@@jelkel25 The worse part is that they're becoming very hard to avoid. Once a neighborhood has an HOA, it's almost impossible to get rid of and, of course, anyone moving in must join the HOA as part of their home purchase. Unless you buy a home in a brand-new development, or way out in the boonies, you may not have much choice.
@@jelkel25 progressive takeover of california in the 60's is what made it a staple. It doesn't go away because it's both a way of curb checking what others see as undesirables and at the same time works almost as a status to show off that you aren't poor. And yes, it's one of the most anti-american things ever devised
What made McGooan totally believable as the Prisoner was his role as Danger Man/Secret Agent Man … We already identified him as a Cold War spy . All those episodes of skullduggery and assassination … not James Bond … colder , harder … more deadly .
Behind McGoohan's eyes, there was always a tiger pacing it's cage. And every once in a while, he'd walk past the open door, just to remind you it was there.
It was an odd show Danger Man. McGoohan's hang ups regarding anything remotely sexual and his dislike of guns. Realistically he would have been killed in his first assignment as a spy.
A show I did not understand at all while growing up, and then rewatching at age 29 having moved out and spent half a soul crushing decade running the ratwheel of the modern world- I felt I understood it far more than I ever wanted to.
It really is amazing we're still analyzing the meaning of the Prisoner more than 50 years on from the original series. I introduced my older children to this show and they saw something different in almost every episode that I had not considered after multiple viewings.
@@thomasromanelli2561I spent a lot of time with my very ill and dying mum last year and we watched a few of these episodes together, she loved analysis and breaking down these show's. We spent hours discussing each show. Happy days. Glad you're spreading culture to the next generation, they need it
The '60s was a time of optimism, having fun, throwing off the restrictions of the past. Hence Star Trek, the man from U.N.C.L.E, the Avengers TV show with Emma Peel. The Prisoner was serious, looking into the problems of progress, being in a matrix.
@@Ponto-zv9vf Even after the sci-fi appeals of Star Trek and Doctor Who for the 60s, The Prisoner was most pivotal for how particularly serious our sci-fi TV could be thanks to the bravest influences like Patrick McGoohan.
The nice thing about the show was his spirit. He won the war for the most part even though he lost most of the battles. He also never gave up despite the adversity.
Perhaps the meaning of the final scene was that our protagonist realized that he had been a prisoner even before he was abducted and sent to the Village.
@@robp2253 I misread your comment a bit at first. While I agree that we the audience are meant to see that he was a prisoner of sorts all along, I don't see much indication that he himself is aware of it. That is one way of interpreting it, the other being that he think's he's regained his freedom. I'm not sure which one is more bleak.
I discovered it via two Iron Maiden songs, "The Prisoner" and "Back in the Village" when i was a teenager back in the 1980s. I was able to buy the VHS boxset in the early 90s and it blew me away. My wife and I finally made the trip to Port Merrion back in 2018 and it was a truly like a pilgramige for me, I think I took about 800 photos that day. I must have said, "Be seeing you!" so many times my wife got fed up with me! haha!! I liked it 'cos it appeals to the rebel in all of us, especially as a Brit. We don't do exotic heroes here in Britain in the likes of Guevara for example, we're very bland and subdued, and McGoohan's character is so very British, seething cauldron of pent up frustration but refuses to get angry most of the time, refuses to let them win, he'll just be a polite pain in the arse all the time! The best part is that after a few episodes Number 6 knows he won't win, so he now gets to grips wth just seeing off the Number2's, they keep being sent in almost as a test to see if they can survive Number6, but they never will of course. I kind of got the feeling that Number6 is only there to be used as a tool to train people on how to deal with people like Number6.
Thanks for a great recap and analysis. Not sure this has been mentioned before but I always felt the identity of No 1 was contained in the preamble before each episode in the exchange: “Who are you?” “The new number 2” “Who is number 1?” “You are number 6” By a slight voice inflexion, it can seem to be “Who is number 1?” “YOU ARE, number 6” Probably not intentional, but interesting nonetheless Thanks again for your piece.
Makes sense, given how much power no.6 holds over the village. It's not completely apparent, but no one else in the village is given the same amount of respect that no.6 gains. To quote the gangster life "no one retires from the game".
I agree 100% with your interpretation. The rub is No. 6 must accept he is number six to be No. 1. May I add that the interplay between 'I', 'eye', and the numeric '1' throughout the series is a compass key to further my analysis.
It does take a village if you aren't living in a cave. "The Prisoner" was about totalitarianism and manufactured consent. It's not about the "village" concept that is people specializing to provide services and an environment for people to grow. I think you can look at it more as everyone selling each other out. There is no end goal here but to capitulate, and the main character's defiance. However, to be philosophical, defiance doesn't do anything to the system and the MC never is free. He only causes frustration and a parade of replacement #2s. Anyway, this the show is philosophical and abstract -- you can apply it to anything. Mixing the two is absolutely missing the point.
I was waiting for "Be seeing you" at the end and was not disappointed. The Prisoner is one of my foundational shows, in that it helped shape my worldview, adding a dose of healthy skepticism to my generally progressive outlook.
I had a false friend for a decade: the only person I have met that lovec The Prisoner- I even gifted him my set of Secret Agent dvds. His betrayal was monstruous and pointless, I wound up homeless. My last words for this nutcase were *"Be seeing you"*. : ) ¿reading this, hovav?
I'm pretty sure that everyone here would love it if our Savage Professor here would make longer videos. Not always but I'd listen to an hour long rant any day. Also, I'm just really we all found this channel, and that someone like him made it. Thanks Bro
All the way from England, not only old enough to remember the original broadcast but have seen it again every 10 or 12 years since.More amazed at how different yet samey subsequent viewings leave me feeling, especially as the performative nature of the village resembles modern life.
I've been waiting for this one. Your interpretation falls pretty close to my own. I watched Danger Man / Secret Agent as a kid, but did not pick up on The Prisoner until college in 1980. The college library had the entire series with the commentary and interviews by Warner Troyer from TV Ontario. My friends and I watched the entire series over about a week. (They were on reel to reel video tapes). The remake was off the mark in my opinion. Unfortunately, most of our leaders would see this as a "how to" instead of a warning, much as they do with 1984, Animal Farm and others.
Watching McGoohan in "Danger Man" informed the watching of "The Prisoner" ... for those that had watched and enjoyed "Danger Man." Yet they were clearly set in separate universes.
@@kalliste23 I'm not sure about that. In the final seasons Drake's bosses screwed him over and betrayed him. When I watched these while watching the entire Danger Man series it was clear why Drake resigned. And Number 6 was Drake - but McGoohan did not own the rights to Drake, so if the connection was made in the series McGoohan would have to pay the creator of Danger Man.
I highly recommend a trip to the village of Portmeirion in Wales where The Prisoner was filmed for anyone interested in architecture. Not that deserts aren't also interesting and beautiful (for any fans of the reimagining).
In 1990, I was working by myself at a TV station in the middle of nowhere on third shift. This show was being aired at that time. I was so creeped out. I wasn't sure I was safe.
This is one of my favorite videos from you. I suppose that's partly due to how much The Prisoner means to me. I remember vividly when the idea of an omnipresent surveillance state was science fiction. Now, it is just fact.
@@feralhistorian I hope your channel continues to grow. You've found a permanent place in the philosophy and pop-culture commentary youtubers I like, along with the likes of Pilgrims Pass and Whatifalthist.
I think you've just helped me articulate my problem with interpretive, open-ended works: they pose questions to the audience that, as abstract human artifices, *can't* have answers whereas in the real world you simply *don't* always have the answers. This is a small but very important distinction! The thing I like about open endings, of course, is that they're often nowhere near as disappointing as the majority of concrete ones.
I have read books on this show, watched videos on it, and viewed it multiple times. I'm 71. In 1968 I missed the final episode. Now I have the collection. I think your take is the closest and as an old man I want to feel safe, and I know now that freedom is an illusion; and that is actually fine.
Great commentary - For me, one of the most compelling aspects of the series visually is the way so much of the prisoner’s surroundings subliminally reflect him(self). The “be seeing you” salute is formed by forming a “6” with your fingers. The penny-farthing bicycle is a reflection of the number “6”. It’s on all of the badges. And there’s lots of arabesque’s (spiral patterns) in the furniture and decor, etc. IMHO, the key to the series is giving in the intro of every episode: “Who is number one?” “You are number six.” Or, rather, “You are, number six.”
I saw it when it first ran in the US on CBS, and have rewatched it many times since. I also have the Prisoner guide and the two novels (the first by Thomas Disch.) This is about the best analysis I've ever seen. Bravo! And I'm subscribing.
