“Where am I?”

“In the Village.”

“What do you want?”

“Information.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“That would be telling. We want information.”

“You won't get it.”

“By hook or by crook, we will.”

“Who are you?”

“The new Number Two.”

“Who is Number One?”

“You are Number Six.”

“I am not a number. I am a free man!”

After starring in eighty-six episodes of Secret Agent (also known as Danger Man) British TV actor Patrick McGoohan wanted to be rid of his alter ego, John Drake. Secret Agent was a spy show that took the world it inhabited more seriously than The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, the James Bond movies, or even Ian Fleming's novels. Drake often found himself behaving immorally in order to serve his Cold War cause.

Drake the Deceiver

The difference between Drake and his fellow spies such as Napoleon Solo, Steed and Peel, or Bond is that Drake recognized his actions for what they were. It was the emotional reality of Drake's dilemmas that made him so believable and the show so popular for so long. Thanks to tricks and stock footage, Drake spent much of his time in the Third World—in Africa, Haiti, South Asia, Latin America—in the same places fighting the same battles that Kennedy's warriors fought every day in the newspapers.

In order to bury Drake, McGoohan did the unexpected. Rather than create a character who was the opposite of his secret agent, with different qualities, McGoohan resurrected Drake and had him face the consequences of his compromised life.

A man resigns

A secret agent resigns from his service in anger. He's gassed unconscious and brought to a fairy-tale village surrounded by sea. There, people who are either his former employers or his former adversaries try to find out what he knows.

It's interesting that this new Prisoner—now renamed Number Six—never insists on being called by his real name. He's used so many aliases in his life there may be no real person left.

It's obvious why his enemies would want his secrets. If the Village is run by the leaders of the so-called Free World, they want to be sure he won't talk. Of course they can never be sure he won't reveal his information sometime in the future, so they can't let him go.

This secret agent's sudden and emotional resignation indicates he's had an ideological crisis of faith. Number Six has been living as a “Schizoid Man” for years now, lying and cheating and killing while pretending that since he's been serving the West, it doesn't matter if his actions are indistinguishable from those of his communist enemies.

Number Six reminds you of John Drake, a former Secret Agent, a Man who lived a life of Danger. Like Number Six, to everyone he met he was a stranger. We don't know what happened to Drake (or if this new Prisoner in the Village might even be Drake) but the odds are he didn't live to see tomorrow.

As bad as the odds are for John Drake or Number Six, they're better than the chances of each new Number Two. Each Number Two is given a short amount of time to break Number Six, and if they fail their masters take drastic action. (“Our masters” are always referred to by Number Two in the plural, so we don't know if a Number One even exists.)

There are two different Villages. Sometimes it's very real and concrete. There are shops and newspapers and recreational activities, as though it were a typical English holiday resort.

Escape is impossible

But sometimes the Village seems like an allegorical island, removed not only from Great Britain and NATO, but a place where every action is a symbol for the totalitarian age just around the corner.

Some of the things that happen to Number Six (escapes, traps, recaptures) are realistic. They could be the life of a spy.

But some things that happen to him seem to have meaning only in a metaphorical sense. For instance when Number Two encourages Number Six to run against him in a “democratic” election for the position of Number Two (under the slogan “Six for Two”). Number Six wins, and is escorted to the Green Dome, which contains all the secret surveillance apparatus with which a Number Two controls the Village. Number Six, now Number Two, tries to free his fellow Villagers, but he learns democracy in the Village is a fantasy.

It can be tricky knowing exactly which Village you're in.

Some episodes are straightforward spy stories about a place where kidnapped security risks are held. Many of these are by spy novelist and TV writer George Markstein, who helped McGoohan create the series. Some episodes are dystopian fantasies that are about the world outside the Village.

Of course, as Number Two always reminds us, there is no world outside the Village.

Like the Prisoner before he became Number Six, Patrick McGoohan had to compromise his ideals to do his job—a job he convinced himself was worth doing. McGoohan dreamed of a typically short British television series (six or eight episodes) to tell the story of the Prisoner. But to get the show made, he had to produce more episodes so it could be sold in the United States.

I'm glad McGoohan compromised slightly by making a few unnecessary shows. Otherwise, just as I was growing up and becoming receptive to the idea that it could be dangerous to trust Number Two too much, I never would have learned what Number Six had to teach me.