Patrick McGoohan 1928-2009
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 01.14.09
It is hard to describe the impact Patrick McGoohan's television show The Prisoner had. It came out in a time of upheaval and revolution, and he was the ultimate revolutionary, who just wanted to resign and go away.
Instead, they took him to the village, filmed in architect Clough Williams-Ellis's recreation of an Italian hill town on the coast of Wales, an example of New Urbanism significantly predating Seaside or Celebration.
It was a vision of the past and of the future: a gated, car-free community that looked old and comfortable, but had good security, automatic doors and a terrific PA system, just like much of Florida today. It demonstrated the uses and abuses of technology- how it could coddle us and entertain us, but also control us.
He fought against conformity, against faceless government, against CCTV cameras. It was a particularly British revolution against the establishment, very different from what was going on in America. But it is more relevant today than it ever was.
His statement in the opening credits still resonates:
I am not a number, I am a free man!
Patrick McGoohan, dead at 80. Be seeing you.
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Fast Food with Less of the Junk?
- The Happiest, Greenest Place on Earth—Seriously!
- The Ultimate Look-Good-in-Your-Wedding-Dress Workout
- Green Glossary: Nature Deficit Disorder
- Get Michelle Obama Arms with Natural Resistance Bands
- Soup of the Week: Lentil and Stinging Nettle
A quote from the series that Global Warming deniers would do well to remember:
"A still tongue makes for a happy life"
I am not a number -- I am a free man!
Denierists should also be reminded:
"Questions are a burden to others; answers, a prison for oneself."
Be seeing you -- at the inauguration.
The Prisoner was instrumental in my forming an understanding of society, and my place in it, during my formative years... its lessons still guide me today, and help to warn me off when I see examples of blind consumerism... political hucksterism... jargonizing... technology without checks and balances... and misguided social engineering experiments... not to mention the reduction of individual creativity and effort, and the attempt to "homogenize" humanity. It's a crime that McGoohen never got an Emmy for that program... or a Nobel prize.