Yooooo you're covering some crazy deep cuts. I know the prisoner was a big deal when it came out but nobody knows it now Looking forward to seeing your take on the ending. Keep it up homie, you're a real one
It has a consistent and enthusiastic cult following in the UK, it's an excuse to wear boating jackets if nothing else. The internet is the ideal platform for the speculation that accompanies the series so it still has a life there. In a way I'm glad the remake didn't take off as the modern era has a habit of s*itting on classic shows and movies it finds "problematic", it means the shows legacy will remain intact for those who prefer uncomfortable freedom in the future.
No one after GenX knows it you mean. For Gen X "I am not a number, I'm a free man" was one of the things that made up our identity. It is referenced countless times in our music and media and why alot of GenX are not comfortable with everyone wanting to collect labels. Patrick McGoohan was a man who lived his beliefs and turned down many big roles because they went against them. He famously refused to be Bond due to the gun play and the treatment of women. He had retired to an apartment in my area and I used to enjoy talking to him at the coffee shop. He was hard to talk to at first, but once he knew you were not there just to see a celebrity or babble nonsense he really opened up.
@rutgaurxi7314 He didn't bother others or push his veiws on random people but he definitely didn't care about social norms if you approached him and would not soften his responses just to make the other person comfortable or to seem more genial. If you were going to make him part of the conversation you got him as is. He didn't insult people or become nasty he just didn't hide how he felt about a subject and became dismissive if he felt the topic was nonsense. Other than that he was generally polite and stuck to his own. He also had a style of dress and manner that felt anachronistic, not so much a rejection of modernity in general but a personal decision not to actively take part in it completely. When he was sitting with a beverage and book he had a basic cell phone on the table, per the request he have it from someone close to him, but he seemed to distance himself from it and when his eyes happened to fall on it he would absently push it aside out of his veiw. Of course I can only speak directly to his later years when I knew him and not how he was during the time of his shows.
@@KelsaRavenlock I am reminded of the homage to _The Prisoner_ in, of all things, _Reboot._ It's a dream sequence, but it also marks the protagonist's change from 'aimless survivor' to 'hero.'
What an amazing work it was!! Watched it as a little kid , always frustrated not to be able to predict when the episodes would air. They really did air at random on our PBS station, which seems totally fitting. Only in retrospect do I realize what a profound effect the show had on my development, preferences in entertainment, ways of thinking, etc. Ah, the conformity that could have been mine, lol!! I really have always preferred shows that seemed to reward the viewer for rewatching. Some habits die hard.
Fantastic episode and an excellent analysis. I could have watched another half hour. I also hadn't read Clearly's essay before, so thank you for the link. One of my own favorite "pet" interpretations of Fallout is to take it literally. Throughout the series, we see the inner workings of the Village, and instead of some all-knowing mysterious power it is generally revealed to be a pretty standard bureaucracy run by the exact same type of bureaucratic idiots that run offices, agencies, and regimes since time immemorial while spouting doublespeak about their policy goals that becomes more sinister the more powerful they get. So imagine you're #1, and you have been running this place after you got coopted in your own version of Fall Out. And you decide to escape and be free of these idiots because even you can't change this. So what do you do? Well... You've got all the identity-challenging technology of any 1960s mad scientist, including mind transfer machines and face-changing tech. And you've got a new prisoner who is almost exactly like you once were who had just left their life behind and won't be missed for a while. The solution is obvious. Bring him in. Prepare his life for you to take it over. And then whether he decides to stay or go, YOU are the one (pun intended) who walks out and escapes the village. It might even have worked, except #6 rebels even harder! You could actually see a huge chunk of the series as an almost comedically frustrating series of attempts by #1 to find some kind of mind/face/body-swapping technique that will work long-term and let him escape all while being sabotaged by his own subordinates and #6's uncompromising rebellion. Takes the entire series into a kind of scary/groovy Kafka comedy. Which works as well anything else.
I loved the Prisoner growing up. The Main Character was always smart, always in control (well, mostly) and to some extent, his act of defiance was its own reward. But ultimately, there is nothing that can be won. There is no success or reward for the defiance -- just perhaps, the crushing of will to capitulate to it. I guess that's a good message for life. People look at car commercials and nobody does an ad where the car is stuck in traffic for hours -- it's always a nice sense of freedom. But you buy an individual transportation device and think "now I have freedom." And you exchanged that for debt to a bank, which takes your freedom. There is never a point where you don't exchange one encumbrance for another.
I had a crazy dream as a kid where the balloon security drone hunted me down in the swamp. I've never seen or even heard of the show until I was an adult.
The Prisoner as McGooan envisaged it would make the ideal 7 episode series on Netflix today. But in the day it was made a T.V. show was 24 episodes a season. It only got to 17 at a stretch. When putting ideas down on paper for the show McGooan said, Kafka's book the "Castle" was a great insperation to him. You can see how big a star McGooan was on both sides of the Atlantic being allowed to make The Prisoner with no outside pressure from the networks. Cheers, Chris Perry.
This was so well written! Loved the analysis that (paraphrasing your words) "some people want to be free, with all the rewards, responsibility and discomfort that come with it, while most want comfort with the illusion of freedom." "Is it right to force people to be free if they don't what it?"
Aldous Huxley feared a Benevolent & Technological Autocracy more than what Orwell showed us in 1984. As of 2024, we can see his fears were realized, concerning the terrible future to come...
Yeah … and it’s never the socialists is it? Miserable thieving “free-market” capitalist conservatives and their enablers and protectors of their left flank … “the liberals”.
@@HugebullThat Christian nut job? Really? The decline is economic and material … neoliberal capitalism of Reagan and Thatcher et al … and has been planned by the close cousins of Lewis, the Xn fundamentalists who at base are just a ponzy scheme themselves that cozy up to the neoliberal capitalists for warmth because they utilize the same methods and have so much in common.
And yet neither Orwell nor Huxley would come right out and say the clear truth behind both their dystopic visions; the intrusion of self-serving uncivil capitalist free-market ideologues into all aspects of our lives including government was THE clear and present danger in the wests liberal democracies.
I always thought the final scene of The Prisoner (the butler from the village and the electric door) implied that some part of the village followed the protagonist as an admission that he had won. It did not occur to me that it might also imply that some part of the village followed him and stayed with him. Or that he never really fully escaped from the Village. This has given me something to think about.
It could be argued that the reason the Village leaders spent so much time trying to get information from #6 was that they needed a lot of time to arrange the conversion of London (and maybe the rest of England - or maybe the entire world, too?) into a much larger "Village" that they could allow #6 to "escape" into and still keep him under observation. After all, the reason he left may not have been of much value to them. And to "break him", just so they could brag about their superiority, makes little practical sense.
There were many interesting things about The Prisoner--it was such a good show. But two of the biggest points to me were that The Village really wasn't one side or the other, East or West, but was really part of both sides, stressing the point that he quit simply because he was disgusted by the whole thing. In true paranoid fashion, nobody could believe that was his reason for quitting. If he's quitting our side, then it must be because he's going to the other side--all the travel brochures they considered a mere blind, and not the truth. The irony of not being willing to believe what is true. But yeah, ultimately, no matter how you try to interpret it, it's more about asking questions than giving answers. I originally thought it was about the inner struggle each of us has, and to some degree that might be true. Why else would it be his face when he saw #1? But it's more likely about the struggle between the individual and society in general, with the episode's various takes on different aspects of society, in addition to his own individual struggle to deal with those aspects of society. But again, no clear answers--it's up to the viewer to decide what answers, if any, actually apply to the struggle.
I've watched The Prisoner for decades. It's so well done on every level. The cinematography is so crisp and fresh as though it was recorded yesterday. The themes are as relevant today as when first broadcast. I identify with No 6. A roll model and expression of my own existence. While it may not be what McGoohan meant or intended, I was left with the impression that (John Drake) realized that there was no escape from the life he chose for himself. A prisoner of his own choices. And that the conclusion Fall Out established that this was all just a fever dream. He could never leave.
Any conversation with a Villager is uncertain. The Villager telling no. 6 they wish to stay could be planted by the Masters to seed that idea. They could believe you are a guard, and refuse to incriminate themselves. I liked the no. 2's. Every no. 2 had their own approach to coercion, their own flairs and flaws.
The beauty of The Prisoner is that each time you watch an episode, you can draw different conclusions based on any number of factors that you've encountered in life to that point. I first saw The Prisoner as a kid back in the 70's, odd, weird, but I kept watching it every week, as I got older and The Prisoner would air again on tv, I'd watch it again, then with the advent of vcr's, I could watch it whenever I wanted. Each time, a new a-ha moment, or a tie-in to something else I learned about. Even now a few decades later I still enjoy watching it, only now there's more cynicism with regard to the establishment trying to keep you down. Sometimes I wonder if The Prisoner is in part responsible for my 'question authority' streak and always on the look out for 'the catch'.
