The Red Circle

By Ryan Brlecic

As we ease into the fact that a new prisoner is set to plan his escape, we wanted to take a quick look back on the original “Free Man”.

The Prisoner is a 17-episode British television series broadcast in the UK from 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968. Starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan, it combined spy fiction with elements of science fiction, allegory, and psychological drama.

The series follows a British former secret agent who is held prisoner in a mysterious seaside village where his captors try to find out why he abruptly resigned from his job. Although sold as a thriller in the mold of McGoohan’s previous series, Danger Man (called Secret Agent in its U.S. release), the show’s combination of 1960s counter-cultural themes and surreal setting had a far-reaching effect on science fiction/fantasy programming, and on popular culture in general.

I will go out and declare this show literally the best thing the medium of television has ever produced. So much so that it makes perfect ironic sense that so few even know of it or rather of it’s star Patrick McGoohan. The Prisoner first came up for me in a clip show celebrating old greats of SciFi and Fantasy on television; those couple of quick scenes formulated into a need to find more. As luck would have it, the A&E Network had just begun reruns teaming The Prisoner with The Avengers. Needless to say I watched every episode and then after buying the mega set the network subsequently released, I re-watched every episode.

Even today, I still find the occasional surprise or begin to look at the plot/message of an episode in a new way. McGoohan created a show that evolved television, evolved your way of thinking, and evolved as a message the more you watched it. To say the series had depth would almost amount to an understatement. From the moment the music plays over the film like title sequence (so uniquely packed with symbolism, to be expanded upon in a future post) you are enthralled in one man’s struggle. A struggle that as the series goes on becomes clear is a struggle we are all in, but to realize this we must first acknowledge our own personal village.

McGoohan’s statement was simple, “No”. It was the inflection that counted. Never before and sadly never again will you hear a man possess that kind of conviction and tone while uttering that word. It was the same for the famous phrase, “I am not a number, I am a free man.” He found a way to say it not just as an actor and not even as a man just expressing conviction, but as a man so sure of the power and truth of his words that not even God could tell him otherwise.

The message was also simple – there was no definite message. You just had to accept it. When Lost ends there will be people who swear they saw the ending coming the whole time. Those people will be the same ones who thought Twin Peaks had a point. Both of those shows, albeit watchable, are in my humble opinion good for nothing but blowing smoke up one’s arse. Both shows also owe their existence to the ground The Prisoner tread decades before. McGoohan famously denied an ultimate answer to his masterpiece and often served the statement that there could be a 1,000 people with a 1,000 different interpretations; that if anything was the point.

It is my opinion that the village is a metaphor for what is trying to destroy the individual by every means possible; trying to break our spirit. We are own jailer and thus our own prisoner. The penny farthing (Editor’s Note: The penny-farthing is an old time bicycle that serves as The Villages unofficial symbol) represents to me, that the big wheel (that which tries to force us to submit and not question) would cease to function if the small wheel (you and I) simply said “No”. We allow ourselves today to limit our options and be prisoners even while seeing ourselves as the ultimate rebel. When you get to the end of the series, when the questions simply beget more questions, and “All you need is love” by The Beatles blares it becomes obvious at least to me, that “you are number six”.

Be Seeing You.

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