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July 12, 2011 11:43 AM   Subscribe

A shot-by-shot remake of the opening sequence of The Prisoner is the video the first song of seventeen planned tunes by Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, all based on episodes of the cult spy-fi series. You can compare the video and the sequence from the series by screenshot or with a picture-in-picture video. The Prisoner, previously, previouslier, still previouslier, previousliest.
posted by immlass (54 comments total) 43 users marked this as a favorite
 
KAR 120C!
posted by clavdivs at 11:49 AM on July 12, 2011


Oh, this looks entirely awesome. Thanks for posting it!

And congratulations on making a great first post to the Blue, too.
posted by zarq at 11:49 AM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]


In high school, I volunteered for the chem lab technician, and he once managed to finagle a TV for the large amount of downtime (we were authorized to wash equipment and distribute lab goggles and that's about it) and we put it in the stock room along with a few chairs. One of my fondest high school memories was hanging out there during lunch with the other volunteers, watching the Prisoner and playing Atari 2600. Which will always strike me as odd seeing as how I graduated high school in 2002.
posted by griphus at 11:50 AM on July 12, 2011 [4 favorites]


This just reminded me how fantastic Patrick McGoohan was.
posted by dubold at 11:50 AM on July 12, 2011 [3 favorites]


This made me very happy. Fuck yeah.
posted by everichon at 11:52 AM on July 12, 2011


You can compare the video and the sequence from the series by screenshot or with a picture-in-picture video

That won't be necessary, my brain is doing it just fine.
posted by theodolite at 11:53 AM on July 12, 2011 [6 favorites]


Not to derail too much, but is there an official explanation for why the Prisoner goes so far off the rails at the end of the series? I watched the whole series and I recall there was one episode near the end where it was set in the wild west for no reason at all. Then they made McGoohan a man-child in another really irritating episode and there's this bizarre free-association thing going on with #2 the whole time.
posted by Hoopo at 11:57 AM on July 12, 2011


Hoopo:

'From what I read, the last episode flipped out so many viewers on first run that McGoohan had to go into hiding for a few weeks. The problem was that the series was axed early, and they had a week to come up with a closing script.

The series mainly being allegorical, I'm with the camp that says the individual (6), despite any protests about individuality, is ultimately the lynchpin of society (1); it is impossible to function in a society without coming into conflict with it. In the end, all individuals are prisoners of society, and all conduct an ongoing war to maintain a separate identity.

God. What a geek I am... ~sigh~'
posted by Perigee at 9:07 AM on December 6, 2001
posted by clavdivs at 12:00 PM on July 12, 2011 [4 favorites]


Probably my favorite show of all time. I named my band after it.
posted by dobie at 12:00 PM on July 12, 2011


Having watched The Prisoner episodes back-to-back on VHS tapes in the library of the Museum of Broadcast Communications while working there, I'll say now what I said then: I want a damn Caterham.
posted by davejay at 12:01 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


but couldn't they have gotten an age-appropriate person behind the desk when she storms in, instead of one of the Beastie Boys a la Sabotage?
posted by davejay at 12:03 PM on July 12, 2011


Did anyone else watch it with the volume on mute?

Also: the only thing I think she missed in the opening credits is the slightly nauseous look McGoohan managed when he first wakes up on the bed in his room in the Village.
posted by wittgenstein at 12:04 PM on July 12, 2011


I'm watching this at work.

Thunder cracked just now as the "Arrival" title card appeared.

Awesome.
posted by grabbingsand at 12:09 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]


Probably my favorite show of all time. I named my band after it.

Your favorite band is #2
posted by Hoopo at 12:15 PM on July 12, 2011 [3 favorites]


I watched it twice to make sure the teacup shattered. And Hoopo, Living in Harmony is styled as a western because it's one of several episodes that take place as a coercive hallucination staged by the Village.
posted by milk white peacock at 12:23 PM on July 12, 2011


Living In Harmony was the first episode I saw. I must have been around 11 or 12. My Dad turned it on and just said "you should watch this." Talk about being thrown into the deep end.
posted by schoolgirl report at 12:31 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


Heh, I just finished rewatching The Prisoner. It holds up remarkably well.

Living in Harmony is styled as a western because it's one of several episodes that take place as a coercive hallucination staged by the Village.