A movie I truly liked was Circle of Iron, the ending might give light to what Prisioner and its ending was trying to tell us, where the anwser lies and how the path to it maintains thr journey rather than destination.
This is an excellent review. It is a testimony to the (disturbing) brilliance of this series that it remains such an icon in television history. Thank you for creating this.
I enjoyed revisiting this memory - I watched the series as a 12 year old back in 1968. It was edgy and mystifying. Reading my first Orwell a couple of years later I could go back and begin interpreting The Prisoner's layers of meaning. The absurdist Monty Python arrived on my childhood black & white TV (3 channels in those days!) a year later. These are a handful of TV masterpieces form 50 years ago that are remarakably watchable today and still remain contemporary social comment.
I’ve actually visited the Prisoner location in Portmerion in North Wales here in the U.K. where it was filmed and given the experience of Covid, this film was clearly way ahead of its time - going around the various buildings and houses of Portmerion one does get a sense of how strange, weird and creepy it really is and yet, the Welsh people actually live in these houses everyday
Well, well, well, someone made video on The prisoner in 2024. Myself, only by a chance, have discovered the series this year, watching an interview with Bentley Hart. It was stunning to see how modern, the series was for its time, and still is.
I got so caught up in this series back in the day, it has haunted me. So much of it has and is going on in the world. I couldn't pass up getting more info on it. Great video
Dec 3, 2024 - Thank you for what I felt was your comprehensive multifaceted analysis of undoubtably a significant television program. It was driven by a man of vision who also starred: Patrick McGoohan. My idea from watching the series probably 30 times is a warning: Don’t let Society take away your identity. Continue to be individualistic… Think for yourself. Be yourself. Thank you again for an insightful analysis and review. The answer to “Be seeing you!” is simply: “… and you!” with a smile added.
Yeah. I don't know how things go where you are, but when I go to the doctor, its full names, date of birth, address and phone number. I have a driver's licence, a title to my property, all sorts of records on me. So, how to stay as an individual?
I rewatch the episodes frequently, and I always seem to find new things or ideas in them. This show is totally relevant in today’s world. Social media has become The Village; a place that’s comforting on the outside, but a trap on the inside.
Kind of funny. Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, and yes, The Prisoner were the reasons why I chose Intelligence for my career specialty when I joined the military so many decades ago. An odd choice but not really I suppose since I come from a military family with a long history. It was the height of the Cold War and the world was far more grey than people realized (even now). When you joined the game you learned you couldn't fully trust any side. Everybody lies. Like the show, you were always trying to puzzle out the truth of what was being told to you. "Be seeing You."
There is no side , only competing departments , that work to reinforce the plot , and the real CEO never makes the evening edition. It keeps people in the village happy with their servitude.
I haven't seen this but it heavily reminds me of "We Happy Few", a game with a similar premise and theme. They both also draw from this tendency in British Society to "Keep Calm and Don't Rock the Boat".
We Happy Few is a great dystopia trapped in a so-so game. Story-wise, I thought it was a fascinating twist on the genre. Especially how the fall of the city doesn't come from any kind of deliberate organized rebellion, but through individual mistakes and low-information decisions causing knock-on effects that breed systemic instability. And yes, WHF was undoubtedly inspired by the Prisoner, at least a bit. The idea of using Simon Says as a method of social control absolutely sounds like something McGoohan might have cooked up.
What’s missing in the analysis is the “British Perspective” as the analysis here is from a North American one, a differently stratified and motivated society. Pre-war Great Britain, and up to larger scale immigration beginning late 70’s and on was a very stratified social order with distinct classes who “knew their station in life.” There is great comfort in knowing your station and not needing to break out of it. From progressive America’s perspective pursuit of the “American Dream” is also it’s downfall, because each layer wants to achieve a new layer (to be better/ more successful than your father/mother) and so it’s either a life of constant struggle with no end to measure success , or one of perceived constant failure, rather than one of a stable harmonic rhythm. Work hard, be loyal and be protected, get a good meal and a shag, caravan holiday by the seaside, drink at the pub, sing some war songs, shake salt on your crisps, grow old, grow a garden in your council plot and then pass away surrounded by family who thought you lead a good life. I am Canadian in my 60’s (who was an outside observer of certain lower levels of Welsh mining village culture in the 70’s) but I believe that most Brits secretly disdained of the advances of modern American society. The Prisoner both fascinated Brits and made them feel uncomfortable. Should we be breaking free and asserting our individuality, or could we be happier blissfully and purposefully accepting our roles in an orderly society and station in life?
What I like about the village is what you mentioned in the beginning. It's a peaceful, quaint and appealing town on the surface, but you can sense an underlying evil to it.
The Prisoner is IMHO one of the finest television series ever made. It is a genius work of art that brings together adventure, social commentary, whimsicality, philosophy and all with a prophetic edge to it.
This is great! Working my way through your backlog, this is amazing. If you ever have a hankering to talk about Children's Post Apocalypse stories, I humbly suggest contrasting the film Solarbabies (1986), Tomes and Talismans (also 1986) a limited series meant to educate children about the library system, and The Tribe (1999), a New Zealander Post Apocalyptic Cyberpunk children's soap opera that ran for 5 seasons.
This was a very well done presentation in terms of concision and sequence, and helped me appreciate the series which was initially very intriguing but became quite a bit tediously reiterative.
Aw yeah, my favourite speculative fiction analyzing mountain anarch covering my favourite espionage-themed theatre of the subconscious. There's an interview Patrick McGoohan did for Canadian public access TV (if memory serves) that really illuminates his line of thought behind the show, and his personality in general. It's the latter which feeds my current reading of the Prisoner. Interpreting it as social commentary is valid, it's the way the work was intended to be received, but there's plenty of artistic reaction to the pressures of oversocialized modernity. But there's only ever going to be one Patrick McGoohan. For me, the Prisoner plays out as pure autobiography. He was *the* Secret Agent Man after all, and the Prisoner is the sort of recontextualized, lumbering beast that results when mainstream spy thriller tropes are run through the gauntlet of Patrick McGoohan's resentment towards the constraints and expectstions of that role. I was told once that McGoohan was considered for the role of James Bond but he turned it down because the Bond character was morally distasteful. The Prisoner really benefitted from the South Park expedient writing. Especially towards the end, it is an auteur dredging from his Lynchian subconscious. McGoohan strikes me as a 19th century reactionary who had the misfortune of being born a century too late, and filtering his values through a modernist 20th century lens. I know he would have loved to see what the 21st is like. Imagine explaining to him what Tinder is, let alone the recent medical-related totalism...
You should make a grand Playlist on your channel for all your analyses videos. I tend to watch a few at once, when a new one is released, and it would be more convenient. I expect I'm not the only one. There used to be a "Play All" option on peoples' home YT page which would essentially do that. However the YT overseers, in their great wisdom, appear to have removed that feature in recent months. Anyway, thanks for another great vid!
Allegory within allegory within alllegory. My favourite program, and a coomercial failure to some. It was, and is, the only tv show that required the viewer to THINK whilst watching, and every viewing reveals a different perspective, questioning our own perspectives. Brilliant, in every way, and strangely, not dated at all. Magnificent, and not for the passive viewer - you had to make an effort to watch and be absorbed.
RUclips teased me with this and an Oculus Imperia video side by side. I had to flip a coin 😎 Awesome work Feral and thanks for pushing out such awesome content! One of these days I do want to be a Patron when finances allow 🤘
I liked the surrealism of the Village. There are rules, but the rules are malleable and never truly consistent. The Village has shops and stores and services but its not clear how anyone earns anything. The Village will try to get you through various angles, but very rarely overt violent coercion. Village events and festivals appear as needed. Large parts of the Village serve no real purpose, or hide a true purpose. The people of the Village fall into unclear categories of prisoners, guards, menial staff etc where a persons role is unclear. Some people are too without purpose, their secrets or usefulness already absorbed by the Village until they are simply stored.
I think a key issue of the underlying dilemma is - in my view - the need for rules and conformity with them for security and prosperity. Without those rules and conformity to them, the individual gets outcompeted by those who conform. There is a choice, but a false one since noone can afford to go alone against society.
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!" Words feared by any authoritarian movement, doesn't matter the economic system. Edit: Only became aware of this series because of Ricardo Montebalm's "Golden Age of Video" Edit: Yeah, becoming tired of everything being "Liberal's fault," when modern Liberalism is nothing more than Conservatism that wants to still be invited to the parties with interesting people.
You remind me of a friend of mine, Rick Partlow. He's a Sci Fi writer and all around good dude and smart guy. He moved from Central Florida to Wyoming not long ago. Keep up the fantastic work, sir!
I wonder if Feral Historian will do "Master and Margarita" in the future. Aside from being a modern classic, it covers the Stalinist iteration of pathologizing dissent.
