The Prisoner - Origins and Production

Origins and Production

The show was created while Patrick McGoohan and George Markstein were working on Danger Man, an espionage show produced by Incorporated Television Company (also called ITC Entertainment). The exact details of who created which aspects of the show are disputed. Although the majority opinion has McGoohan as the sole creator of the series, later a disputed co-creator status was ascribed to Markstein after a series of fan interviews published in the 1980s.

Some sources indicate that McGoohan was the sole or primary creator of the show. McGoohan stated in a 1977 interview (broadcast as part of a Canadian documentary about The Prisoner called The Prisoner Puzzle) that during the filming of the third season of Danger Man he told Lew Grade, then-chairman of ITC Entertainment, that he wanted to quit working on Danger Man after the filming of the proposed fourth series. Grade was unhappy with the decision, but when McGoohan insisted upon quitting, Grade asked if McGoohan had any other possible projects; McGoohan later pitched The Prisoner. However, in a 1988 article from British Telefantasy magazine Time Screen, McGoohan indicated that he had planned to pitch The Prisoner prior to speaking to Grade. In both accounts, McGoohan pitched the idea verbally, rather than having Grade read the proposal in detail, and the two made a verbal agreement for the show to be produced by Everyman Films, the production company formed by McGoohan and David Tomblin. In the 1977 account, McGoohan said that Grade approved of the show despite not understanding it, while in the 1988 account Grade expressed clear support for the concept.

Other sources, however, credit Markstein, who was then a script editor for Danger Man, with a significant or even primary portion of the development of the show. For example, Dave Rogers, in the book The Prisoner and Danger Man, said that Markstein claimed to have created the concept first and McGoohan later attempted to take credit for it, though Rogers himself doubted that McGoohan would have wanted or needed to do that. A four-page document, generally agreed to have been written by Markstein, setting out an overview of the series' themes, was published as part of an ITC/ATV press book in 1967. It has usually been accepted that this text originated earlier, as a guide for writers on the series.

Part of Markstein's inspiration came from his research into World War II, where he found that some people had been incarcerated in a resort-like prison called Inverlair Lodge. Markstein suggested that Danger Man lead, John Drake (played by McGoohan), could suddenly resign, and be kidnapped and sent to such a location. McGoohan added Markstein's suggestion to material he had been working on, which later became The Prisoner. Furthermore a 1960 episode of Danger Man, "View from the Villa", had exteriors filmed in Portmeirion, a Welsh resort village that struck McGoohan as a good location for future projects.

Further inspiration came from a Danger Man episode called "Colony Three", in which Drake infiltrates a spy school in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The school, in the middle of nowhere, is set up to look like a normal English town in which pupils and instructors mix as in any other normal city, but the instructors are virtual prisoners with little hope of ever leaving. McGoohan also stated that he was influenced by his experience from theatre, including his work in Orson Welles' 1955 play Moby Dick Rehearsed' and the 1962 BBC teleplay The Prisoner by Bridget Boland. McGoohan wrote a forty-page show Bible, which included a "history of the Village, the sort of telephones they used, the sewerage system, what they ate, the transport, the boundaries, a description of the Village, every aspect of it…". McGoohan wrote and directed several episodes, often under pseudonyms.

In a 1966 interview for the Los Angeles Times by reporter Robert Musel, McGoohan stated that "John Drake of 'Secret Agent' is gone." Further McGoohan stated in a 1985 interview that No.6 is not the same character as John Drake, further adding that he had originally wanted another actor to portray the character. However, other sources indicate that several of the crew members who continued on from Danger Man to work on The Prisoner considered it to be a continuation, and that McGoohan was continuing to play the character of John Drake. Furthermore, Rogers states that Markstein had wanted the character to be a continuation of Drake, but that doing so would have meant paying royalties to Ralph Smart, creator of Danger Man. The issue has been debated by fans and TV critics, with some stating that the two characters are the same, based on similarities in the shows, the characters, a few repeating actors beyond McGoohan, and certain specific connections in various episodes.

The exteriors for the series were primarily filmed on the grounds of the Hotel Portmeirion in Penrhyndeudraeth, North Wales, the location that partially inspired the show. At the request of Portmeirion's designer Clough Williams-Ellis, the main location for the series was not disclosed until the opening credits of the last episode.

McGoohan had originally only wanted to produce seven episodes of The Prisoner, but Grade argued that more shows were necessary in order for him to successfully sell the series to CBS. The exact number that was agreed to, along with how the series ended, is disputed by different sources. In an August 1967 article, Dorothy Manners reported that CBS had asked McGoohan to produce 36 segments, but that he would only agree to produce 17. According to a 1977 interview, Grade requested 26 episodes, which McGoohan thought would spread the show too thin, but was able to come up with 17 episodes. According to The Prisoner: The Official Companion to the Classic TV Series, however, the series was originally supposed to run longer, but was canceled, forcing McGoohan to write the final episode in only a few days.