# The Prisoner (1967)

> A secret agent who resigns is abducted to an idyllic yet sinister village and fights to escape its pitiless captors.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/843

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 17
- Episode runtime: 60 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, science fiction, mystery
- Created by: Patrick McGoohan, George Markstein
- Network: ITV1
- Cast: Patrick McGoohan, Peter Swanwick, Fenella Fielding, Colin Gordon, Leo McKern, Derren Nesbitt, Eric Portman, Ronald Radd
- TMDB rating: 8.4/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061287/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: labyrinthine
- Violence: mild
- Tone: paranoid, surreal, cerebral, menacing, defiant

## What critics say

Widely acclaimed as a cult classic for its surreal allegorical paranoia, with audiences praising its ambition and McGoohan's performance.

## Synopsis

The Prisoner (1967-1968) is a British cult television series created by Patrick McGoohan and George Markstein for ITV1. After resigning from his secret service post, a spy known only as Number Six (Patrick McGoohan) wakes in a seemingly idyllic seaside village that is in truth a sealed, Kafkaesque prison. Each episode builds around his stubborn refusal to surrender information to a rotating cast of warders, most memorably the shifting Number Two figures (Colin Gordon, Leo McKern, Eric Portman) and the unseen authority behind them, while he schemes repeatedly to break free. The engine of the series is a battle of wills: a man who insists he is not a number against a system that wants to reduce him to one. Its single season of seventeen episodes is a self-contained run in which the Village's rules stay deliberately opaque. Set in a cold war era Britain-tinged fantasy of control, the series is built on dread, surreal imagery, and sly, cerebral humour, with a dreamlike unease that rewards close attention. Fans of The Twilight Zone, Twin Peaks and Brazil will find resonance in its allegorical paranoia and its suspicion of institutional power.

## Shows like The Prisoner

- [The Last Enemy (2008)](https://ember.film/tv/6606)
- [The Prisoner (2009)](https://ember.film/tv/28848)
- [Counterpart (2017)](https://ember.film/tv/56474)
- [The Champions (1968)](https://ember.film/tv/4358)
- [The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964)](https://ember.film/tv/193)
- [UFO (1970)](https://ember.film/tv/2433)
- [The Fugitive (1963)](https://ember.film/tv/9364)
- [Danger Man (1960)](https://ember.film/tv/1381)
- [Sapphire & Steel (1979)](https://ember.film/tv/2562)
- [Thunderbirds (1965)](https://ember.film/tv/840)

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