I found your channel last week with your essay of why you think the Serenity ending was too optimistic for these times. Today there's an essay about one of the greatest TV shows ever. Are you kidding me? 😊 I've only ever watched The Prisoner in the OG broadcast order and was wondering about the other ways of watching the series. Think I'll try this now as it's about time for my yearly watch again. Great video, love the channel. Attending the Six of One convention is a bit of an experience, you really feel like you're in the Village.
My favourite interpretation of The Prisoner (if not necessarily the most correct one) was by Isaac Asimov, who contributed an essay to a big coffee-table book on the show which I think was printed fairly close to the original broadcast - but I lost it years ago and couldn't tell you more about the publication I'm afraid. He cheerfully refused to take the show seriously with its stripy jumpers and puttering about in Mini Mokes and instead of writing a considered reflection of democracy, conformity etc., he judged the show to be a celebration of failure. No. 6 keeps losing, keeps failing to escape, and that's what makes it great, because everyone is a failure in life and because we all fail along with him we're all the hero of a big primetime television show ourselves. He ended the essay by remarking that he read it out to his daughter for her feedback, and she mentioned that if the essay was published and successful then Asimov wouldn't be a failure. Asimov replied, "ah, but in failing to be a failure I'm the biggest failure of them all"
Strange... in the town where I live, more and more people have developed the habit of saying, _"be seeing you"._ This started during the pandemic 'lockdowns'.
I found fascinating similarities between number 6 journey and the knight Lancelot, main character of Soviet fantasy movie "To Kill a Dragon" made in 1988. Both are strong individuals that got trapped in the village under totalitarian control with compliant populace that feels indifferent to the protagonist goal of dismantling the system, with some trying to stop him. But while "The Prisioner" ends with number 6 successful rebellion that destroyed the village and led him and his accomplices back to freedom, "To Kill a Dragon" focus more on the aftermath - that despite destroying figurehead of the oppressive order it would quickly be replaced by softer yet still the same one in nature, as the other seen option for society is complete anarchy. And even if Lancelot will take power to lead people out of this deterministic fate, he will eventually end up doing the same things that did previous oppressors. Highly recommend to watch the movie yourself - to me at least it's a good example of anti-totalitarian fiction from people that actually experienced it, not form western observers that heard or read about the topic. Not sure if there were any dub of this classic in English, only know that there is a sub version on RUclips
On the one hand, it was their go-to method for inducing unconsciousness. On the other, if they wanted to drug him (or beat him) unconscious, there's not a whole lot he could do to stop them.
I very much enjoyed watching. I was a boy when this program was on and I enjoyed it then. Now at the age of 71, I see things different.Love and peace. Tim
I have heard so much about this show but never watched it. Being a little boy at the time, the Avengers was more my speed ( Emma Peele was my first crush!) I really need to watch this show.
My fav series of all time. I first saw it as a kid staying up late at night, no idea what it meant but even 8 year old me could tell there was real meaningful depth that was still beyond my comprehension.
My favorite episode was 'Many Happy Returns'. Guy makes it back. Convinces everyone of the conspiracy. Finds the island with the village. "Be seeing you..." There's a scene in Babylon Five where Bester says "Be seeing you" with the hand gesture... :)
Patrick McGoohan was an "odd duck". If you look at his film oeuvre, he made interesting choices, which I believe coincided with his character. He turned down the role of James Bond for "moral" (or aesthetic) reasons. I have always regarded The Prisoner as his greatest and most self-revelatory work. (And the miniseries was an abomination!) One gets the impression that Number Six is the most important person in The Village, but why are all those other people there, and who are the occasional victims of Rover? In ways, it is reminiscent of the "retirement home" in The Borgia Stick, where failed mobsters are taken, to be lobotomized, a terrifying alternative to being whacked. And then, there's Rumpole showing up. Repeatedly. “A slave cannot be freed, save he do it himself. Nor can you enslave a free man; the very most you can do is kill him!” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star Oh well half dozen of the Other, one might say. But I have the DVD set, so perhaps another seventeen?
I saw the Village as a place to also store people who have given up their secret, or fulfilled the job the Village needed. People who know too much can't leave. A bunch of people are menial staff, they do the custodial or administrative or security work. Many are just held indefinitely in the Village limbo.
@@keithmichael112 We don't really get to know them. I assumed many of the people stored in the Village weren't new. We don't get to know how many years the Village had to work on them. We get to meet a few people who are new arrivals, like no. 6.
That is one heck of an analysis, not seen one so intense in forever. Great The Prisoner is still being unwrapped. Love you commentary style too - do you do it from an auto queue or memory. Either way, it's a solid delivery.
The Village is a model for homeowner associations (HOA).
@@user-ed1gj1ng5g Those things really make me scratch my head, I'm very surprised Americans tolerate them.
@@jelkel25 The worse part is that they're becoming very hard to avoid. Once a neighborhood has an HOA, it's almost impossible to get rid of and, of course, anyone moving in must join the HOA as part of their home purchase. Unless you buy a home in a brand-new development, or way out in the boonies, you may not have much choice.
@@jelkel25 progressive takeover of california in the 60's is what made it a staple. It doesn't go away because it's both a way of curb checking what others see as undesirables and at the same time works almost as a status to show off that you aren't poor. And yes, it's one of the most anti-american things ever devised
@jasonblalock4429 You can, by the power of Christ!
Save us Mr Gault!
Will you stop being socialist?
No!
Then there is nothing I can do!
What made McGooan totally believable as the Prisoner was his role as Danger Man/Secret Agent Man …
We already identified him as a Cold War spy .
All those episodes of skullduggery and assassination … not James Bond … colder , harder … more deadly .
Behind McGoohan's eyes, there was always a tiger pacing it's cage. And every once in a while, he'd walk past the open door, just to remind you it was there.
I never saw DM/SAM. McGooan was still totally believable. Man could act.
Some of the best Secret Agent episodes had no dialog: only that harpsichord music...
McGoohan had turned down the role of James Bond because of the character’s womanizing. He was a devout Catholic irl.
It was an odd show Danger Man. McGoohan's hang ups regarding anything remotely sexual and his dislike of guns. Realistically he would have been killed in his first assignment as a spy.
A show I did not understand at all while growing up, and then rewatching at age 29 having moved out and spent half a soul crushing decade running the ratwheel of the modern world- I felt I understood it far more than I ever wanted to.
I grew up in soviet Cuba in the 1960s: I understood The Prisoner
It's not about joining or leaving the rat-race.
@@2112jonr everyone is a prisoner of something... as Leo McKern once said.
24:15 I was super convinced a big balloon was going to come take the feral historian away at the end of this video
Why did you think a balloon would stop him?
Nvm let’s get you some ice cream 🍨
The Rover is great. They tried to build a robot guardian on a Dalek-level budget, but settled on a wire-pulled balloon when the robot was a hassle.
@@1kevintron feral historian utterly defamed
This series was a creeper.. the remake was fairly good, I thought.
It really is amazing we're still analyzing the meaning of the Prisoner more than 50 years on from the original series. I introduced my older children to this show and they saw something different in almost every episode that I had not considered after multiple viewings.
"The Prisoner" is one of the very rare times that television ascended to the level of art.
60 years on. Wish it were 50, lol.
@@lisathuban8969 Be seeing you! 🤣
Art and prophecy@@harryrabbit2870
@@thomasromanelli2561I spent a lot of time with my very ill and dying mum last year and we watched a few of these episodes together, she loved analysis and breaking down these show's. We spent hours discussing each show.
Happy days.
Glad you're spreading culture to the next generation, they need it
The Prisoner is a must watch, one of the best series from the '60s. "Be seeing you".
The '60s was a time of optimism, having fun, throwing off the restrictions of the past. Hence Star Trek, the man from U.N.C.L.E, the Avengers TV show with Emma Peel. The Prisoner was serious, looking into the problems of progress, being in a matrix.
@@Ponto-zv9vf Even after the sci-fi appeals of Star Trek and Doctor Who for the 60s, The Prisoner was most pivotal for how particularly serious our sci-fi TV could be thanks to the bravest influences like Patrick McGoohan.
THE BEST.
It's best watched with a good dose of LDS.
@@fmlazar You mean it's a religious text like the Book of Mormon?
almost 25 minutes of my favourite hilltop historian? A surprise, but a welcome one.
The nice thing about the show was his spirit. He won the war for the most part even though he lost most of the battles. He also never gave up despite the adversity.
Did he thoe?
In Fallout, he eventually ended up "solving" the dilemma by going guns blazing, even if he "escaped" he was still twisted by the Village.
That's the interpretation I had as a child. I grew to realise that was a very naive interpretation.
@@rukifellth2 I think it's pretty clear at the end that he didn't escape anything, he just reframed his perception.
