Jan 14 2009
Patrick McGoohan, 1928-2009
The entertainment world has lost another giant. Actor/director/creator/all-around brilliant man Patrick McGoohan might have enjoyed his highest visibility in America as King Edward I (Longshanks) in Mel Gibson’s 1995 award-winning period epic Braveheart, but die-hard fans will always remember him for the fantastic 1967 television series “The Prisoner”. McGoohan passed away on Tuesday, January 13, 2009, after a short illness.
To be sure, McGoohan’s done tons of other great work that should secure his place in our collective memory: the oily villain of the crowd-pleasing genre-blender Silver Streak; the rugged main character in the terrific spy TV series “Danger Man” (a.k.a. “Secret Agent”); the warden in Escape from Alcatraz; and the nefarious doctor in David Cronenberg’s sci-fi brain-burster, Scanners.
But “The Prisoner” — which McGoohan created, starred in, and often wrote and directed — was a seventeen-episode masterpiece of the television medium, and one that defied easy categorization to boot. It focused on a top-ranking British secret agent who retired from service, only to find himself gassed and transplanted onto a beautiful yet inescapable island called “The Village.” The show’s drama was largely based on the attempts of the spy (who’s given the dehumanizing label of “Number 6″ by his captors) to escape the idyllic yet sinister prison and discover the identity of his captor. From those tensions, however, arose the true greatness of the program: its rich allegorical resonance in issues as wide-ranging as democracy, individuality, freedom, education, and scientific progress. “The Prisoner” was surreal, weird, intense, and comic, and it ended in one of the most thoroughly bonkers finales ever aired on TV.
Rest in peace, Mr. McGoohan. You were, indeed, never a number, but a free man.
