The Prisoner -Arrival

September 29, 1967  Season 1 Episode 1

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

I have covered The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and Kolchak: The Night Stalker episode by episode, and I think The Prisoner will fit in perfectly. This will be my first British show episode by episode, although I’ve made posts on Fawlty Towers and Are You Being Served. I hope you will enjoy these.

What an opening! You resign from your workplace, and you are abducted by someone or some group and wake up in a pastel-looking village where individuality is a no-go. You are assigned a number, and that is now your name. There are so many symbolic images, and our Number 6 refuses to give in. Also, who would think a white weather balloon-looking device (Rover) could be so menacing?

This episode opens The Prisoner by throwing the viewer, like its hero, straight into disorientation. A government agent abruptly resigns, is abducted, and wakes up in the Village. It’s a bright seaside resort that feels pleasant until it doesn’t. Patrick McGoohan establishes the conflict immediately: individuality versus control and bureaucracy. The episode uses visuals and silence as much as dialogue, which pulls you in. As soon as he awakes from an unfamiliar pillow, the show is on.

The Village itself becomes the real star. Smiling residents, surveillance, and cheery announcements clash with the unspoken threat behind them. Authority is masked as friendliness, and rules are vague but absolute and must be followed. Trying to escape is treated as both foolish and dangerous. The balloon-like Rover makes its first appearance here, not explained, just accepted as the force it is. You will see it in action, and we are not sure why it attacked a Villager, and we are not told why. It reinforces the show’s refusal to reassure the audience that everything will be all right. Names are not used here; only numbers are used. Our spy is now Number 6. The Village is totally internal; no outside is mentioned or displayed. Any map is just of the Village, nothing of the world.

He meets a person who is the so-called leader…today. That would be Number 2. A different Number 2 every episode, with a few exceptions. They want to know why number 6 resigned. That is when our guy Number says I will not make any deals. I’ve resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own. Number 6 comes off as rude and impatient, but it makes sense. He is there against his will and doesn’t know who to trust. Throughout the series, he does find a few he does trust at the moment, at least partway.

By the end, this introductory episode has done its job. It defines the tone and the mystery. It also doesn’t resolve anything. Questions about identity, obedience, and yes, freedom are raised but not answered. That unease is the point and a big reason I kept on watching. As a first episode, it is bold and strange. You think everything will be explained, but it won’t. Beware of Rover!

In this episode, Number 6 is finding out the lay of the land, and the Village is getting to know him. He is looking to get out and give it a couple of shots. He does meet someone he knows, a spy, and he meets a lady with a chance to escape.

And so the trip to the bizarre begins, Be Seeing You!

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

53 thoughts on “The Prisoner -Arrival”

  1. Pingback: The Prisoner -Arrival – MobsterTiger

  4. As I mentioned when you introduced this last week I had never heard of it. I started watching the first episode and when they take the helicopter ride it really starts to sink in. We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto!

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      1. Max, this is really a reply to Randy but WordPress has no Reply button on his reply to my reply…

        Are we asking in terms of The Prisoner or potty training? Trust me, I’ve been called worse. 🙂

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  7. I watched E1 last night. I think the first few epis will be the most familiar. E1 had 2 #2s, wassup with that? The sanitized everything is unnerving to me. It’s too danged tidy for me, and the violent things going on contrast sharply with the looks of the place. The mind game symbology is everywhere. I would be setting up some nice booby traps for the orb, to puncture or burn it. The scene with the statues watching him was my favorite part.

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    1. Lisa, you are definitely getting it. The sanitized everything is unnerving to me, you and everybody else. The Village is perfect. Too perfect.

      Do you think you could set up booby traps for Rover? You see, you are fighting it. Rebellion. That’s why they show us Rover coming from different spots, so if you get one they can always regenerate another.

      Yes!!!!

      How’s the color for you? I get more of what Max is talking about on his posts than I remember or watching the You Tube episodes on my laptop.

      Yes, Max, she is coming along nicely. (Said as sinister as I can manage.)

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    2. It’s so bizzare of a place and how the people act. It seems like the older people don’t really care…they are being looked after and are happy…like the man that plays chess…
      They really go physiological in this show…and yes all the symbolism is pretty cool….you said it all there… “contrast” and there is a lot of it.

      At first I wondered why he just didnt’ tell them why he resigned…then I thought about it…well he didn’t know which side they were on plus he was done with the spy business and wanted a real life.

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      1. When he saw his buddy at the hospital I thought he would know which side “they” are on, and I think that’s what they wanted him to think, but the guy could easily be a double agent. It really messes with your mind.

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      8. It is exactly that, a vacation resort someplace in England. They even have a slide at the beginning of Episode 17 that says. It is not unknown, in England. Me? I’m a native Angeleno and never heard of the place. -)

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      10. Never heard of the Overlook Hotel. What is it overlooking? A deep drop or all the mistakes I’ve made in my life? 🙂

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      12. Yes…like that one with the aliens that kidnapped a couple in that deserted town…
        Oh…George Harrison spent his 50th birthday at this villiage in real life…he also recorded a lot of the Anthology interviews there. The Beatles loved this show.

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      14. Yes…that is the one with Sean Connery right?
        They might have used one to get in…I have talked to a few readers that went there…you know them…I think Glyn might have and Clive did for sure I believe…

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      16. Clive did I’m almost 100 percent sure…Glyn I’m guessing…Val did as well…my UK friend that used to comment more…but yea…if you go on youtube…ah here it is…it looks the same!

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      17. Max, thanks for the link. Just finished watching it. What a magical place! I think you just changed my mind about going there. Looks so much more extensive than what we’ve seen so far in the show.

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      1. …Back to comment a day later… Oh yes, it is unsettling as Hell. Lesson one is everyone’s motives are questionable, trust yourself only. It sure isn’t a series that ties anything up in a pretty little bow and then you can unthinkingly move on to next weeks episode. (Like ‘The Avengers’ of the same era. Mind you in those days Dianna Rigg as Emma Peel in a skin tight cat suit had me tuning in and wiping at my steaming eyeglasses every Wednesday evening.)

        Interesting to see Paul Eddington as Cobb; in my mind he is fixed in humourous roles such as in ‘The Good Life’ and ‘Yes Minister.’ I guess he was a typical jobbing actor in the 60s.

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      3. You know…if they would have tied it up with a bow…would we still be talking about it over 60 years later? I don’t think we would…
        Oh…he WAS on The Good Life…I have all of those…I didn’t notice at first. I never saw The Minister but I loved The Good Life…and I had a crush on Felicity Kendal…a great next door girl to me.
        Oh Dianna Rigg…was just awesome! The complete package.

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  9. Oh, now the embedded Youtube video does work! I’ll find some time to give it a watch. Though in all honesty I’m now waiting for your episode by episode, thorough analysis on Are You Being Served…

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      2. The funny thing about it is if he would have wrapped up the series with a nice bow. We probably wouldn’t be talking about it 60 years later. But yea… I think I pretty much know what he was saying… but we will see toward the end if other people will agree lol.

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