Mcgoohan virtually devised, wrote, produced, and starred in The Prisoner entirely himself, and it took two full years of his life to complete. Towards the end of the series the money was running short and Mcgoohan actually took two weeks out to go to Hollywood to film Ice Station Zebra and then put all his profits from the film straight into the Prisoner in order to complete the last three episodes. It was a labour of love, as they say, for him and after two years of working 18 hour days and doing several different jobs at once on the show, he was just wrung out and had to stop. Perhaps with some time off and some more finances he may have chosen to return to write a 2nd season. On the other hand he may have felt he had said what he wanted to say and was happy with the show as it was. I personally would rather have 17 top quality episodes than 117 average ones. Same applies to Columbo, I suppose. A show with only 45 original episodes, made with care and attention over several years, is bound to be supeirior to a show with a whole lot of episodes churned out quickly.

Many thanks for all the info on The Prisoner. I've often wondered if McGoohan had Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World on his mind as he worked on that series--there's a touch of both there.

I used to belong to The Prisoner fan club and they had a great magazine which discussed the ideas which informed many of the plots within the series.

Picking up on a point made in an earlier post. British TV series tend to run for 6 or 12 episodes per series compared to American series which seem to be typically 26 episodes.

I've often thought that this means that British tv series benefit from not being on the treadmill which American series writers seem to be.

It is interesting that McGoohan has never attended a meeting of the "6 of 1" club. I read somewhere that George Markstein, who was co-creator of the series along with McGoohan is critical of the fans. He thinks many people take the show too seriously. I think McGoohan has said similar things. People read into the shows messages that the creators never intended. In any event, I have watched it, find it interesting, but I think the extremely controversial episode was a nihilistic, anarchistic mess, which I would have imagined goes against Patrick McGoohan's world view and it is a mystery why he made it that way.

Sorry, I forgot to write that I was referring to the final episode.

I suppose I'm not the first to comment that the midget with the question mark mask posed the whole question of the meaning of life?? Or maybe that people who rise to the zenith of power do by making themselves smaller and selling out all their beliefs to the point that they are quesion marks?? Of course, I haven't seen that episode since I was 14--but it made quite an impact.

Well as a former member of the "Six of One" fan club I disagree that McGoohan didn't like the shows fans.

He is the President of the fan club which, given he is a noted man of principle, I find it hard to think he would accept if he didn't like the fans.

Six of One fans were disappointed that he always declined their requests to attend the conventions, however, the prevailing opinion among fans was that McGoohan didn't attend so as to preserve the mystique of the show.

I think McGoohan realised that it was the endless speculation about what various episodes meant was part of what kept the show alive.

I agree with Barfly on this one. McGoohan has stated that he has answered all the questions he wants to on the Prisoner; not because he dislikes the show or the fans, but rather because the show was intended to make viewers think and question everything, and if McGoohan were to spell it all out it would defeat the point. There would be nothing left to question if he gave us all the answers. Also, he drives a limited edition, (chassis number 6!), Prisoner replica Lotus Seven. Is that the action of a man who dislikes The Prisoner or the fans?