[Satori]

The Prisoner? Oh, it's mandatory. I've seen them all and used to have them on tape. You could probably torrent them. It was a takeoff on the old Secret Agent series, this time featuring Patrick McGoohan as a retired spy... who wasn't permitted to retire. As he was preparing to embark on his retirement, agents gassed him unconscious and he woke up in an exact replica of his house... but outside, things were very different. He found himself among a society of people engaged in vapid, trivial activities in a place named, generically, "The Village"... an oversimplified model of society as seen today, with gaudy fashions and other tawdry attempts to appeal to the people of the Village and elicit their acceptance to this bizarre status quo. Unseen masters controlled every aspect of societal behavior, monitoring everywhere throughout the Village through constant surveillance and even into people's homes, and nobody had a single thought about where The Village was, how to leave it, or why they should. Escape, it seemed, was impossible, and McGoohan's character learned that the others there were also former agents. Everyone has a designated number ("No names are used here...") which McGoohan's character refuses to use. The leader of the Village, or rather Number Two, constantly attempts to get break him by getting him to answer one simple question... Why did he resign? Was it to defect to the other side? McGoohan's character is unable even to ascertain which side is running the Village. In every episode, those in control make some new attempt to break the Prisoner, and in every episode he attempts to thwart their agenda and escape. Every failure on the part of Number Two leads to a new Number Two in the next episode... we can only wonder what becomes of a Number Two who cannot break the Prisoner with the resources of the Village at his or her disposal.

It's a fascinating series. The local library here has some episodes on DVD; you might also want to check yours, or even your nearby video stores.


- Satori