YMMV / The Prisoner (1967)

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • See the trivia entry for more on the co-creator's disagreement over who The Prisoner was supported to be, but word of the writer says that the Prisoner is John Drake from Danger Man and he resigned after learning of the existence of The Village resulting in him being sent to The Village to figure out why he resigned. Whole thing could be all part of The Prisoner/John Drake's plan to destroy the Village.
  • Some take the view that No. 6 is a Villain Protagonist, destroying Utopia so he can do whatever he wants.
  • Concerning his MacGuffin resignation; it's believed that those who run the Village do know why he resigned, they simply don't believe it. Flashbacks and dream sequences imply he was routinely involved in murders, and his behavior in the village shows he's clearly excellent at manipulation, even if he wants to be free of it himself. His paranoia starts high and grows over the course of the series. The reason he gave for quitting was as "a matter of conscience", and it's entirely possible that Patriotic Fervour no longer justified the means for him.
    • It's stated early on by one of the Number Twos that they do in fact know why Six resigned, they just want to hear the reason directly from him. It was meant to be just a formality that would lead to other things. Because Six never gave into even that one simple demand, they never got past that most basic phase (or maybe they did, depending on how you interpret the events of the finale).
  • In "The Chimes of Big Ben" is Six's willingness to start to tell a superior why he resigned a sign that there really was something else or has he just concluded that they aren't going to believe the truth?
  • There is a large contingent of fans who say, given the events in "Fall Out", that the classic call-and answer from the opening credits are being intentionally mis-punctuated, and instead of being read simply as "You are Number Six." in response to the question, "Who is Number One", the iconic line should be read as "You are, Number Six." Meaning that Number Two has been giving the correct answer to the question all along. If true, this would make it the Mind Screw to end all Mind Screws.
  • Beyond all the above, it's up for grabs whether anyone is a prisoner including Six, a jailer, or if the distinction exists or even matters. At least one Two is a confessed former inmate, but given the context, it may be a lie; several fellow prisoners appear genuinely trying to leave, but they feed into Number Two's plans all the same.
    • One theory takes this up to eleven by saying that the reason Six resigned was because he designed, posited, or discovered the Village in the first place, making him just as much a jailer as a prisoner by implication.
  • Shattered Visage suggests an entirely different rationale for Number One's identity: there is no Number One until Number Six takes up the role, willingly becoming a number instead of a free man. The numbering system was all a Mind Screw ruse to distract Number Six.
• Awesome Music:
  • Gotta love that title theme. Not that you have much choice. Patrick McGoohan kept asking Ron Grainer to give the original opening theme (demo version here) a little more punch. Grainer responded by punching it up to eleven. Seriously, the difference between the first to the second is like the difference between a ride through a quiet countryside in a horse-cart, and driving a Lotus Seven along hairpin turns while the waves break against the jagged rocks below.
  • Just try getting "Dem Bones" out of your head after "Fall Out".
  • The Beatles were big fans of the series, and were more than open to licensing their song, "All You Need is Love." for the Grand Finale. Given how evergreen the band's legendary fame is, the awesomeness is also at how cool the song is for this series after all these decades.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The kosho matches (a cross between trampolining and boxing) in "It's Your Funeral" and "Hammer Into Anvil". The bizarre music and absurd outfits only make the scenes stranger.
  • There were apparently sensible rules to the sport, but it's very hard to tell from what we see.
• Bizarro Episode: Basically every single episode after the first 12 - owing to a case of Franchise Zombie. "Bizarre" is relative, but "Do Not Forsake Me Oh my Darling" gives us the first real example in the series. It's immediately followed by "Living In Harmony", in which the entire show (including the iconic opening sequence) is transformed into a Western. The episode after that ("The Girl Who Was Death") turns out to be a bedtime story told by Number 6. The reason for these stories is because the script editor, George Markstein, quit the series and was not replaced. Scripts and story ideas came from random people and places: the Western episode was suggested by a video editor and "The Girl Who Was Death" was an unused script from Danger Man. All this adds to a dissonance of tone and distances the series from exploring life in the Village and Number Six's struggles.
  • And after that, everything goes to hell, although some fans feel it happens in the best possible way.
• Common Knowledge:
  • When the character of the Prisoner is referenced in other works, it is common to see him placed in his black jacket with white piping and the number six lapel pin. This may serve to make the reference clear, but the original Prisoner took the No. 6 pin off practically as soon as he was given it; he never wore his number willingly, except under extreme duress (like being brainwashed into campaigning enthusiastically for himself in "Free For All").
  • The Village is sometimes described as being located on an island, but this is never mentioned in the show itself, and ultimately disproven in the final episode. This misconception could possibly be due to the Simpsons parody, which does feature a Village parody called "The Island."
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Leo McKern's Number Two is perhaps the most popular one of the bunch, for his entertaining Large Ham personality, and because his plan to get Number Six to cough up the reason why he resigned came extremely close to succeeding, only failing because Six was able to spot a minor detail that caused the plan to unravel.
  • Mary Morris's Number Two is up there with McKern's, largely due to being the only female Number Two who holds that position throughout the episode instead of it being revealed at the end in a Samus Is a Girl twist. It also helps that she's one of the few Number Twos who Number Six in no way ever gets the better of, and that Morris herself has a lot of fun with the role.
  • Rover is immensely popular and instantly recognizable, even for those who have only a passing knowledge of the series.
  • The Butler, the only character besides Number 6 to appear in a majority of the episodes. Despite never having any lines, many fans insist he's the key to the whole mystery of the show, and possibly Number 1 himself. (McGoohan himself seriously considered that last one for the final episode.)
