Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
34 years on The Prisoner's arrival still entertains, 21 Jun 2001
By A Customer
34 years ago Patrick Mcgoohan woke up in the picturesque, but slightly odd, Village. A place that still captures the imagination today, a self contained "nanny state" where retired spies are sent because of what they know. The dramatic opening sequence of "Arrival" sets the tone of the series, a pacy, witty and sometimes sinister account of No.6's constant bid to escape from his new home. The brainchild of McGoohan, the series keeps the watcher guessing all the way through, with weired and wonderful characters such as the ever changing face and personalities of No.2, the Village Chairman, to the outright ludicrous "Rover" balloon that patrols the beach to stop No.6's many attempts at escape. Discussions about the dark political undertones that run under the colourful and exciting surface of the programmes continue today (summed up in the defiant catchphrase of the series: "I am not a number - I'm a free man!!"), but political undertone or not the show is a fresh idea that has yet to be matched for originallity and style. That is why, 34 years on, the filming, stories and characters still entertain, and McGoohan's broody hero still stirs the imagination of a million big kids who wish they had their own "Rover" balloon and a convertible Lotus kit-car to scream around the streets of London in. I loved the series when I first saw it, many years ago. I recently got visit The Villiage in North Wales. The trip rekindled the memories of watching the show as a kid and I was encouraged to purchase the videos. The fact that there are only 17 episodes makes the programme even more special. The idea was not spoiled by countless seasons, which is one of the reasons it still seems so fresh and inspired today.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Great Final Episode - shame about the companion, 8 Nov 2001
By A Customer
Fallout is, of course, the final payoff to the series, and one which completely baffled many viewers when it was first shown. (It seems that very few people realised that the identity of No. 1 had been announced at the start of every episode, brilliantly concealed by a slight shift in vocal tone). Although the series - first intended to run for just 7 episodes, then 26 - was finally cut short at 17, this does not mean that Fallout is some kind of off-the-cuff lash-up. On the contrary, it makes perfect sense in the context of the series as a whole and the way that we finally leave the protagonists - McGoohan, McKern, "The Kid" (Alexis Kanner) and the Butler (Angelo Muscat) - each provides a neat and tidy conclusion which explains McGoohan's views on "youth culture" (very big in the '60s was 'yoof culcher'), government, the place of the individual and ... you can probably figure out the butler's role for yourself. So much for the good news. The bad news is that the additional material - apparently a US TV proramme based on White and Ali's book: The Official Prisoner Companion" - is amateurish in presentation, fragmentary and basically not worth it's place on the tape. The only programme I've seen that was worse than this was a set of short clips from the series which purported to explain what the whole series was about.< | |
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