Perhaps the meaning of the final scene was that our protagonist realized that he had been a prisoner even before he was abducted and sent to the Village.
@@robp2253 I misread your comment a bit at first. While I agree that we the audience are meant to see that he was a prisoner of sorts all along, I don't see much indication that he himself is aware of it. That is one way of interpreting it, the other being that he think's he's regained his freedom. I'm not sure which one is more bleak.
I discovered it via two Iron Maiden songs, "The Prisoner" and "Back in the Village" when i was a teenager back in the 1980s. I was able to buy the VHS boxset in the early 90s and it blew me away. My wife and I finally made the trip to Port Merrion back in 2018 and it was a truly like a pilgramige for me, I think I took about 800 photos that day. I must have said, "Be seeing you!" so many times my wife got fed up with me! haha!!
I liked it 'cos it appeals to the rebel in all of us, especially as a Brit. We don't do exotic heroes here in Britain in the likes of Guevara for example, we're very bland and subdued, and McGoohan's character is so very British, seething cauldron of pent up frustration but refuses to get angry most of the time, refuses to let them win, he'll just be a polite pain in the arse all the time! The best part is that after a few episodes Number 6 knows he won't win, so he now gets to grips wth just seeing off the Number2's, they keep being sent in almost as a test to see if they can survive Number6, but they never will of course. I kind of got the feeling that Number6 is only there to be used as a tool to train people on how to deal with people like Number6.
Thanks for a great recap and analysis. Not sure this has been mentioned before but I always felt the identity of No 1 was contained in the preamble before each episode in the exchange:
“Who are you?”
“The new number 2”
“Who is number 1?”
“You are number 6”
By a slight voice inflexion, it can seem to be
“Who is number 1?”
“YOU ARE, number 6”
Probably not intentional, but interesting nonetheless
Thanks again for your piece.
Exactly what I thought. I think you are correct.
I think it's EXACTLY what they intended. The Prisoner was very cerebral. It was not obvious.
Huh. 🧐
Makes sense, given how much power no.6 holds over the village. It's not completely apparent, but no one else in the village is given the same amount of respect that no.6 gains.
To quote the gangster life "no one retires from the game".
I agree 100% with your interpretation. The rub is No. 6 must accept he is number six to be No. 1.
May I add that the interplay between 'I', 'eye', and the numeric '1' throughout the series is a compass key to further my analysis.
For decades when politicians in the US say “It Takes a Village”, I always and immediately think of this.
@@thechapelperilous it doesn’t matter where the politicians are.
Is Trump number six?
Susan, Funny, I thought Drumpf is Bif Tanner
Be seeing you.
It does take a village if you aren't living in a cave. "The Prisoner" was about totalitarianism and manufactured consent. It's not about the "village" concept that is people specializing to provide services and an environment for people to grow. I think you can look at it more as everyone selling each other out. There is no end goal here but to capitulate, and the main character's defiance.
However, to be philosophical, defiance doesn't do anything to the system and the MC never is free. He only causes frustration and a parade of replacement #2s.
Anyway, this the show is philosophical and abstract -- you can apply it to anything.
Mixing the two is absolutely missing the point.
I was waiting for "Be seeing you" at the end and was not disappointed. The Prisoner is one of my foundational shows, in that it helped shape my worldview, adding a dose of healthy skepticism to my generally progressive outlook.
I had a false friend for a decade: the only person I have met that lovec The Prisoner- I even gifted him my set of Secret Agent dvds. His betrayal was monstruous and pointless, I wound up homeless. My last words for this nutcase were *"Be seeing you"*. : ) ¿reading this, hovav?
"Be seeing you", a standard good-bye turned into something sinister, combined with the okay sign. It's standard now in many shows to use it.
I'm pretty sure that everyone here would love it if our Savage Professor here would make longer videos. Not always but I'd listen to an hour long rant any day. Also, I'm just really we all found this channel, and that someone like him made it. Thanks Bro
Signing off with “be seeing you” was such an amazing touch. I instinctively returned the “salute” as if I assumed I was being observed. 🙂😉
You were. We noticed...
@ I KNEW it! 😂
All the way from England, not only old enough to remember the original broadcast but have seen it again every 10 or 12 years since.More amazed at how different yet samey subsequent viewings leave me feeling, especially as the performative nature of the village resembles modern life.
I've been waiting for this one.
Your interpretation falls pretty close to my own.
I watched Danger Man / Secret Agent as a kid, but did not pick up on The Prisoner until college in 1980. The college library had the entire series with the commentary and interviews by Warner Troyer from TV Ontario.
My friends and I watched the entire series over about a week. (They were on reel to reel video tapes).
The remake was off the mark in my opinion.
Unfortunately, most of our leaders would see this as a "how to" instead of a warning, much as they do with 1984, Animal Farm and others.
Watching McGoohan in "Danger Man" informed the watching of "The Prisoner" ... for those that had watched and enjoyed "Danger Man." Yet they were clearly set in separate universes.
I think it was in the Many Happy Returns episode he was once referred to as Drake.
@@smbritton1 I'll have to check. "Danger Man" was much more of its time than "The Prisoner."
@@smbritton1 I remember hearing that as well, but many have said that the actor was actually saying "Break!"
@@kalliste23 I'm not sure about that. In the final seasons Drake's bosses screwed him over and betrayed him. When I watched these while watching the entire Danger Man series it was clear why Drake resigned.
And Number 6 was Drake - but McGoohan did not own the rights to Drake, so if the connection was made in the series McGoohan would have to pay the creator of Danger Man.
It's weird how I'd never seen a video essay about this series on youtube before. There's so much to explore there. Thank you for making this
I highly recommend a trip to the village of Portmeirion in Wales where The Prisoner was filmed for anyone interested in architecture.
Not that deserts aren't also interesting and beautiful (for any fans of the reimagining).
You can tell when they used a studio in London, and when of location.
In 1990, I was working by myself at a TV station in the middle of nowhere on third shift. This show was being aired at that time. I was so creeped out. I wasn't sure I was safe.
“Who does number 2 work for!?!”
Careful, buddy, you're going to blow out your o-ring.
You tell that turd who's boss.
"That would be telling."
You, are number six.
Man of culture, I see.
This is one of my favorite videos from you. I suppose that's partly due to how much The Prisoner means to me.
I remember vividly when the idea of an omnipresent surveillance state was science fiction. Now, it is just fact.
What we are only just beginning to realise is it was this way all along.
No likey the panopticon?
@@Natty183 Do Not Want!
@@MarkAndrewEdwards 🖖😁❤️🕊️
You have become easily one of my favorite creators. Hope this channel gets huge and becomes all you could want and more.
It has already exceeded expectations, but I'm certainly looking forward to taking it further if that's what's in the cards.
@@feralhistorian I hope your channel continues to grow. You've found a permanent place in the philosophy and pop-culture commentary youtubers I like, along with the likes of Pilgrims Pass and Whatifalthist.
@@Green_Tea_Coffee whatifalthist is intentionally silly though
@@snowtification4818 Of the opinions I've read online, that is certainly one of them.
@@snowtification4818 He's really interesting.
I love everything about your channel man. I like the raw conversational approach you take on books movies and shows. Please keep these coming
I think you've just helped me articulate my problem with interpretive, open-ended works: they pose questions to the audience that, as abstract human artifices, *can't* have answers whereas in the real world you simply *don't* always have the answers. This is a small but very important distinction!
The thing I like about open endings, of course, is that they're often nowhere near as disappointing as the majority of concrete ones.
I have read books on this show, watched videos on it, and viewed it multiple times. I'm 71. In 1968 I missed the final episode. Now I have the collection. I think your take is the closest and as an old man I want to feel safe, and I know now that freedom is an illusion; and that is actually fine.
I saw it on Australian TV in the 1960s, it caused an outrage, the ending. I don't consider myself old until I see my reflection, so I don't look.
Great commentary -
For me, one of the most compelling aspects of the series visually is the way so much of the prisoner’s surroundings subliminally reflect him(self). The “be seeing you” salute is formed by forming a “6” with your fingers. The penny-farthing bicycle is a reflection of the number “6”. It’s on all of the badges. And there’s lots of arabesque’s (spiral patterns) in the furniture and decor, etc.
IMHO, the key to the series is giving in the intro of every episode:
“Who is number one?” “You are number six.” Or, rather, “You are, number six.”
I should have read @bgjones726's comment first - :)
I saw it when it first ran in the US on CBS, and have rewatched it many times since. I also have the Prisoner guide and the two novels (the first by Thomas Disch.) This is about the best analysis I've ever seen. Bravo! And I'm subscribing.
As I will too !
