this lossy codec

In all the hullabaloo of catching you up on my recent activities I totally neglected to wax on about stuff unrelated to me (or maybe not!.  On Wednesday I got an email from a friend alerting me to the sad passing of television superstar Patrick McGoohan.  Unless you grew up in the 60’s and had a fascination for british conspiracy shows you might not know him.  McGoohan was the creator, director, producer, writer and star of one of the strangest and coolest shows of all time, The Prisoner. Now, to be fair, he didn’t write and direct all 17 episodes but he did the original 7 and is credited with conceiving of the concept for the show.

Basically, he plays a retired ex-spy who is kidnaped and taken to a resort community and given the title “Number 6″ (to preserve anonymity everyone is given a number).  The president of the Village (as it is called) is Number 2 and the series shuffles through a new number 2 pretty much every episode (as 6 thwarts their ability to crack him).  Meanwhile 6 is continually asking “Who is Number 1?”.  The whole show is considered a mythic psychodrama and often the action takes place inside 6’s head while doctors use drugs and technology to manipulate his dreams and ego.  The final 2 episodes are arguably the strangest thing I’ve ever seen on tv (although Lost & Fringe are getting pretty close). The show was shot during 67-68 so you can imagine the cultural forces at play that were influencing the storyline. 

So, then later on I got another email from a friend alerting me that Ricardo Montalban diedthe same day.  Now, I didn’t notice anything particular odd at first about 2 television stars dying.  A follow up email pointed out that it was a “bad day for guys whose shows took place on imaginary islands” (Now, unless you are muchyounger than me you will recall Montalban as “Mr. Rourke” from Fantasy Island.  Now, ok ok ok. Thats not that weird  right?  Except that Lost (another show about a disappearing island that has taken  obvious inspiration from The Prisoner) is  premiering its 5th season next week! Now I’m starting to think those guys on Lost are starting to jack with the  space-time televisual cortex.  

I’m even starting to notice other connections…like the similarities of the map of where we’re moving to & this map from the Prisoner….

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Speculation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.