The Prisoner: 1960s spy fiction TV series, way ahead of its time

[westhill]

Patrick McGoohan co-creates and stars in this smart 17-episode series. Hearing it referenced over and
over, I finally sat down to watch. It's riddled with psychological twists, symbolic meaning all staged in a surreal village/prison. Be seeing you.

Here are a few episodes...

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=VuCCgQsyq8s

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ETVZwV17EnQ

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=o2Ra5mf2u6o

[mojo]

I remember this show and the coolest thing was the big bubble gum bubble that floated around and caught the prisoner if he tried to leave...

[GarethBKK]

The location was Portmeirion in NW Wales. This Mediterranean town was created in Wales as a resort in the C20th - which is weird in itself.



Harlech castle and stark mountains are its neighbor.

[161803398]

I thought the coolest thing about the show was seeing someone in a series like this who wasn't a womanizer.

[meeradas]

I devoured this several times. Great stuff.

[Paranormal]

Oh, I can't wait to watch this. I don't feel like going to "Video EZY" today. I hope there's a lot of fear-porn in it.

[Violet]

It feels good having the mind challenged whilst watching TV. I can't remember the last time I've had such an experience (with a TV production).

[westhill]

I've only been able to watch the first five episodes. There is a lot of fun to be had deciphering the symbolism, number play and mind control tactics.
Starting with the iconic pennyfarthing bicycle. The meanings of number 6. The idea of prison as a village. All those lava lamps!! Here's a website
with some more background information... http://prisoner.gigacorp.net/theories.html

[SEAM]

Thanks for this Thread.. I have a creepy story in RE:

When I was in first grade, (when I used to watch this show) I used to have intense, suffocating, anxiety attacks. And they all had to do with a huge white bubble that came down on my head... After hyperventilating and nearly loosing it, I would slowly recover, look up and think.. "Where am I?"

Still haunts me to this day, as to why? I got really sick that year in 1st grade... flu, then tonsillitis, then double phneumonia.. Hospital for two weeks... My Grandpa told my Mom to take out a life insurance policy on me, in his words, "he won't last"...(I wouldn't be surprised to find that I enabled a walk-in during this time)

And it all stems to where I spent my first year of school. It was a catholic school.. in a place called "Churchtown, OH".. A place where the nuns beat you daily, the priests jerked you around by your ears, and I would literally throw up every morning when the bus stopped in front of the church... Sometimes the bus driver had to drag me off the bus screaming.. I did not want to be there... The only reason my Mom took me away from that place was because a girl in my class went home crying every night because of the way I was treated, and her Mom called my Mom to tell her... Mom didn't know, and I was incapable of telling her myself... I was 5!

So after watching one of these episodes, I now have a lot more put in place.. mostly..
probably, I had a bad past-life bad episode with the church... I was being suffocated while there..

I woke up yesterday morning at 4 am... something made me get out of bed and go to the computer, (which I rarely use at home) I pulled up Avalon, and read this thread, then watched
an episode.. and all these memories came back to me... Was this show a tickler? For me, yes... for others - I wonder, then and now?

Not sure if this episode in my life is dead yet, but it most certainly is more distanced... Makes ya think... that's for sure.

[Violet]

You know, I actually managed to review up until the 4th episode an I want you all to really start focusing from 15 min onwards.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ETVZwV17EnQ

Do you guys see anything peculiar?

[Bill Ryan]

-------

I totally agree -- decades ahead of its time, and one of the best series ever made.

[bogeyman]

The ending was bizarre...inspiration for some of the spy agencies at that the time.

[truth4me]

You mean you would watch the The Prisoner over American Idol or Dancing with the Stars? My God what is the world coming to?

[westhill]

Posted by bogeyman (here)
The ending was bizarre...inspiration for some of the spy agencies at that the time.

Yes, I finally watched all 17 episodes. Understanding "Fall Out" was like inhabiting some else's dream!! I could spend time teasing out
a few themes/archetypes in this post, but this last episode wasn't meant for me or you. It was for McGoohan alone. His finale!