Yooooo you're covering some crazy deep cuts. I know the prisoner was a big deal when it came out but nobody knows it now
Looking forward to seeing your take on the ending. Keep it up homie, you're a real one
It has a consistent and enthusiastic cult following in the UK, it's an excuse to wear boating jackets if nothing else. The internet is the ideal platform for the speculation that accompanies the series so it still has a life there. In a way I'm glad the remake didn't take off as the modern era has a habit of s*itting on classic shows and movies it finds "problematic", it means the shows legacy will remain intact for those who prefer uncomfortable freedom in the future.
No one after GenX knows it you mean.
For Gen X "I am not a number, I'm a free man" was one of the things that made up our identity.
It is referenced countless times in our music and media and why alot of GenX are not comfortable with everyone wanting to collect labels.
Patrick McGoohan was a man who lived his beliefs and turned down many big roles because they went against them.
He famously refused to be Bond due to the gun play and the treatment of women.
He had retired to an apartment in my area and I used to enjoy talking to him at the coffee shop.
He was hard to talk to at first, but once he knew you were not there just to see a celebrity or babble nonsense he really opened up.
@@KelsaRavenlock He was by all accounts based beyond all belief, often going against social norms.
@rutgaurxi7314 He didn't bother others or push his veiws on random people but he definitely didn't care about social norms if you approached him and would not soften his responses just to make the other person comfortable or to seem more genial.
If you were going to make him part of the conversation you got him as is.
He didn't insult people or become nasty he just didn't hide how he felt about a subject and became dismissive if he felt the topic was nonsense.
Other than that he was generally polite and stuck to his own.
He also had a style of dress and manner that felt anachronistic, not so much a rejection of modernity in general but a personal decision not to actively take part in it completely.
When he was sitting with a beverage and book he had a basic cell phone on the table, per the request he have it from someone close to him, but he seemed to distance himself from it and when his eyes happened to fall on it he would absently push it aside out of his veiw.
Of course I can only speak directly to his later years when I knew him and not how he was during the time of his shows.
@@KelsaRavenlock I am reminded of the homage to _The Prisoner_ in, of all things, _Reboot._ It's a dream sequence, but it also marks the protagonist's change from 'aimless survivor' to 'hero.'
What an amazing work it was!! Watched it as a little kid , always frustrated not to be able to predict when the episodes would air. They really did air at random on our PBS station, which seems totally fitting. Only in retrospect do I realize what a profound effect the show had on my development, preferences in entertainment, ways of thinking, etc. Ah, the conformity that could have been mine, lol!! I really have always preferred shows that seemed to reward the viewer for rewatching. Some habits die hard.
Saw this as a kid when it aired in the US and loved it. It was challenging and I found that the best thing about it.
I'm glad you covered the Prisoner, not many people remember it nowadays.
Many people remember it nowadays.
@@JamesAnderson-wft If that's the case, I don't see many people talking about it online.
@@Samthebasedman Keep in mind that for your contempoaries and possibly you yourself weren't born when the series was made.
@@fmlazar At least I actually watched the series. My contempoaries don't even know it exists.
@@Samthebasedman It was a series of it's time and a lot of it's iconography hasn't aged well.
Fantastic episode and an excellent analysis. I could have watched another half hour. I also hadn't read Clearly's essay before, so thank you for the link. One of my own favorite "pet" interpretations of Fallout is to take it literally. Throughout the series, we see the inner workings of the Village, and instead of some all-knowing mysterious power it is generally revealed to be a pretty standard bureaucracy run by the exact same type of bureaucratic idiots that run offices, agencies, and regimes since time immemorial while spouting doublespeak about their policy goals that becomes more sinister the more powerful they get. So imagine you're #1, and you have been running this place after you got coopted in your own version of Fall Out. And you decide to escape and be free of these idiots because even you can't change this. So what do you do? Well... You've got all the identity-challenging technology of any 1960s mad scientist, including mind transfer machines and face-changing tech. And you've got a new prisoner who is almost exactly like you once were who had just left their life behind and won't be missed for a while. The solution is obvious. Bring him in. Prepare his life for you to take it over. And then whether he decides to stay or go, YOU are the one (pun intended) who walks out and escapes the village. It might even have worked, except #6 rebels even harder!
You could actually see a huge chunk of the series as an almost comedically frustrating series of attempts by #1 to find some kind of mind/face/body-swapping technique that will work long-term and let him escape all while being sabotaged by his own subordinates and #6's uncompromising rebellion. Takes the entire series into a kind of scary/groovy Kafka comedy. Which works as well anything else.
I loved the Prisoner growing up. The Main Character was always smart, always in control (well, mostly) and to some extent, his act of defiance was its own reward.
But ultimately, there is nothing that can be won. There is no success or reward for the defiance -- just perhaps, the crushing of will to capitulate to it. I guess that's a good message for life.
People look at car commercials and nobody does an ad where the car is stuck in traffic for hours -- it's always a nice sense of freedom. But you buy an individual transportation device and think "now I have freedom." And you exchanged that for debt to a bank, which takes your freedom. There is never a point where you don't exchange one encumbrance for another.
Leo McKern is the sublime #2. Just nailed the part. Fallout haunted me for years.
Leo McKern was an Australian who deserted his country for the U.K.
I had a crazy dream as a kid where the balloon security drone hunted me down in the swamp. I've never seen or even heard of the show until I was an adult.
Don't know when you were a kid but I've seen that drone parodied on the simpsons and some other stuff.
@benjackson1454 I grew up with two channels. The news and the weather.
Aliens bruh.
Maybe it was based on a super friend legion of doom episode...they had orb in that one too!
11:35 mandatory fun with Leo McKeen!
The Prisoner as McGooan envisaged it would make the ideal 7 episode series on Netflix today. But in the day it was made a T.V. show was 24 episodes a season. It only got to 17 at a stretch. When putting ideas down on paper for the show McGooan said, Kafka's book the "Castle" was a great insperation to him. You can see how big a star McGooan was on both sides of the Atlantic being allowed to make The Prisoner with no outside pressure from the networks. Cheers, Chris Perry.
Wow it’s insane 2 minutes in we are in deep analysis already wth it is so rare to find a video so on point
This was so well written! Loved the analysis that (paraphrasing your words) "some people want to be free, with all the rewards, responsibility and discomfort that come with it, while most want comfort with the illusion of freedom." "Is it right to force people to be free if they don't what it?"
Aldous Huxley feared a Benevolent & Technological Autocracy more than what Orwell showed us in 1984.
As of 2024, we can see his fears were realized, concerning the terrible future to come...
And still, CS Lewis is the one who saw in the clearest way where everything was going.
Yeah … and it’s never the socialists is it? Miserable thieving “free-market” capitalist conservatives and their enablers and protectors of their left flank … “the liberals”.
@@HugebullThat Christian nut job? Really? The decline is economic and material … neoliberal capitalism of Reagan and Thatcher et al … and has been planned by the close cousins of Lewis, the Xn fundamentalists who at base are just a ponzy scheme themselves that cozy up to the neoliberal capitalists for warmth because they utilize the same methods and have so much in common.
@@HugebullCS Lewis? A Christian ideologue? That’s what’s wrong? Not enough Christians? 😂
And yet neither Orwell nor Huxley would come right out and say the clear truth behind both their dystopic visions; the intrusion of self-serving uncivil capitalist free-market ideologues into all aspects of our lives including government was THE clear and present danger in the wests liberal democracies.
I always thought the final scene of The Prisoner (the butler from the village and the electric door) implied that some part of the village followed the protagonist as an admission that he had won. It did not occur to me that it might also imply that some part of the village followed him and stayed with him. Or that he never really fully escaped from the Village. This has given me something to think about.
It could be argued that the reason the Village leaders spent so much time trying to get information from #6 was that they needed a lot of time to arrange the conversion of London (and maybe the rest of England - or maybe the entire world, too?) into a much larger "Village" that they could allow #6 to "escape" into and still keep him under observation. After all, the reason he left may not have been of much value to them. And to "break him", just so they could brag about their superiority, makes little practical sense.
YES THE PRISONER!
Most relevant show today.
The remake doesn't match up to the original!
@chrismac7416 never even seen it.
For a spiritual sequel, try "Nowhere Man" with Bruce Greenwood.
@@SierraSierraFoxtrotglad to see someone else remembers that excellent series
There were many interesting things about The Prisoner--it was such a good show. But two of the biggest points to me were that The Village really wasn't one side or the other, East or West, but was really part of both sides, stressing the point that he quit simply because he was disgusted by the whole thing. In true paranoid fashion, nobody could believe that was his reason for quitting. If he's quitting our side, then it must be because he's going to the other side--all the travel brochures they considered a mere blind, and not the truth. The irony of not being willing to believe what is true.
