No One is a ‘Prisoner’ at the Library

"I am not a number! I am a free man!" Thus, the iconic phrase from Patrick McGoohan's late 1960s television classic The Prisoner (1967) made its way into the individualist lexicon and TV history. The eccentric allegory about an individual who resigns from a top secret job and wakes to find he has been mysteriously abducted to a prison called The Village is a thematic counterpoint to our own times.  While being interrogated in various ways by a succession of Number 2's - the question of Number 1 remains cloaked in mystery - McGoohan's character, called only Number 6 in the series, continues to plot ways of escape from The Village just as Number 2, and those who are part of the Village apparatus, continue their attempts to extract information from him - information of extreme value to which the audience is never privy. 

Wanting to watch each episode without commercials or rental and streaming fees makes checking out the show from the library ideal. 

Prior to The Prisoner, McGoohan had a successful run as Danger Man (1961) known in the United States as Secret Agent (1964). It has been widely speculated that The Prisoner character was a direct successor to Danger Man, reflecting McGoohan's own philosophical and political concerns. The result is subversive creativity at its finest. 

In an era when misinformation, surveillance, and digital privacy concerns abound, The Prisoner remains more relevant than ever. And with the DVD and Blu-Ray collection at the Mercer County Library System, one can take the journey with the complete series of The Prisoner and Secret Agent AKA Danger Man for free. 

While we all have library card numbers, at the library, information and entertainment flow freely and no one is, thankfully, a 'Prisoner'. 

- Chip, Hopewell Branch