The Prisoner is, in my opinion, the greatest television show ever made.  It predicted so accurately the world we now live in.

Back in the 90's, I ran into Patrick McGoohan at a restaurant in Santa Monica. It was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. For a while he stood behind me (while I was sitting at a table), with his hand on my shoulder, asking my friends and I some very strange questions. I had heard that sometimes he "played" with people that told him they were fans. I believe that is what he was doing. It was very funny in retrospect, but during the experience, we were all somewhat disturbed by it. 😂
As a huge fan of The Prisoner since childhood, and generally a fan of most of Patrick's other work, it was totally worth it. In fact, I think providing a "weird experience" is what he was doing for us as fans. After all, wouldn't it be odd to expect anything else?

Not only a great show, but very prophetic. Should be watched many times, the little clues are everywhere!

This analysis was a revelation. Hands down brilliant.

Yours is the best analysis of this series that I've ever seen, excellent.

Thank you.  I loved this series and watch it over and over again

Criminally underrated show.
Subversive to say the least.

This is quite a masterwork. I hope others will appreciate it as much as I did. Great editing. Great writing. After studying esotericism, as I understand it, by it's very definition, you must realize that most people will not appreciate this work. I hope I am wrong. I think this is the best explanation of "The Prisoner" that I have seen.

I used to think of The Prisoner as colorful brain candy: "I have no idea what I'm looking at, but I like watching it!" This makes more sense of it.

We are imprisoned in so many ways. We are imprisoned by society. Imprisoned by time.  Imprisoned by love. Imprisoned by hate. Imprisoned by fear. Imprisoned by virtue. Imprisoned by vice. Imprisoned by certainty. Imprisoned by doubt. We can't escape, but we can lessen the severity of our sentences.

"If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it." -- Mark Twain

Not bad compared to most other attempts to decode Mcgoohans enigmatic allegory but whenever you insist on explaining a work so ambiguous that McGoohan himself was never able to cogently explain what it's final meaning was you're bound to fail. Like many ambiguous works that invite endless interpretations The Prisoner originated in a crisis so profoundly personal,  centered obviously in his upbringing, that it can never clearly be explained.   And this invites us to explore our own unresolved conflicts through the lens of our own identity.  So in a matter of speaking the absence of a definitive meaning is its meaning. A paradox embraced by the Theater of Absurd, which was quite prevalent during McGoohan's formative years.

When THE PRISONER was first aired on US TV I watched it and was deeply and indelibly impressed. Though I never joined any of the formal fan clubs the entire series on DVD sits on my shelf and the episodes are viewed and reviewed periodically. I have books on this work of genius and have watched many videos and interviews commenting on it. It was well before its time as are many other works of art.
But this interpretation and analysis of yours is head and shoulders above what I've come across over the years.
Thank you for this. Liked and Subscribed.

Thank you to YouTuber Noiselund for getting me into Columbo, which got me into McGoohan, which got me into The Prisoner! I just finished recently so this is perfect timing!

Edit after watching: Wow! I guess I need to watch again because this adds so much to the show!

Yes, with this analysis of The Prisoner, I think you have largely cracked the 'code' of what is undoubtedly, the most enigmatic and wonderful television series ever made.

As I once said in a university dissertation, McGoohan was both 6 and 1, and if you add these numbers together you get the number of a character he was asked to play twice, James Bond, 007

Seriously well put together and interpreted.......... Many thanks for the work in putting it all together..................

My 6-year-old daughter had The Prisoner figured out.  Sometimes she'd watch reruns of the show with me when her mother was watching something egregiously bad (which meant she never missed an episode).
After one show she remarked, "I hate Number 6."  This brought a huge smile to my face: "Why?"  "He always knows everything.  The little butler always tells him what Number 2 is planning."  I had to admit she was
right, in the final episode the butler does accompany 6 out of the Village.

As a resident of Queens NY, I'm very proud that so many talented characters of modern history were born in this speck of tiny real estate of the earth.🥳🥳

Best interpretation I’ve heard! Actually deep analysis