• Genius Bonus: In "Hammer Into Anvil", Number Two tries to intimidate Number Six with a Goethe quote: "you must be the hammer or the anvil". The episode demonstrates George Orwell's riposte to this, that in real life the hammer usually breaks first.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The opening animation to the closing credits looks like a Monty Python's Flying Circus cartoon link.
  • In "The Chimes Of Big Ben", Number Two tells Number Six about his dream of seeing the village as a One World Order, to which the latter sarcastically tells him that he could be the first man on the moon. 21 months later, a man would be on the moon.
  • A supercomputer that's been fed history and philosophy books and is said to be able to give you all the answers you have questions for? Jump forward 50 or so years later and we have Chat-GPT, a machine learning app where you ask it questions and it will spit out answers for you. Asking it "why?" will not cause it to explode however.
• It Was His Sled: The location of Portmeirion as the location for the filming of the Village was a carefully guarded secret until the last episode- now, it's common knowledge and has become a tourist attraction making much of its links to the show.
• Misaimed Merchandising: Many fan sites, as well as the official store in Portmeirion, sell a replica Number 6 badge; you know, like the one Number Six wore for about two seconds before tearing it off in disgust and declaring he wasn't a number! Though he does wear a "6" rosette for much of "Free For All".
  • Some places also sell a Number 1 badge, even though no Number 1 badge ever appears in the series.
• Nightmare Fuel: The Rovers. Imagine, if you will, a large, white, bouncing balloon, that constantly emits a low, quavering whistle, and which roars mouthlessly as it attacks, lunging at its target and pressing against his face. Imagine seeing the impression of said face from inside the Rover. Now imagine seeing this at night. As a child.
  • Add in the fact that the remains of anyone who is "captured" by Rover are never seen again...
  • In the first episode, "Arrival", Number 6 is captured by Rover but survives. Presumably most escaping prisoners are captured alive as well. The only character ever actually killed by Rover was Number Six's duplicate in "The Schizoid Man".
  • Additionally, a recurring theme is that there are no constant characters at all (except for No. Six, the protagonist, and No. Two's midget butler, for some reason), so you rarely saw characters for more than one episode.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The Prisoner game from Edu-Ware in early 80s was well received. It does not follow the series too closely and it maintains a fine level of Mind Screwery as it makes use of the unique opportunities the video game medium allows for messing with the player's head. However it should be noted that this game was not officially licensed.
• Paranoia Fuel: The presence of hidden cameras and moles make this trope a given.
• Retroactive Recognition: An uncredited prisoner from "It's Your Funeral" is played by Roger Lloyd-Pack, who would later be best known for playing Trigger in Only Fools and Horses and Owen Newitt in The Vicar of Dibley.
• Spiritual Successor: Even if the Prisoner isn't John Drake, the show is at least a spiritual successor to Danger Man, which actually featured a Village-like facility in an episode entitled "Colony Three" (and included scenes filmed in Portmeirion in its very first episode "View from the Villa").
• Tough Act to Follow: Patrick McGoohan actually left the UK shortly after the controversial final episode aired and settled in the US, and his only television series since then (Rafferty) has been long forgotten except by die-hard cult fans. He did have some sporadic success in the US, notably when working with Peter Falk on some Emmy Award-winning episodes of Columbo or playing Dr. Ruth in Scanners, but The Prisoner completely overshadows all his other work. (Indeed, one of his Columbo episodes was essentially a riff on The Prisoner, and a film he starred in called Kings and Desperate Men not only was directed by and co-starred one of his Prisoner actors, but it revisited many of the earlier show's themes.) The only role that even comes close is his villainous turn as King Edward I ("Who is Number One," indeed) in Braveheart. This seems to have been largely by design as McGoohan had no interest in leading another show, even turning down an offer to replace Falk as Columbo, or much interest in fame in general (he even turned down the role of James Bond due to his dislike of the violent material).
• Unintentional Period Piece: The show criticizes Cold War power structures (with the major implication that Number Six's captors may be his own "side" and his retirement from spy service as a "matter of conscience"), and has an overall tone that can only be described as 'psychedelic', features very 1960s fashions (most notably Number Six's jacket, the multicoloured capes seen on a few characters, and the prevalence of lava lamps). The finale includes (without giving away too much) the music of The Beatles ("All You Need Is Love") and a character, thematically representing universal youth culture, calling everyone "dad" or "baby". Not all episodes are period pieces, however: one in particular, "The General", turned out to be quite prophetic with regards to the rise of digital culture and the Internet; it just does so involving a computer the size of a room that spits out printouts. Also averted with regards to smoking; with the exception of one episode in which smoking is a plot point, virtually no cigarettes are visible in The Village. This is significant given that at the time of production (and definitely in the previous McGoohan series, Danger Man), smoking was still widely seen in modern-day-set TV series.
• Vindicated by History: The series didn't last long on ITV, with a style so unconventional that the executives in charge were terrified of a second season being made. Some sources say that Patrick McGoohan only wanted the show to last 7 episodes, with the network wanting far more (somewhere between 26 or 37), and that they compromised on 17.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: There are religious overtones throughout the show. The name of the production company was Everyman, based on an allegorical play from the 15th century.
  • According to The Prisoner Video Companion, the Village salute represents the sign of the fish, a Christian symbol.
  • It has been suggested that when Number Six proclaims "Obey me and be free" in "Free For All", he is being equated with Christ, "whose service is perfect freedom."

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