[scanner]

I would hurry home to watch this and I've been to the film set a couple of times. Thanks for this nice gift

[Taurean]

I remember watching a couple of episodes at the time and I just didn't get what it was all about.

I see through different eyes these days.

[shijo]

I am not a number I am a free man,great mantra!

[bogeyman]

Its interesting since it has connotations of wide spread conformity within the community.....a bit like today. We are all numbers in a computer some where, National Insurance, Medical number etc...a freeman....no...not unless you detached yourself from the system or have multiple identities.

[scanner]

I am a free man , I am not a number - I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

[westhill]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=R2GkEE4RiyY

http://www.redicecreations.com
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/pu...reign-citizens
http://batr.org/solitary/092312.html

The Sovereign Man is the Real Prisoner
2012 09 26
From: Solitary Purdah



According to establishment officials, the concept of the Sovereign Man philosophy is a direct threat to the authority of the State. Depending upon your perception of reality and the degree of legitimacy for government, given to the prevailing order, fundamental inalienable rights of the individual may vary widely. In the extreme, government statists consider most if not all natural rights as capricious and arbitrary, if conflicts challenge the dictates of the regime. This unending and interminable struggle to defend undeniable individual basic rights drives bureaucrats to use unconscionable measures to coerce citizen compliance.
An illustration comes from the FBI’s Counterterrorism Analysis Section in their publication, Sovereign Citizens - A Growing Domestic Threat to Law Enforcement.

"The FBI considers sovereign-citizen extremists as comprising a domestic terrorist movement, which, scattered across the United States, has existed for decades . . . Sovereign citizens do not represent an anarchist group, nor are they a militia, although they sometimes use or buy illegal weapons. Rather, they operate as individuals without established leadership and only come together in loosely affiliated groups to train, help each other with paperwork, or socialize and talk about their ideology. They may refer to themselves as "constitutionalists" or "freemen," which is not necessarily a connection to a specific group, but, rather, an indication that they are free from government control. They follow their own set of laws. While the philosophies and conspiracy theories can vary from person to person, their core beliefs are the same: The government operates outside of its jurisdiction. Because of this belief, they do not recognize federal, state, or local laws, policies, or regulations."


Such sentiments demonstrate that civil liberties have no place in the realm of federal law enforcement. Authoritarians assume that government automatically possesses authenticity because it claims to hold a monopoly of force within the society. Rational and balanced observers of the history and government abuses, especially to their own citizens, must conclude that arrogant superiority, manifested by magistrates and constables, has caused untold atrocities and suffering.

Resistance to unchecked governance through punitive social control and mind manipulation is the theme of arguably the most significant television series ever filmed, The Prisoner. The episodes of this 1960’s British cult production are not simply offbeat entertainment, for it deals with some of the most pronounced maltreatments and psychological torture in a society of distorted reality.

For those not familiar with the program,

"Patrick McGoohan plays a man who resigns from a top secret position and is abducted from his London home. He finds himself in a beautiful village where everything is bright and cheerful - the people, their clothes, the buildings, the flowers. But despite this rosey exterior, the village serves a sinister purpose. People are forcibly brought there in order to have their valuable knowledge protected or extracted. Everyone in the Village is assigned a number instead of a name - the Prisoner is Number Six. Chief interrogator and administrator is Number Two, but he isn’t the boss - an unseen Number One is the boss.

Failure is not tolerated in the Village, and most episodes feature a new Number Two, though some are privileged to return for a second chance to break Number Six and discover why he resigned.

The Prisoner struggles to keep this information from his captors and to find out which side runs the Village and where it is. He strives to discover the identity of Number One, and above all, he attempts to escape."


The global culture has changed in the forty-five years since No. 6 engaged in his existential struggle to preserve his dignity as a Sovereign Man. By any objective standard the attitudes and conditions in the world toward respecting the self-worth of the individual has descended into a new Dark Age of totalitarian despotism.