That's one fancy lookin' "Prison"!

Today we got the chance to watch the first episode of The Prisoner. The main point of watching this episode was mainly to observe the design of the show, but also to try and gather my own opinion of the show so far.

The Prisoner originally aired from 1967-1968, so it's very easy to assume that the presentation would be pretty... bad, but this really couldn't be further from the truth. With the show being set in the seemingly perfect town of portmeirion, it's a little difficult to not find the setting to be somewhat futuristic (for its time), yet eerie at the same time. Given the time that the show was filmed in, and the technology that was avaliable to use then, the prisoner certainly stands out.



Portmeirion in all it's beauty

The setting itself isn't the only thing that'll immediatly stand out to people with this show though. Furniture is a key part of the prisoners design, which again stands out to be way ahead of its time. Take for example the now infamous Egg-Chair, which was origanlly designed in 1958. Its shape was something, that at the time, was revolutionary, it was a chair that wasn't made of wood and supported itself with 4 legs.

 One final thing that I would actually like to show aswell for the design of the Prisoner is the white balls (Rovers) that are shown throughout the episode. These things really stood out to me because of their very sleek and clean design, which resembles something like a Mac in todays age.

Overall, the Prionsers design manages to be modern, slightly futuristic and a bit nostalgic all at the same time... if that makes much sense.

Now, onto my opinions of the first episode. I won't lie when saying this, but I wasn't expecting too much when starting the show. I had honestly expected to series to not age very well, and for it to be one of those "It was alot better back in the day" kind of deals, yet I was pleasantly surprised. The show sets itself up very well, we know that number 6 knows something others don't want him to know, yet we don't know what he knows (That's alot of knows), it immediatley pulls you in with this.

Nice chair, where can I get one?

 As soon as number 6 arrives at this island, and everyone is acting as if it's just another day, you know that there's a much greater power behind this than just the "Evil guys want to rule world" cliche. If there are this many people on this island, who all know (or knew) something they weren't supposed to, then that something has to be big.

However, some parts of the series haven't aged well, mainly some of the effects (I'm looking at you Rover!) and some of the camera work, yet they can essentialy boil down to nit-picks.

Regardless, after one episode, I can't wait to find out just what this big secret is, and how the rest of the series will pan out.

Be seeing you~

CURSE YOU ROVER! D: