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In Reply to: Fantastic Television posted by AudioHead on June 30, 2000 at 08:00:43:
Is that the one with a spy who has been captured and is kept on an island and in each episode the bad guys play mind games on him to get him to reveal secrets?
The guy is kept on the island by large white bouncing balls that make Godzilla sounds (I think a Simpsons epsiode played homage to this).If the above description is not The Prisoner- do you have any idea what it was?
I think they only made 10 or 15 epsidoes total
Thanks for any info
DG
Yes! You're talking about one of my all-time favourite shows.A terrific series which was pretty much all Patrick McGoohan's work. He developed the idea whilst working on his previous series "Dangerman" (which was a sort of James Bond series). The Prisoner kicked off with the main character (who is never named) being a government agent who for some reason or other decides to resign. Before he can leave the country he is gassed, abducted & sentenced to imprisonment in "The Village", whose inhabitants are either other "retired" agents or guards.
McGoohan originally had seven scripts more or less complete when filming began, and these are usually considered to be the best episodes. Another 5 were written during filming and are a bit weaker. After the initial 12 episodes the series faltered a bit. What I always felt really spoilt it was the double episode finale, which was virtually demanded by the producers to tie everything up and give the series a traditional "ending". It is all very deep and meaningless in a 60s psychedelic manner, but really I'd rather have seen no "ending" at all.
I always felt that the true magic of the series was due to The Village itself - the series exteriors were mostly shot at Portmeirion, on the Welsh coast. It's a bizarre Italianate folly built by an eccentric Welsh architect over a period of 50 years or so, and the whole place is a four star hotel. I stayed there for a couple of days five years ago, and it is magical to visit - particularly after all the day tourists leave and it is left to the handful of paying guests in the evening. There is a web site with a virtial tour of Portmeirion at:
http://www.virtualportmeirion.com/
Cheers
TG
If anyone wants a copy let me know & I can try to find them.
I am storing stuff for my girlfriend's brother while he is in grad school, and I know he has all (or almost all) episodes on VHS soemwhere in these crates.DG
You're right; created on June 1, 1968 by Patrick McGoohan, who also
played the part of the prisoner; novel concept, but just couldn't
sustain interest over the long run: lasted only one season with
17 one-hour episodes.
At the time that The Prisoner premiered on TV (it was the summer replacement for the Jackie Gleason Show) Patrick McGoohan was one of the top international actors in the world - he was offered the role of James Bond but turned it down. McGoohan was given carte blanche to do any kind of show he wanted by Sir Lew Grade, and The Prisoner was the project he decided on. He is credited for creating the premise of the show, all of the characters, and even the theme music (which he whistled for transcription since he couldn't read or write music). The show was only supposed to run 12 episodes in its entirety but the pilot proved so successful that McGoohan was persuaded to expand the series to 17 episodes to meet the demands of the American television market. Some of the "extra" episodes include The Girl Who Was Death and Living in Harmony, both of which clearly look like add-ons to the basic series (albeit fascinating in their own right). It's incorrect to say that the series "couldn't sustain interest over the long run and lasted only one season" as it was the highest rated television series of the season in 19 countires during its initial run. Following the last episode, the Beatles reportedly called McGoohan to discuss the meaning of show. As a side note, the Living in Harmony episode was rejected by the American censors on the grounds that showing the use of hallucinogenic drugs was unacceptable, even though they had been used extensively in other episodes. The Prisoner remains as one of television's finest series, and is as though provoking today as when it was first broadcast. Unfortunately, the original internegatives on file at the BBC have suffered extensive aging and show significant color fading. The good news is that the series has been slated for upconversion for HDTV broadcast in the near future.
Thanks for the clarification. Incidentally, the village where he
was imprisoned was an actual resort, Hotel Portmeirion, near
Penrhyndeudraeth on Cardigan Bay in North Wales - the work of a
single man, Sir Clough Williams- Ellis. It was a favorite retreat
for writers such as Betrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw and Noel
Coward. - AH
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