But yeah, ultimately, no matter how you try to interpret it, it's more about asking questions than giving answers. I originally thought it was about the inner struggle each of us has, and to some degree that might be true. Why else would it be his face when he saw #1? But it's more likely about the struggle between the individual and society in general, with the episode's various takes on different aspects of society, in addition to his own individual struggle to deal with those aspects of society. But again, no clear answers--it's up to the viewer to decide what answers, if any, actually apply to the struggle.
I've watched The Prisoner for decades. It's so well done on every level. The cinematography is so crisp and fresh as though it was recorded yesterday. The themes are as relevant today as when first broadcast.
I identify with No 6. A roll model and expression of my own existence.
While it may not be what McGoohan meant or intended, I was left with the impression that (John Drake) realized that there was no escape from the life he chose for himself. A prisoner of his own choices. And that the conclusion Fall Out established that this was all just a fever dream. He could never leave.
Watched the Prisoner back in the 1960's and watching it play out now for real. This analysis was very well done - maybe the best I have seen.
Any conversation with a Villager is uncertain. The Villager telling no. 6 they wish to stay could be planted by the Masters to seed that idea. They could believe you are a guard, and refuse to incriminate themselves.
I liked the no. 2's. Every no. 2 had their own approach to coercion, their own flairs and flaws.
The beauty of The Prisoner is that each time you watch an episode, you can draw different conclusions based on any number of factors that you've encountered in life to that point. I first saw The Prisoner as a kid back in the 70's, odd, weird, but I kept watching it every week, as I got older and The Prisoner would air again on tv, I'd watch it again, then with the advent of vcr's, I could watch it whenever I wanted. Each time, a new a-ha moment, or a tie-in to something else I learned about. Even now a few decades later I still enjoy watching it, only now there's more cynicism with regard to the establishment trying to keep you down. Sometimes I wonder if The Prisoner is in part responsible for my 'question authority' streak and always on the look out for 'the catch'.
A movie I truly liked was Circle of Iron, the ending might give light to what Prisioner and its ending was trying to tell us, where the anwser lies and how the path to it maintains thr journey rather than destination.
This is an excellent review. It is a testimony to the (disturbing) brilliance of this series that it remains such an icon in television history. Thank you for creating this.
I enjoyed revisiting this memory - I watched the series as a 12 year old back in 1968. It was edgy and mystifying. Reading my first Orwell a couple of years later I could go back and begin interpreting The Prisoner's layers of meaning. The absurdist Monty Python arrived on my childhood black & white TV (3 channels in those days!) a year later. These are a handful of TV masterpieces form 50 years ago that are remarakably watchable today and still remain contemporary social comment.
I’ve actually visited the Prisoner location in Portmerion in North Wales here in the U.K. where it was filmed and given the experience of Covid, this film was clearly way ahead of its time - going around the various buildings and houses of Portmerion one does get a sense of how strange, weird and creepy it really is and yet, the Welsh people actually live in these houses everyday
Well, well, well, someone made video on The prisoner in 2024. Myself, only by a chance, have discovered the series this year, watching an interview with Bentley Hart. It was stunning to see how modern, the series was for its time, and still is.
I got so caught up in this series back in the day, it has haunted me. So much of it has and is going on in the world. I couldn't pass up getting more info on it. Great video
Dec 3, 2024 - Thank you for what I felt was your comprehensive multifaceted analysis of undoubtably a significant television program. It was driven by a man of vision who also starred: Patrick McGoohan. My idea from watching the series probably 30 times is a warning: Don’t let Society take away your identity. Continue to be individualistic… Think for yourself. Be yourself.
Thank you again for an insightful analysis and review. The answer to “Be seeing you!” is simply: “… and you!” with a smile added.
Yeah. I don't know how things go where you are, but when I go to the doctor, its full names, date of birth, address and phone number. I have a driver's licence, a title to my property, all sorts of records on me. So, how to stay as an individual?
@ Great question! From my own experience my mother did not have a drivers license. I think the only ID she had was Social Security number.
I rewatch the episodes frequently, and I always seem to find new things or ideas in them. This show is totally relevant in today’s world. Social media has become The Village; a place that’s comforting on the outside, but a trap on the inside.
Kind of funny. Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, and yes, The Prisoner were the reasons why I chose Intelligence for my career specialty when I joined the military so many decades ago. An odd choice but not really I suppose since I come from a military family with a long history.
It was the height of the Cold War and the world was far more grey than people realized (even now). When you joined the game you learned you couldn't fully trust any side. Everybody lies. Like the show, you were always trying to puzzle out the truth of what was being told to you.
"Be seeing You."
I'm curious if you found the career rewarding/fulfilling, especially to your traits of mind/intellect that drew you towards it?
I knew (also from media) that the game was rigged. I’ve tried hard to stay out of it, but it’s so hard without being a hermit.
There is no side , only competing departments , that work to reinforce the plot , and the real CEO never makes the evening edition. It keeps people in the village happy with their servitude.
What a fabulous analysis - thanks. I have long enjoyed and recommended The Prisoner - I will now also include your analysis!
I haven't seen this but it heavily reminds me of "We Happy Few", a game with a similar premise and theme. They both also draw from this tendency in British Society to "Keep Calm and Don't Rock the Boat".
We Happy Few is a great dystopia trapped in a so-so game. Story-wise, I thought it was a fascinating twist on the genre. Especially how the fall of the city doesn't come from any kind of deliberate organized rebellion, but through individual mistakes and low-information decisions causing knock-on effects that breed systemic instability.
And yes, WHF was undoubtedly inspired by the Prisoner, at least a bit. The idea of using Simon Says as a method of social control absolutely sounds like something McGoohan might have cooked up.
What’s missing in the analysis is the “British Perspective” as the analysis here is from a North American one, a differently stratified and motivated society. Pre-war Great Britain, and up to larger scale immigration beginning late 70’s and on was a very stratified social order with distinct classes who “knew their station in life.” There is great comfort in knowing your station and not needing to break out of it. From progressive America’s perspective pursuit of the “American Dream” is also it’s downfall, because each layer wants to achieve a new layer (to be better/ more successful than your father/mother) and so it’s either a life of constant struggle with no end to measure success , or one of perceived constant failure, rather than one of a stable harmonic rhythm. Work hard, be loyal and be protected, get a good meal and a shag, caravan holiday by the seaside, drink at the pub, sing some war songs, shake salt on your crisps, grow old, grow a garden in your council plot and then pass away surrounded by family who thought you lead a good life. I am Canadian in my 60’s (who was an outside observer of certain lower levels of Welsh mining village culture in the 70’s) but I believe that most Brits secretly disdained of the advances of modern American society. The Prisoner both fascinated Brits and made them feel uncomfortable. Should we be breaking free and asserting our individuality, or could we be happier blissfully and purposefully accepting our roles in an orderly society and station in life?
I really got a lot out of this. Great job!
What I like about the village is what you mentioned in the beginning. It's a peaceful, quaint and appealing town on the surface, but you can sense an underlying evil to it.
2:45 Rumpole of the Village?
Leo McKern was a wonderful actor.
The Prisoner is IMHO one of the finest television series ever made.
It is a genius work of art that brings together adventure, social commentary, whimsicality, philosophy and all with a prophetic edge to it.
Questions are a burden to others, answers a prison for oneself
This is great! Working my way through your backlog, this is amazing.
If you ever have a hankering to talk about Children's Post Apocalypse stories, I humbly suggest contrasting the film Solarbabies (1986), Tomes and Talismans (also 1986) a limited series meant to educate children about the library system, and The Tribe (1999), a New Zealander Post Apocalyptic Cyberpunk children's soap opera that ran for 5 seasons.
I remember watching this with my mom when I was a kid , didn't understand it then , but the bouncing ball thing gave me nightmares for years ! 🤣🤣🤣
This was a very well done presentation in terms of concision and sequence, and helped me appreciate the series which was initially very intriguing but became quite a bit tediously reiterative.
Aw yeah, my favourite speculative fiction analyzing mountain anarch covering my favourite espionage-themed theatre of the subconscious. There's an interview Patrick McGoohan did for Canadian public access TV (if memory serves) that really illuminates his line of thought behind the show, and his personality in general. It's the latter which feeds my current reading of the Prisoner. Interpreting it as social commentary is valid, it's the way the work was intended to be received, but there's plenty of artistic reaction to the pressures of oversocialized modernity. But there's only ever going to be one Patrick McGoohan. For me, the Prisoner plays out as pure autobiography. He was *the* Secret Agent Man after all, and the Prisoner is the sort of recontextualized, lumbering beast that results when mainstream spy thriller tropes are run through the gauntlet of Patrick McGoohan's resentment towards the constraints and expectstions of that role. I was told once that McGoohan was considered for the role of James Bond but he turned it down because the Bond character was morally distasteful. The Prisoner really benefitted from the South Park expedient writing. Especially towards the end, it is an auteur dredging from his Lynchian subconscious. McGoohan strikes me as a 19th century reactionary who had the misfortune of being born a century too late, and filtering his values through a modernist 20th century lens. I know he would have loved to see what the 21st is like. Imagine explaining to him what Tinder is, let alone the recent medical-related totalism...