Yes, it's basically a holodeck episode.

Once Upon A Time and Fall Out are still incomprehensible freak-outs, though.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:32 PM on July 12, 2011


I visited Portmeirion last year. Very odd feeling.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:36 PM on July 12, 2011


I watched it twice to make sure the teacup shattered.

I watched that moment on the split screen version a dozen times, that's the iconic moment for me. But it's not the teacup, it's the saucer that shatters when the teacup falls back down on it. I was disappointed, it looked like the saucer was already shattered. And besides, in that scene, she isn't nearly intense enough. I had forgotten how amazing McGoohan was in that series, and how much it affected me. The opening seems hardwired into my brain.
posted by charlie don't surf at 12:49 PM on July 12, 2011


I'd give the music a "gentleman's D".

But the incredible re-enactment of the opening sequence earns an "A-frickin-plus", man.
posted by darkstar at 1:11 PM on July 12, 2011


Did anyone else watch it with the volume on mute?

Sort of. I filled the audio 3 seconds after the vocal came on, and then decided it would be much more fun to just watch the original instead, since I like the music. One thing led to another, and I happened across this rather nice little homage/dance remix from 1990.
posted by anigbrowl at 1:17 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


I had a friend from out of state visiting recently, and his job booked him into a handicapped-accessible hotel room with motorized doors that sounded exactly like the ones from the show. Naturally, I spent half my visiting times pushing those big square brushed aluminum buttons.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"What?"

"Why are you so fucking fascinated with those doors?"

"The Prisoner, man. Jesus Christ, you were a stoner in the seventies. How the hell did you miss The Prisoner?"

"I dunno," he said, and shrugged, as if it was completely normal to have been an aimless stoner in the seventies and somehow not watched The Prisoner.

"Watch," I said, and pushed the button for the door to the hallway. Whirrrrr. "Look, I'm Angelo Muscat in the last scene!"

The door whirred shut, and I stood in the hallway, feeling enigmatic and short.

"Umm," I said, after a while, knocking softly. "It won't let me back in!"

"That's by design."

"Aww, c'mon."

"Say 'For the love of God, Montresor,'" my friend said, and the door whirred open.

"Well, at least you're literate. Still a dick, though."
posted by sonascope at 1:19 PM on July 12, 2011 [16 favorites]


It's interesting to consider The Prisoner in light of stuff like Lost and that Killing show, where there's a lot of outcry over the lack of answers combined with a lot of wheel-spinning on the part of creators or defenders on how some other metric besides answer-seeking should have been in play. I think those arguments are bunk in those cases, but The Prisoner is one case where it's correct. I think McGoohan projects a palpable boredom with the more concrete aspects of the premise or the factual reality of the story from very early on and flies off into goony gonzo territory very quickly, and the last few episodes are a giant deliberate middle finger to anyone expecting anything other than a giant middle finger to themselves.
posted by anazgnos at 1:24 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]


This just reminded me how fantastic Patrick McGoohan was.

There's a moment in the episode "A. B. and C." where McGoohan proves that he literally has more talent in the tip of his finger than many other performers have in their whole bodies. It involves him tapping absentmindedly on a key in just the exactly right fashion.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:30 PM on July 12, 2011


"The Prisoner, man. Jesus Christ, you were a stoner in the seventies. How the hell did you miss The Prisoner?"

"I dunno," he said, and shrugged, as if it was completely normal to have been an aimless stoner in the seventies and somehow not watched The Prisoner.


The correct response to this is: "UNMUTUAL!"

I think McGoohan projects a palpable boredom with the more concrete aspects of the premise...the last few episodes are a giant deliberate middle finger to anyone expecting anything other than a giant middle finger to themselves.

so meta!
posted by Hoopo at 1:31 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


Video +11
Song ... meh

Still though I loved the video.
posted by Poet_Lariat at 1:32 PM on July 12, 2011


I visited Portmeirion last year. Very odd feeling.

Looked out your window lately?
posted by Poet_Lariat at 1:35 PM on July 12, 2011


Been done.
posted by klangklangston at 1:36 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]




Having watched The Prisoner episodes back-to-back on VHS tapes in the library of the Museum of Broadcast Communications while working there, I'll say now what I said then: I want a damn Caterham.
posted by davejay at 19:01 on July 12 [+] [!]


Just to nitpick, I'm pretty certain that's a Lotus 7 in Prisoner, not a Caterham. Not that it changes your point, or my agreement...
posted by sodium lights the horizon at 2:00 PM on July 12, 2011


Hoopo: As far as I recall, McGoohan refused to comment on whether the conclusion had any deeper meaning or not, so there's no "official" interpretation. The circumstances were that the series was canceled mid-season with the contract cut short. So the standard critical interpretations are:

1) McGoohan crammed all the action spy-thriller scenes the network had demanded of him into a single nonsensical episode just to piss them off.
2) It's a psychoanalytical drama happening all in #6's imagination. Instead of breaking, he turns the tables and lashes out in a homocidal frenzy that puts him back where he started.
3) It's a political satire and McGoohan shoved all his remaining ideas about Cold War paranoia into a handful of episodes.

I see a lot of similarities between The Prisoner and Memoirs Found in a Bathtub which is based on the premise that a totalitarian security culture fosters a paranoia that everything is a potential loyalty test, interrogation, or coded message to be deciphered. But that's probably a case of two writers independently coming to the same ideas. I think they both have similar episodes in which escape is seen as yet another trap.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 2:04 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]


I should have said that the overlap between The Prisoner and Bathtub is almost certainly coincidence unless McGoohan just happened to have a friends reading Polish science fiction. Memoirs wasn't translated until '73. But then again, it wasn't exactly an uncommon theme for speculative fiction writers and filmmakers in the 60s and 70s. Beneath the Planet of the Apes had the bomb-worshipers for example.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 2:31 PM on July 12, 2011


When McGoohan walks through the corridor prior to the resignation he's got this spectacular look on his face like he's a cathedral short a hod and will crumble any second and the only thing keeping him going is rage. We would always say, "one eye's bigger than the other" because he's half-lidded there, just so barely suppressed is his fury. She hasn't got it.

Still, as homage goes, nicely done. And the song's quite tasty too.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:38 PM on July 12, 2011 [3 favorites]


They were showing this around midnight here, so as I drifted off to sleep the Prisoner would stretch and mingle with my dreams.
I saw the surrealism as the point. It's meant to expand your mind, or at least make you think it is. It's also so British, like some of the crazier episodes of The Avengers or Micheal Moorcock.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:15 PM on July 12, 2011


Not to derail too much, but is there an official explanation for why the Prisoner goes so far off the rails at the end of the series? I watched the whole series and I recall there was one episode near the end where it was set in the wild west for no reason at all. Then they made McGoohan a man-child in another really irritating episode and there's this bizarre free-association thing going on with #2 the whole time.

It is related to the original story editor and co-creator George Markstein leaving the program, and his original vision might have made a bit more sense. From what I've read, McGoohan wrote the finale on a deadline pretty quickly, and didn't really have the time to make things make sense.
posted by grouse at 3:38 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]


When McGoohan walks through the corridor prior to the resignation he's got this spectacular look on his face like he's a cathedral short a hod and will crumble any second and the only thing keeping him going is rage.

Oh yeah, that's one of the basic premises of the whole series. Come to think of it, that's probably been one of my basic premises of my life. Damn that show. I know the urge to emulate #6 is strong, I've done it myself. My second best Halloween costume ever was #6. I found a paperback novelization of The Prisoner that had a large image on the cover of his button with the pennyfarthing and the number on it, that gave me the idea instantly. I took my black jacket, put some white tape around the edges, it was perfect. I even look like McGoohan a little. I remember going to a party at The Brewery lofts in downtown LA, sometime around the mid 80s. I ran into my old pal Tim Leary, dressed as a vampire in a cape. I said hello, he pointed at my button and asked, "So who are you?" You know how I answered.
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:28 PM on July 12, 2011 [4 favorites]


oh god anigbrowl that video is great! I cracked up when #6 put the pillow on the TV with the dude toasting.
posted by egypturnash at 4:34 PM on July 12, 2011


(Did anyone see AMC's 2009 remake? Thoughts, etc.?)
posted by vhsiv at 6:52 PM on July 12, 2011


Probably my favorite show of all time. I named my band after it.
posted by dobie at 3:00 PM on July 12


This just in: MetaFilter's own dobie is the son of George Harrison?
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:12 PM on July 12, 2011


seanmpuckett: "When McGoohan walks through the corridor prior to the resignation he's got this spectacular look on his face like he's a cathedral short a hod and will crumble any second and the only thing keeping him going is rage. We would always say, "one eye's bigger than the other" because he's half-lidded there, just so barely suppressed is his fury. She hasn't got it."

