The Prisoner

Patrick McGoohan commented that 'The series was posing the question, "has one the right to tell a man what to think, how to behave, to coerce others? Has one the right to be an individual?"

A nameless man resigns from a highly confidential job, which subsequently leads to him being abducted and taken to a place know only as 'The Village'. He is a Prisoner. The chief administrators are known as Number 2s and our man is given the number 'six' which he refuses to accept. Everyone is known only by number, Number 6 is told that 'No names are used here'.

Every episode deals with an issue such as freedom of the individual, education and democracy. They also follow the efforts of Number 6 to escape and of the methods employed by his captors to extract the secret of why Number 6 resigned.

When told he is now "Number 6", he reacts against being placed in a pigeon hole:

"I will not be pushed, stamped, filed, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Perfect!

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Observer: You're a wicked man.
Number 6: Wicked?
Observer: You have no values.
Number 6: Different values!
Observer: You won't be helped.
Number 6: Destroyed!
Observer: You want to spoil things.
Number 6: I won't be a goldfish in a bowl!