Mister 8

Since Patrick McGoohan’s death two weeks ago, we’ve been trying to keep the site as McGoohan-project centered as possible. We’ve covered, as our friends at Permission to Kill point out, the whole gamut from early films to comics to theme music for his shows to even Apple IIe text adventure games. What we haven’t really talked about is the man himself, and so I thought it fitting to end our continued tribute by talking about what McGoohan means to me.

My first McGoohan love was not The Prisoner, nor Secret Agent, nor Alcatraz nor Ice Station Zebra. When I was young, pre-elementary school young, before my ability to form long-term memories apparently, I demanded that my mother make me a Scarecrow of Romney Marsh costume. Scarecrow was my favorite of the Disney action heroes (which also included Zorro and Swamp Fox), though I can’t recall why. I was lucky enough to get a copy of the DVD from the Disney Vault for Christmas this year, and sat down with my wife to watch it the night I heard of McGoohan’s death. It still holds up well, and McGoohan plays the dual role of the rebellious smuggler leader and the thoughtful vicar with aplomb. Here’s the opening credits, mostly featuring a stuntman probably, but stick around for the clip at the end where you get to hear McGoohan’s Scarecrow voice.

Doesn’t that long shot in the opening sequence with the Scarecrow riding toward the camera from the barren landscape remind you of the first shot of the Lotus 7 in the opening sequence of The Prisoner?

Though the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh was the first time I became enamored with a McGoohan production, it was the Prisoner that helped shape my ethics and views on the world. When I was a teen-ager, I’d become interested in comic book artist Steve Ditko, especially the faceless, fedora-wearing hero The Question. Through Ditko, I worked my way back to the philosophical writings of Ayn Rand, founder of Objectivism. I found that, though I agreed with many of the basic tenets of her work, large swaths of it were simply unpalatable (I still feel this way). Still, I craved something that celebrated the autonomy of the individual, and I found this something in The Prisoner.

I’d already stepped into the world of sci-fi tinged British spies with another of my favorites, The Avengers. But the adventures of Number Six were something else. Even as an adolescent, I knew that the trials and tribulations that Number Six was put through were about more than information, or epsionage, or any of the surface-level story elements. Going to a public school where I felt as though the teachers were making me into one kind of cog, and my peers were making me into another, I took solace in Number Six’s credo: I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own. I am not a number, I am a person.

(Later, I also found similar comfort in Lloyd Dobler’s I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.)

The Prisoner is no less than a treatise on what it means to be human, what it means to be a responsible human, and what it is like to be a human aware that he/she is living in a world of happy automotons, and fully able to recognize the masters that supply that happy ignorance. The seventeen episodes could form the basis of a philosophy course, starting with Plato’s allegory of the cave. And behind it all, McGoohan was the true auteur, guiding the creation of the series, writing many episodes, including the controversial finale, and supplying one of the finest acting performances that television has ever seen.

There were other projects, yes, but The Prisoner is a magnum opus, an accomplishment in television that I doubt will ever be rivaled. From me, both the fumbling adolescent trying to make sense of the world, and the now-grown man who still sometimes needs inspiration, thank you, Patrick McGoohan, and may you rest in peace.

Be seeing you, maybe one day.

A handful of other McGoohan tributes:

• The Beat
• Brendan McCarthy
• Casa Forte
• Double-O Section
• Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits
• Guardian Blog
• Invincible Super-Blog
• Martin Edwards
• Off the Telly
• Onion AV Club
• Palisades Post
• Peculiar Times
• Press Connects
• The Screengrab
• Six of One Fan Club
• Some Came Running
• Spy Vibe
• Stephen Bissette
• Supervillain
• Thrilling Days of Yesteryear
• TV Worth Watching
• The Unmutual
• Wired
• Young Poisoner