Arrival

"I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!"

And so begins "the Prisoner", a pilot episode that hits the ground at full speed, the unnamed secret agent furiously slamming down his resignation and storming off - only to be gassed and awakened in a cheerily conformist seaside resort. And it never really slows down; this is bursting at the seams with plot and setup, infused with a primal energy as Number Six (Patrick McGoohan, stripped of individuality) saunters, paces and seethes with contempt. Who exactly did he work for, and why was his exit so bitter? Who runs the Village? What happens if he gives up their so-coveted information?

And what a peculiar place this is, as mystifying as it is idyllic, menacingly patrolled by a weather balloon. The world-building that goes on here is fantastic.

It's no wonder this show was a hit; it practically dares yo not to tune in next week.

9/10

Patrick McGoohan plays Number Six. We don't know his real name, just that he is high profile spy who has chosen to "resign." Whatever the reason, he is drugged and placed in a kind of Club Med resort area which is actually a prison. There is a control center where Number Two watches over him with his cohorts. Being kind of a James Bond type, Number Six does what he can to escape but is unable to break the barriers. Everything is local and any conveyance for getting beyond the property is under the thumb of the authorities. We don't know their true motives, other than they want to know why he retired. He does everything any self-respecting Type A personality would do. He wrecks things, runs away, abuses people, but to no avail. The perimeter is patrolled by a gigantic white beach ball that has deadly capabilities. At one point he is captured by the thing and ends up in the hospital where he meets up with a former colleague. We are introduced to the participants in this drama which only ran for a single season. I watched it faithfully in the sixties and am excited to have another look.

First episode of the classic British series that stars Patrick McGoohan as a mysterious British secret agent who, as the opening credits show, angrily resigns from service for undisclosed reasons, but it because of those reasons that he finds himself knocked out by a gas, then taken to a remote and regimented place called the village, where he is told by number two(who can change without notice...) no one has names, but numbers, and he is assigned the number six, which he utterly rejects, and vows to escape from this "prison", but that will prove to be most difficult indeed... Solid way to begin the series establishes "Six" quite well indeed, with fine acting and atmosphere throughout, creating true viewer interest in what this is all about.

Playing suave, efficient British intelligence operative John Drake, Patrick McGoohan rose to international fame in "Danger Man" (dubbed "Secret Agent" in the United States), the most realistic espionage television series of the spy-crazed 1960s, far more John le Carre than Ian Fleming even if McGoohan had been offered the role of James Bond in "Dr. No." (Obviously, he refused.)

However, McGoohan tired of the ultimately formula role and turned to creating a new approach to what was to him still a fascinating subject, the spy trade, particularly as the Cold War was still in full swing when his new series, "The Prisoner," premiered in the UK in 1967. With its 17 episodes in total, "The Prisoner" was really an extended miniseries and not intended to be a story in perpetuity, but even this relative handful of episodes remains provocative and controversial.

Indeed, debate still rages over whether McGoohan's protagonist in "The Prisoner" is simply John Drake from "Danger Man" (although one "Danger Man" episode, the chilling "Colony Three," does presage the concept behind "The Prisoner"); there is even contention about the "correct" running order of the episodes. However, there is no dispute that "Arrival," written by series' script editor George Markstein and David Tomblin, is the premiere of the premier television spy drama "The Prisoner."

Amidst the fanfare of Ron Grainer's stirring theme music, the expository tableau of how "The Prisoner" came to be that emerges: McGoohan drives to a London office complex, angrily pounds his resignation letter into the desk of a silent, impassive man (Markstein), then drives to his stylish townhouse, where dapper operatives tailing him apply knockout gas and disappear him. (An abridged version of this tableau became the visual component to the intro for almost all subsequent episodes.)

McGoohan awakes in "the Village," a bucolic seaside hamlet ringed by forest and hills ("The Prisoner" was filmed at the Italianate tourist village of Portmeirion, Wales), and quickly discovers that none of the villagers, including himself, are addressed by name, only by a number; his is Number Six, and when he meets village chieftain Number Two (Guy Doleman), you're not paying attention if you don't realize that Number Six must be a very big fish.

In fact, Number Two acknowledges that he has sensitive knowledge that makes him very valuable to other powers, which is why they want to know why he resigned. But who are "they"? Which side is running the Village? Number Six gleans that many of the residents at some point became a liability or a danger similar to him--but for whom were they working?

Following an escape attempt that lands him in the hospital, a result of running afoul of "Rover," the surreal white globes that police the Village, he sees an old colleague, Cobb (Paul Eddington), drugged or delirious, who soon jumps out the window. At his funeral, Number Six meets his lover (Virginia Maskell), who offers him an "Electropass," a device that would enable him to operate the Village helicopter, seemingly the only way out of town. But can she be trusted? Can the fetching maid (Stephanie Randall) cleaning his quarters and laying a sob story on him be believed? Why is there suddenly a new Number Two (George Baker) running the Village? And who is the silent, diminutive Butler (Angelo Muscat) gliding along the periphery? But as Number Six sees written on the wall of the labor exchange, "Questions are a burden to others; answers, a prison for oneself."

Apart from period furniture and fixtures, "The Prisoner" has dated very little because instead of focusing on Cold War mechanics, it delved into the psychology driving it, motives and ambitions and fears and betrayals inherent in human society that are timeless. And it all begins with "Arrival."

For many years I was looking forward to see this great action series filled with fantasy and all these difficult different things I don't know your pussy cat ya no not a pussy gets yeah so anyway and then I'll see that I buy for my sweetheart and then all of a sudden it turns out to be such a stupid first Siri at first episode of the series and then of course you wonder if it's so silly and most silly over. Is everything the islands the behavior that the costumes the music or the lack of it and then especially those dangerous right balloons that are going up and down all the time and then during the people who try to escape and all these crazy things it's really not good and because of this you don't really want to see the rest of the series but then again the series is famous of being such a good series so definitely you will see it but you will it still a little bit it's like South Park the game is really not that good or not that great but the series is marvellous and the same thing with these are supposed to first episode really is not that good now but it wasn't those days of course when people didn't know so much about the Illuminati and the money hungry wolves of Hollywood but then again this is all how it goes and how it is by the way this is not Hollywood this is the UK but then again the media is all one big same thing look at The DaVinci code it says it right away and what can we say what can we do it's the way it is of course you need to be seen movies a bit more often to be able to come to this conclusion and if you come to the conclusion that you can only come to the same conclusion that life sucks it's not good and if you come to the conclusion that you get either incredibly paranoid or you live by yourself if you live by yourself you can see and choose the movies by yourself the ones you want to see and same thing with serious like this beautiful The prisoner which is actually beautiful series only the first episode wasn't so great but the ID is okay only the ID has been complicated and Storm by many and maybe this was the first time you don't know it but we shall see it in the future in sha Allah Allahu Akbar as Muslims we didn't like the first episode that we would like the rest inshallah