If you care, you probably already know (since this news is 9 months old), but: AMC has put all 17 episodes of the 1967-68 series “The Prisoner” online, viewable for free. If you’re not familiar with this show: It’s quite possibly the most ambitious TV program ever made. It’s an allegory that uses elements of science fiction, espionage, westerns(!), and several other genres to create something quite unique.
Viewing Recommendations
If you’ve never seen the show before, I recommend that you start with either “Arrival”, which lays out the premise, or “The Chimes of Big Ben”, which is great fun, and pretty straight-forward. In general, I recommend that you watch the show in the “KTEH” order:
- Arrival
- Dance of the Dead
- Checkmate
- The Chimes of Big Ben
- Free for All
- Many Happy Returns
- The Schizoid Man
- The General
- A., B. and C.
- Living in Harmony
- It’s Your Funeral
- Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling
- A Change of Mind
- Hammer into Anvil
- The Girl Who Was Death
- Once Upon a Time
- Fall Out
Perhaps it’s just that this is how I first saw them, but this ordering of the episodes seems to give the show a nice arc, beginning with a (relatively) conventional story about a man who’s attempting to escape from his captors, and ending with, well, something else entirely.
Be seeing you.
