As a long time fan of The Prisoner I bought the entire series on blu-ray a few years ago and was <i>astonished</i> at the picture quality -- fully 1080 and 16x9. Turns out the show was filmed in full 35mm cinematic quality. Apparently McGoohan had sufficient clout and ambition to master the show with an eye to making it a work for the ages.<p>Today it looks better than most films. Thrilling.
Highly recommended. This show was brilliant and weird.<p>People were so obsessed with it, that when the final episode aired, with its, uh, <i>interesting</i> ending, actor/writer/director McCoohan fled the country for a couple weeks.
Loved the show as a teenager in the UK (a repeat; I'm not old enough to have caught the original broadcast).<p>There's a great write up of an Apple II computer game of 1980 that was based on the show here:<p><a href="http://www.filfre.net/2011/11/the-prisoner-part-1/" rel="nofollow">http://www.filfre.net/2011/11/the-prisoner-part-1/</a>
<a href="http://www.filfre.net/2011/11/the-prisoner-part-2/" rel="nofollow">http://www.filfre.net/2011/11/the-prisoner-part-2/</a><p>- which makes a good claim for it being a very effective, early "art game" in that its primitive obtuseness all but forces you to hack into the game's code (in BASIC) in order to beat it - a subterfuge well in keeping with the spirit of the TV show.<p>Great stuff, and being an American game on a computer which didn't get much take up where I lived, a game that I had absolutely no idea existed until reading those articles.
It's odd. Well into the '90s at least nearly all media coverage of <i>The Prisoner</i> had a sneering tone; the journalist evidently felt the need to make sure you knew he wasn't taking it seriously. The success of <i>Lost</i> may have been the thing which had the most to do with changing that.
I've been trying to watch this since my cousins introduced it to me (on bootleg Beta tapes!) in the mid '80s. I have the complete run, I've just never made it past episode 4 or 5.<p>EDIT: yeah, and if you're like me, don't read anything after the last photo in TFA, if you're still planning on watching it.
I was just watching season two of Manhattan, a fictionalization of the US atom bomb project. The writers looked like they borrowed elements of The Prisoner when the federal police are trying to break a potential spy.
(I am only part way through)
Wow! This was my absolutely favorite TV series as a child, but later I've never managed to find out the name of it. Thank you sir, I can finally watch it again.