The Most Beloved Sci-Fi Mystery Series Of The 1960s Is A Christopher Nolan Favorite, Stream Now Without Netflix

In The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan (Braveheart) stars as an intelligence agent known only as Number Six. When the British spy wants to step down from his position, his life is flipped upside down as he quickly learns there’s no easy way to escape the life he’s set up for himself after he’s abducted and dropped in a strange coastal village. It’s here that he tries to keep his sought-after intel secret as he bibs and bobs around on futuristic forms of transportation and avoids his enemies.

Along with starring as the titular unnamed spy in The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan also created and produced the series which ran for 17 episodes. By this point in his career, McGoohan had already struck gold and launched a successful career playing another secret agent named John Drake in the series Danger Man. It was largely due to the success of Danger Man that McGoohan was given the funds to move forward with The Prisoner even though its trippy undertones were before their time for the network and viewers alike. 

While the series may have had some folks scratching their heads, unsure how to feel about the sci-fi blend in a classic espionage story, The Prisoner would go on to gain a cult following with many notable Hollywood names, including Christopher Nolan, naming it as a piece of inspiration. When the series first aired, it was such a deviation from other titles on TV that those behind it received strongly worded and opinionated letters that voiced anger at the show’s plot. McGoohan would even go so far as to claim that he was forced to pull back from the public eye following the show’s finale. 

Decades later, people would be able to fully grasp McGoohan’s vision behind his futuristic spy thriller, and The Prisoner would nab itself a reimagining that starred the likes of Sir Ian McKellen, Jim Caviezel, Hayley Atwell, and Ruth Wilson. Like the original production, this version was also delivered to audiences in miniseries form with a similar plot as the title that came before it. While it was largely a hit-or-miss for viewers and critics alike, the reboot would nab a handful of nominations including two Emmy nods. 

It was around this time that Christopher Nolan thought that maybe a film adaptation of The Prisoner would be a fun way to bring it up to speed with modern-day storytelling. However, the idea hinged on the success of the miniseries and when that proved to not be the attention-grabber that was hoped for, the film floundered. A few years later, Ridley Scott was in talks to helm a feature-length version with the latest adaptation rumors to once again involve Nolan.

While we may be waiting for Nolan to put the story on the big screen, you can now stream the show that started it all as The Prisoner is now available on Fubo.