He was definitely not a number, but nor was he really a free man. To older readers, Patrick McGoohan, who has died aged 80 in Los Angeles after a short illness, was king of the British TV airwaves, initially as secret agent Danger Man – one of the first British TV productions to break America (largely thanks to the popularity of James Bond). He also had a few big-screen roles, in movies like Escape From Alactraz, Braveheart and David Cronenberg's Scanners. But McGoohan's finest moment, for which he deserves to be remembered as long as people are watching moving images on little boxes, was undoubtedly the Prisoner – the psychedelically experimental late-1960s series whose influence is still tangible, but whose vision was far too radical for its time.
Without the Prisoner, we'd never have had cryptic, mindbending TV series like Twin Peaks or Lost. It's the Citizen Kane of British TV – a programme that changed the landscape, and quite possibly destroyed its creator. Like Orson Welles with Kane, McGoohan was given the whole train set to play with on the Prisoner, and boy did he play with it. The title sequence was the only solid ground – we knew McGoohan had resigned, then been drugged and brought to "The Village". The rest was questions rather than answers – Where is "Number 6"? What's his real name? Why DID he resign? What was he resigning from? Who Is Number One? What ARE those white blobs bouncing along the beach?
But more than that, The Prisoner did audacious things with the very format of television. Like shooting one entire episode as a western – complete with atrocious "American" accents. Or substituting McGoohan with a different actor for an entire episode (the pretext was something to do with mind transferrence – in fact McGoohan was away shooting Ice Station Zebra). Or simply having a ball with spy movie conventions. My favourite bit is the episode The Girl Who Was Death, when McGoohan sips his pint in the pub to see the word "YOU" at the bottom of his glass. He sips a bit more to reveal the words "HAVE JUST", before draining the pint to read the last lines: "BEEN POISONED". How does he get out of this predicament? By drinking everything else in the bar until he throws up. Genius!
Or madness, from the point of view of ITV producer Lew Grade, who famously pulled the plug from McGoohan's train set halfway through, necessitating a botched together final episode and one of the most surreal and least conclusive series conclusions of all time (what was that bit with all the jukeboxes playing "All You Need Is Love" about?).
What might have happened had McGoohan been making The Prisoner today? Funnily enough, we'll get a chance to find out. There's a new version of the series due to screen on ITV later this year, starring James "Jesus" Caviezel as Number 6, and hopefully drawing out the series' prescient Guantanomo Bay parallels – did Cheney and Rumsfeld grow up watching the original, I wonder?
McGoohan never quite reached the heights of The Prisoner again, but he leaves behind a distinguished legacy, an iconic outfit, a devoted fan club, and a colourful tourist destination.
There's really only one way to say goodbye to McGoohan: Be seeing you.
I am at a loss for words..................
