FOXSYLVANIA

– – Way back in 1967, a surreal series debuted on television called The Prisoner which was part spy series and part sci-fi drama. The British cult hit   featured none less than Patrick McGoohan playing a character called  Six who was held captive in a bizarre place called The Village, a community led by a man called (- -what else?) Two. The ambiguous show was unlike anything else on television of the day, and while incomprehensible to many,  it went on to profoundly  influence television, music, comic books, and movies for decades to come; echoes of The Prisoner reverberated in an episode of The Fantastic Four, in the Twin Peaks series, and even in the comic book and movie of Watchmen, where Rorschach adopted the prisoner’s “Be seeing you” as his personal sign-off.

In the series, a man finds himself inexplicably trapped in The Village with no recollection of how he arrived.  His fellow inhabitants are identified by number rather than name, and are under constant surveillance.  Not knowing who to trust,  Six is driven by a need to understand The Village, his reason for his being there, and how he can escape.  You can read all kinds of things into it…

With Jim Caviezel in the lead role as Six and Ian McKellen as Two, The Prisoner debuts this Sunday evening on the AMC channel…Be seeing you!