Twelve, and even usher in a reproduction to exchange him as Quantity Six.
The episode is an intense thoughts recreation with lots to say about concerning the fragility of self-image and the instruments of psychological manipulation.
And that’s true of each episode The Prisoner produced. They’re all attempting to say one thing. Even the loopy horrible ones. Particularly the loopy horrible ones.
Some do a greater job of it than others, however McGoohan had lots on his thoughts, and he used The Prisoner to say all of it.
Whether or not the viewers wished it, or not.
In the long run, The Prisoner was a battle between a visionary and his viewers.
The visionary received.
After which he ran away.
