The eighth TV show: #129 The Prisoner
Now I had seen this before, six or so years ago, out of curiousity about the series, and enjoyed it a lot. As one of those cultural touchstone series, it also felt like something that, if you were serious about tv, you had to have seen.
Peter hadn't yet, but wanted to for a while, and this was a good point to show it to him, and to give myself a chance to rewatch it.
It was good, for the most part. The series has some weird and dud episodes - the western episode, for example, didn't hold up, and felt like it was a late addition to the schedule to make up the episodes needed for the season. If this had gone beyond the seventeen episodes broadcast it would have made for a worse series.
Now, though, the show gave us a bunch of higher concept episodes than what is usual for the era and genre, with the village setting, the titular prisoner and two staff members of the village (one of them mute throughout the series). It focuses on a range of related topics, often surrounding individualism, the good of the group, anarcy and semi-psychological explorations. It's often interesting and off putting, as you can't really know what you get each week.
The ending of the show is perfect. A straight up resolution can't work, so Patrick McGoohan - the definite visionary behind the work - goes for insane, an allegorical tale that doesn't quite resolve things, and leaves you wondering. A show that I'm happy to have seen again.