You should make a grand Playlist on your channel for all your analyses videos. I tend to watch a few at once, when a new one is released, and it would be more convenient. I expect I'm not the only one.
There used to be a "Play All" option on peoples' home YT page which would essentially do that. However the YT overseers, in their great wisdom, appear to have removed that feature in recent months. Anyway, thanks for another great vid!
I've never heard of this one, now I've got a show to track down this weekend.
Amazon Prime has it. Or did last month when I finally got around to watching it, spurred on by a couple of McGoohan's appearances on _Colombo._
I'm watching it for free on Tubi (I have a Roku TV)
Allegory within allegory within alllegory. My favourite program, and a coomercial failure to some. It was, and is, the only tv show that required the viewer to THINK whilst watching, and every viewing reveals a different perspective, questioning our own perspectives. Brilliant, in every way, and strangely, not dated at all. Magnificent, and not for the passive viewer - you had to make an effort to watch and be absorbed.
Shout! Studios YT channel plays the Prisoner, literally playing Many Happy Returns on a livestream right now. My favorite episode.
RUclips teased me with this and an Oculus Imperia video side by side. I had to flip a coin 😎
Awesome work Feral and thanks for pushing out such awesome content! One of these days I do want to be a Patron when finances allow 🤘
I liked the surrealism of the Village. There are rules, but the rules are malleable and never truly consistent. The Village has shops and stores and services but its not clear how anyone earns anything. The Village will try to get you through various angles, but very rarely overt violent coercion. Village events and festivals appear as needed. Large parts of the Village serve no real purpose, or hide a true purpose. The people of the Village fall into unclear categories of prisoners, guards, menial staff etc where a persons role is unclear. Some people are too without purpose, their secrets or usefulness already absorbed by the Village until they are simply stored.
Another excellent analysis of an old favorite. Well done, sir!
I think a key issue of the underlying dilemma is - in my view - the need for rules and conformity with them for security and prosperity. Without those rules and conformity to them, the individual gets outcompeted by those who conform. There is a choice, but a false one since noone can afford to go alone against society.
I'm glad you covered this show, it get's so little attention on youtube.
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!"
Words feared by any authoritarian movement, doesn't matter the economic system.
Edit: Only became aware of this series because of Ricardo Montebalm's "Golden Age of Video"
Edit: Yeah, becoming tired of everything being "Liberal's fault," when modern Liberalism is nothing more than Conservatism that wants to still be invited to the parties with interesting people.
You remind me of a friend of mine, Rick Partlow. He's a Sci Fi writer and all around good dude and smart guy. He moved from Central Florida to Wyoming not long ago. Keep up the fantastic work, sir!
I wonder if Feral Historian will do "Master and Margarita" in the future. Aside from being a modern classic, it covers the Stalinist iteration of pathologizing dissent.
I found your channel last week with your essay of why you think the Serenity ending was too optimistic for these times. Today there's an essay about one of the greatest TV shows ever. Are you kidding me? 😊 I've only ever watched The Prisoner in the OG broadcast order and was wondering about the other ways of watching the series. Think I'll try this now as it's about time for my yearly watch again. Great video, love the channel. Attending the Six of One convention is a bit of an experience, you really feel like you're in the Village.
My 50th birthday present was a trip to Port Merion
Pretty cool place!
My favourite interpretation of The Prisoner (if not necessarily the most correct one) was by Isaac Asimov, who contributed an essay to a big coffee-table book on the show which I think was printed fairly close to the original broadcast - but I lost it years ago and couldn't tell you more about the publication I'm afraid. He cheerfully refused to take the show seriously with its stripy jumpers and puttering about in Mini Mokes and instead of writing a considered reflection of democracy, conformity etc., he judged the show to be a celebration of failure. No. 6 keeps losing, keeps failing to escape, and that's what makes it great, because everyone is a failure in life and because we all fail along with him we're all the hero of a big primetime television show ourselves. He ended the essay by remarking that he read it out to his daughter for her feedback, and she mentioned that if the essay was published and successful then Asimov wouldn't be a failure. Asimov replied, "ah, but in failing to be a failure I'm the biggest failure of them all"
Strange... in the town where I live, more and more people have developed the habit of saying, _"be seeing you"._ This started during the pandemic 'lockdowns'.
We all rewatched the series in lockdown. Tiger King, The Prisoner, The Prisoner remake, and Dr Who.
I found fascinating similarities between number 6 journey and the knight Lancelot, main character of Soviet fantasy movie "To Kill a Dragon" made in 1988. Both are strong individuals that got trapped in the village under totalitarian control with compliant populace that feels indifferent to the protagonist goal of dismantling the system, with some trying to stop him. But while "The Prisioner" ends with number 6 successful rebellion that destroyed the village and led him and his accomplices back to freedom, "To Kill a Dragon" focus more on the aftermath - that despite destroying figurehead of the oppressive order it would quickly be replaced by softer yet still the same one in nature, as the other seen option for society is complete anarchy. And even if Lancelot will take power to lead people out of this deterministic fate, he will eventually end up doing the same things that did previous oppressors.
Highly recommend to watch the movie yourself - to me at least it's a good example of anti-totalitarian fiction from people that actually experienced it, not form western observers that heard or read about the topic. Not sure if there were any dub of this classic in English, only know that there is a sub version on RUclips
A crucial part of my growing up. Something so uniquely of its time and yet it still speaks to me more loudly than anything in the media today.
Great show, though #6 really should have been more wary of the drinks offered to him since they almost always knocked him out.
He was just a man thirsting for a drink lol
On the one hand, it was their go-to method for inducing unconsciousness. On the other, if they wanted to drug him (or beat him) unconscious, there's not a whole lot he could do to stop them.
Thank you so very much for all of these videos; on every subject you manage to present some new insight that even I, at 60, failed to notice.
Thanks for the video. It was very stimulating.
I very much enjoyed watching. I was a boy when this program was on and I enjoyed it then. Now at the age of 71, I see things different.Love and peace. Tim
I have heard so much about this show but never watched it. Being a little boy at the time, the Avengers was more my speed ( Emma Peele was my first crush!) I really need to watch this show.
My fav series of all time. I first saw it as a kid staying up late at night, no idea what it meant but even 8 year old me could tell there was real meaningful depth that was still beyond my comprehension.
Thay rant in the interview near the end is so fucking based.
Channel is growing nicely and we're gifted a 25 minute video on Friday? My man, you produce my favourite content on youtube.
He EVEN...SAID..."BE SEEING YOU!"...TWICE IN ONE OF HIS COLUMBO EPISODES...WHERE HE WAS THE MURDERER... :)))
My favorite episode was 'Many Happy Returns'. Guy makes it back. Convinces everyone of the conspiracy. Finds the island with the village. "Be seeing you..."
There's a scene in Babylon Five where Bester says "Be seeing you" with the hand gesture... :)
And then he became Longshanks in 'Braveheart'
Great video. Thank you for making it. I have a lot of memories of this show.
Patrick McGoohan was an "odd duck". If you look at his film oeuvre, he made interesting choices, which I believe coincided with his character. He turned down the role of James Bond for "moral" (or aesthetic) reasons. I have always regarded The Prisoner as his greatest and most self-revelatory work. (And the miniseries was an abomination!)
One gets the impression that Number Six is the most important person in The Village, but why are all those other people there, and who are the occasional victims of Rover? In ways, it is reminiscent of the "retirement home" in The Borgia Stick, where failed mobsters are taken, to be lobotomized, a terrifying alternative to being whacked.
And then, there's Rumpole showing up. Repeatedly.
“A slave cannot be freed, save he do it himself. Nor can you enslave a free man; the very most you can do is kill him!”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star
Oh well half dozen of the Other, one might say.
But I have the DVD set, so perhaps another seventeen?
I saw the Village as a place to also store people who have given up their secret, or fulfilled the job the Village needed. People who know too much can't leave. A bunch of people are menial staff, they do the custodial or administrative or security work. Many are just held indefinitely in the Village limbo.
I always thought number 6 was the most important because he kept resisting, everyone else folded immediately
@@keithmichael112 We don't really get to know them. I assumed many of the people stored in the Village weren't new. We don't get to know how many years the Village had to work on them.
We get to meet a few people who are new arrivals, like no. 6.
That is one heck of an analysis, not seen one so intense in forever. Great The Prisoner is still being unwrapped. Love you commentary style too - do you do it from an auto queue or memory. Either way, it's a solid delivery.
Never heard of this show gotta put it on the watch list