Customer Reviews

The Prisoner: The Official Companion

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Every artist starts out with a cult following, Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner turned out to be no exception. While the series hasn't blossomed into mass market appeal, it has clearly reached an appreciative audience. The Prisoner exhibited all the best traits of great theater or film: the writing and direction was top notch; the material has transcended its era capturing the imagination of sucessive generations.

Fairclough's book is THE book to pick up on the series. Unlike The Prisoner Companion (different book and author(s)), The Offical Companion documents each episode with authority. It also has the plots for a number of scripts that co-creator George Markstein solicited but were rejected by McGoohan. One can see why McGoohan rejected them; his vision of the series ultimately turned out to be quite different from Markstein's.

The series plays like a variation on many of Kafka's themes. In this age of post X-Files paranoia, it's hard to appreciate just how groundbreaking The Prisoner was. Unlike a series like The X-Files, The Prisoner has stood the test of time because it's view of conspiracy is less a us vs. them approach and much more of the individual vs. the rest of society.

The book also gives compelling and interesting background on McGoohan. It raises his deep religious conviction as an important part to understanding the series. Born in the US but raised in Ireland, McGoohan, like No. 6, had his feet in two different worlds but didn't belong to either of them. The sense of alienation exhibited by the character and moral strength make No. 6 an anti-antihero.

The book is generously illustrated and is in a large format. Additionally, if you haven't purchased the series on DVD yet wait on picking up Arrival/The Chimes of Big Ben as the version included is identical to A&E's box set from two years ago. Be seeing you.

Some good "behind the scenes" stories and photos.
Has quite a few spelling errors and a couple of sentences that just end in mid thought. Map has errors with missing location numbers and some mismatched descriptions of the location numbers.
The included DVD is a disappointment. It contains 2 episodes: "Arrival" and the alternate "Chimes of Big Ben". Any Prisoner fan that would be buying this book already has these. Something new would have been nice.

One of the more recently published guides on the show. The book includes a bonus DVD, containing two episodes of the show("The Arrival" and the alternate version of "The Chimes of Big Ben"),both of which are readily available on the DVD boxset collection. Definitely recommended for fans of The Prisoner. :)