Fantasy                 Aired (in the US): 1968  Primary Characters Number Six -- A British spy who resigns, is kidnapped and awakens in "The Village."  Number Two -- The Village leader assigned to the task of breaking Number Six.  Premise Old spies never resign -- they just end up in The Village!  Number Six wants to know who runs this place, whose side they're on, and where "here" is, but no one's talking.  All they will reveal is that they want information -- to wit, why did he resign?  But Number Six isn't talking either.  Determined to escape, he flummoxes his captors time after time with enigmatic behaviors that ultimately bring the series to a thoroughly bizarre conclusion.  Possibly the only piece of pure existential fantasy ever produced for television, The Prisoner was a fascinating study on perseverant individuality in a non-individualistic world. Are we really in control of our lives?  Do we have any influence over our own destinies?  Though The Prisoner posed these and many other fundamental questions, it demurred (to the aggravation of many) to answer any of them.  "The answer," it seemed to say, "is that there is no answer."

 

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