So very true. Still, she's more convincing as a Number 6 than Jim Caviezel was in the rather unfortunate AMC remake. McGoohan could project so much intensity that you fully believed he could pin you to the wall with just a glare. The remake's #6 was mainly just projecting the feeling of "I need a nap."
posted by Drastic at 9:01 PM on July 12, 2011


This just in: MetaFilter's own dobie is the son of George Harrison?

dobie's birthday is given as June 6 in his profile. Wikipedia says that Dhani's birthday is August 1. That's not ruling it out, however.
posted by neuron at 9:41 PM on July 12, 2011


"Who is Number 1?"

"You are Number 6."


vs

"Who is Number 1?"

"You are, Number 6."


What a difference a comma makes.
posted by SPrintF at 9:55 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]


"When McGoohan walks through the corridor prior to the resignation he's got this spectacular look on his face like he's a cathedral short a hod and will crumble any second and the only thing keeping him going is rage. We would always say, "one eye's bigger than the other" because he's half-lidded there, just so barely suppressed is his fury. She hasn't got it."

To be fair, no one does except Patrick McGoohan himself. To even come close you have to be born in one country and raised in another, live through war and economic collapse, then see the values of your youth corrupted and twisted into a strange mod-style imitation of themselves. And drink a lot of scotch.
posted by Kevin Street at 10:55 PM on July 12, 2011 [4 favorites]


I'm half way through the Caviezel version-meh but thats only 28 minutes in-stop
steamships are fun-stop

Every government has its secret service branch. America, CIA; France, Deuxième Bureau; England, MI5. NATO also has its own. A messy job? Well that's when they usually call on me or someone like me. Oh yes, my name is Drake, John Drake.


Not a number you Gaslighting bastards!
posted by clavdivs at 2:17 AM on July 13, 2011


(Did anyone see AMC's 2009 remake? Thoughts, etc.?)

I thought it was a decent miniseries on its own merit (although I may be in the minority on that point), but it had only the most superficial resemblance to the original.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:24 AM on July 13, 2011


Th Faith Healers did a song called "New Number Two" on their 2005 Peel Sessions disc.
posted by whuppy at 5:12 AM on July 13, 2011


Great post! Thanks for this...
posted by kinnakeet at 5:33 AM on July 13, 2011


Did anyone see AMC's 2009 remake?

I try to pretend it never existed. Not that it's really that terrible, mind, but simply because it is Wrong.
posted by aramaic at 6:00 AM on July 13, 2011


Also of note: if you need a good audio sample of a large crowd of people shouting "Six six six!", Free For All is the episode for you.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 6:54 AM on July 13, 2011


Just to nitpick, I'm pretty certain that's a Lotus 7 in Prisoner, not a Caterham.

It was a Lotus 7, but that particular car was actually bought from Caterham who were dealers for Lotus before they bought the rights to produce 'em.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:44 AM on July 13, 2011


I try to pretend it never existed. Not that it's really that terrible, mind, but simply because it is Wrong.

Just resumed the show. I don't mind a spoiler but how so, I'm watching it for clues to link the story theme and they match so far. Gaslighting, depravation. But unless #6 grows some lip pursing, eyebrow raising slick moves, i'm gonna say the character resembles nothing like McGoohans'.
posted by clavdivs at 12:51 PM on July 13, 2011


Just to nitpick, I'm pretty certain that's a Lotus 7 in Prisoner, not a Caterham. Not that it changes your point, or my agreement...

It is a Lotus 7, but I can't afford one of those, I can barely afford the Caterham kit, so I want a Caterham. :)
posted by davejay at 1:57 PM on July 15, 2011


"one of those" meaning an original produced-by-Lotus 7.
posted by davejay at 1:58 PM on July 15, 2011


Be seeing you.
posted by heatvision at 10:09 AM on July 17, 2011


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