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The Prisoner is a British television series created by Patrick McGoohan, who stars as Number Six, a nameless British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village after resigning from his position. The allegorical plotlines of the series contain elements of science fiction, psychological drama, and spy fiction. It was produced by Everyman Films for distribution by Lew Grade's ITC…
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Fall Out (S01E17) Airdate: February 1st 1968 Written by: Patrick McGoohan Directed by: Patrick McGoohan Running Time: 50 minutes *The Prisoner* is widely regarded as one of the most seminal and influential television productions of the 1960s, a series whose innovative blending of spy thriller, science fiction, and psychological drama left an indelible mark on the dystopian narratives that followed. Yet, even among i…More
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Once Upon a Time (S01E16) Airdate: January 25th 1968 Written by: Patrick McGoohan Directed by: Patrick McGoohan Running Time: 50 minutes By the time *The Prisoner* had aired its first dozen episodes, its star and driving creative force, Patrick McGoohan, had seemingly realised that the series had, to use the colloquialism, ‘jumped the shark’. The initial high-concept premise—a former spy imprisoned in a surreal, Orw…More
The Girl Who Was Death (S01E15) Airdate: January 18th 1968 Written by: Terence Feely Directed by: David Tomblin Running Time: 50 minutes Towards the close of its singular run, *The Prisoner* exhibited signs of a creative wellspring running dry. The final episodes, rather than building upon the series’ profound existential and political inquiries, often appeared to drift into gimmickry, their connection to the core t…More
Living in Harmony (S01E14) Airdate: December 29th 1967 Written by: David Tomblin & Ian A. Rakoff Directed by: David Tomblin Running Time: 50 minutes The 1960s represented the zenith of the Western genre's global popularity, a dominance reflected not only on the silver screen but also, pervasively, on television. It became almost obligatory for even the most ostensibly unrelated series to stage a 'bottle episode' wit…More
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling (S01E13) Airdate: December 22nd 1967 Written by: Vincent McTiesley Directed by: Pat Jackson Running Time: 50 minutes Patrick McGoohan laboured intensely to inject a novel twist or conceptual daring into each instalment of *The Prisoner*, ensuring the series remained a constantly shifting, intellectually provocative puzzle. Yet, inevitably within such an ambitious endeavour, certain ep…More
A Change of Mind (S01E12) Airdate: December 15th 1967 Written by: Robert Parks Directed by: Patrick McGoohan Running Time: 50 minutes Throughout its enigmatic run, *The Prisoner* often presented its fictional dystopia, the Village, as an allegorical stand-in for the more problematic aspects of the contemporary real world, particularly its politics. Episodes where this metaphor was rendered with a heavy-handed lack o…More
It's Your Funeral (S01E11) Airdate: December 8th 1967 Written by: Mark Amoy Directed by: Robert Asher Running Time: 50 minutes Among the seventeen episodes of *The Prisoner*, few appear as immediately accessible to the uninitiated viewer as *It’s Your Funeral*. While many installments of Patrick McGoohan’s seminal 1960s series indulge in surrealism, allegory, and genre-defying experimentation, this episode opts for…More
Hammer into Anvil (S01E10) Airdate: December 1st 1967 Written by: Roger Waddis Directed by: Pat Jackson Running Time: 50 minutes The episodes of *The Prisoner* varied considerably in quality, often for reasons beyond mere budgetary constraints or production values. More perceptive viewers would inevitably find greater depth and satisfaction in those installments that abandoned flashy gadgets, high-concept narratives…More
Checkmate (S01E09) Airdate: November 24th 1967 Written by: Gerald Kelsey Directed by: Don Chaffey Running Time: 50 minutes *The Prisoner* is one of the most innovative and groundbreaking television series of its era, a surreal masterpiece that redefined psychological drama through its exploration of individual freedom versus institutional control. Yet even this visionary programme could not entirely escape the pract…More
Dance of the Dead (S01E08) Airdate: November 17th 1967 Written by: Anthony Skene Directed by: Don Chaffey Running Time: 50 minutes In the precarious ecosystem of cult television, timing often proves the decisive factor that separates enduring classics from forgettable curiosities. This principle applies with particular poignancy to *The Prisoner*'s *Dance of the Dead*, an episode whose fundamental flaws stem not fro…More
Many Happy Returns (S01E07) Airdate: November 10th 1967 Written by: Anthony Skene Directed by: Joseph Serf Running Time: 50 minutes The creators of *The Prisoner* have long been subjected to legitimate criticism – for narrative inconsistencies, opaque symbolism, or the sheer psychological abrasiveness of its core premise. Yet one accusation that could never stick is a lack of creative audacity. Fettered by the seemi…More
The General (S01E06) Airdate: November 3rd 1967 Written by: Lewis Greifer Directed by: Peter Graham Scott Running Time: 50 minutes The enduring cult status of *The Prisoner* over the decades stems significantly from its alignment with the anti-authoritarian and anti-establishment sentiments that defined the most numerous—and eventually most influential—demographic cohorts of its time: the Baby Boomers. For members o…More
The Schizoid Man (S01E05) Airdate: October 27th 1967 Written by: Terence Feely Directed by: Pat Jackson Running Time: 50 minutes *The Prisoner* earned its enduring legendary status because its creators, spearheaded by the formidable Patrick McGoohan, relentlessly experimented with narrative structure, genre, and thematic depth in each instalment. Among these bold creative gambits, Terence Feely’s script for *The Sch…More
Free for All (S01E04) Airdate: October 20th 1967 Written by: Paddy Fitz Directed by: Patrick McGoohan Running Time: 50 minutes Patrick McGoohan’s *The Prisoner* arrived on 1960s television screens not merely as a programme, but as a defiant rupture in the established order of broadcast entertainment. Its very existence represented a bold refusal to be corralled by the easily defined genre conventions that dominated…More
A. B. and C. (S01E03) Airdate: October 13th 1967 Written by: Anthony Skene Directed by: Pat Jackson Running Time: 50 minutes One of the most persistently fascinating, yet equally exasperating, hallmarks of *The Prisoner* lies in its creators' resolute refusal to furnish audiences with definitive answers. For the opening episodes, this ambiguity extended beyond the central mystery of *why* Number Six resigned, castin…More
The Chimes of Big Ben (S01E02) Airdate: October 6th 1967 Written by: Vincent Tisley Directed by: Don Chaffey Running Time: 50 minutes *The Prisoner* endures as one of the most audacious and intellectually stimulating television works of the 1960s, a surreal labyrinth of Cold War paranoia, psychological manipulation, and existential inquiry that remains profoundly influential. Yet, for all its genius, the series was…More
Arrival (S01E01) Airdate: September 27th 1967 Written by: George Markstein & David Tomblin Directed by: Don Chaffey Running Time: 50 minutes For much of the twentieth century, British television was widely regarded as the pinnacle of the medium globally, a reputation owed largely to the BBC’s foundational commitment to public service broadcasting, now enshrined as the world’s greatest public television institution.…More