From the 1967 BBC television series, ‘The Prisoner‘

Patrick McGoohan‘s influential opus, ‘The Prisoner’ does not thrive on mainstream popularity, but it is most certainly essential to the vernacular of science fiction and fantasy as cultural idioms.

During the early 1990’s, ‘Twin Peaks‘ was reshaping television by introducing surrealism on prime time, through a tale of mystery and intrigue. This is the same general appeal I found in ‘The Prisoner’, which utilizes the secretive world of Cold War espionage, to introduce larger ideas through representational imagery, an allegory. Visually striking and highly unusual to find such fare on the television set, I froze in my tracks as I happened upon the bizarre realm of The Village.

PBS affiliate, KUHT in Houston, programmed the series for a few months at 10 pm on Friday nights. PBS is/was home to lots of top notch British programming: Absolutely Fabulous, Are You Being Served?, Fawlty Towers, Keeping Up Appearances…

Of course, being PBS, there were no station breaks, no commercials and therefore no bumpers to identify the program. The listing in the local program guide was incorrect which was not uncommon. I had no immediate way to identify the enigmatic show, which of course added allure.

There are seven main parts to the program although seventeen episodes were produced in total for sale to the lucrative television market in the United States. These seven parts are critical as episodes originally conceived by Mr. McGoohan to convey the story, themes and ideas. Absolutely essential science fiction.