Hacker News Reader

Comment by ndsipa_pomu | Hacker News Reader

These kinds of shows remind me a lot of The Prisoner (Patrick McGoohan - I am not a number!) which was very much ahead of its time.

View on HN

There's an Iron Maiden song inspired by that show and features a voice clip from it. It's called The Prisoner.

There's a whole village in North Wales that's Prisoner themed

It's a pretty amazing piece of architectural work.

I've visited it a few times (stayed over the weekend for a birthday as well) and it's surprising how small the Village is if you've just seen it from the series. There's a lot of forced perspective designed into the buildings to make them seem larger as well as some fake windows painted on the outside. I like the mix of themes with the various statues and paintings - mermaids, lions, angels, buddha etc.

The other way round, it predates the show and was used as the set.

So you mean that The Prisoner was Portmeirion themed?

But yes, Portmeirion had a rich history before McGoohan decided that it was perfect for his idea. Noël Coward wrote Blithe Spirit while staying in the village. George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman were all visitors. Beatles Paul McCartney, George Harrison and their manager, Brian Epstein, were also regulars in the village.

I think that's an apt comparison. And, perhaps like The Prisoner, there may not really ben an "answer" that is revealed in the end.

I somewhat worry that the show is all atmosphere, no story. Like, is the writer really winging it at this point? We've certainly seen enough shows where that was the case. Premise with no payoff.

But perhaps I should just give up looking for various threads to be tied up — even stop looking for clear metaphors and just enjoy the ... vibe?

I wish it was clearly communicated if a series was fully planned and with a final ending, or not. The best series I know are selfcontained, single season series with a clear overall story telling.

How about Babylon 5?

J. Michael Straczynski had a a storyline designed to last 5 seasons (and apparently with several "trap-doors" for when actors left the show etc.), but the studio then let him know that they were going to cancel it at the end of season 4, so he had to tie up the main plots quickly. However, the studio then decided to produce a fifth season, so Straczynski had to string together a whole season that he hadn't planned for.

I did read somewhere that they have plan for all the series. It won’t end up like Lost.

McGoohan had a definite plot in mind for The Prisoner and he initially planned it to be a 7 episode series. They ended up making 17 episodes and there's some disagreement about which the "McGoohan's Seven" actually are. To be fair, there's a lot of disagreement about many aspects of The Prisoner, including the best order to watch the episodes as they were broadcast out of order.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com