[Peter Swanick as the Supervisor. From “Arrival,” the first episode of The Prisoner. First aired October 1, 1967.]
Elaine and I just started watching The Prisoner, which neither of us had watched before. (Thanks, Diane.) The series is prescient in so many ways, presenting a picture of life that anticipates the surveillance culture of our twenty-first century.
My first glimpse of Peter Swanick, who plays the Supervisor in eight episodes, made me think Foucault . The resemblance isn’t perfect: Michel Foucault typically wore white turtlenecks. The strange thing: it was not until 1975, years after The Prisoner aired, that Foucault published Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison [Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison ], which posits the panopticon as a model for modern surveillance culture.
So what was “Foucault” doing in this television series? Getting ideas for the book he was to write?
[As far as I can tell, the Internets have not noticed the Foucault–Swanick resemblance. The Prisoner is available at the Criterion Channel.]
Friday, July 24, 2026
A Foucault double?
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I watched the show with my brothers on CBC probably the same year it aired in Britain. I recently glimpsed it somewhere else (my hotel room?) so I want to say that if the beginning exposition seems a little long, it is probably because, according to my dim memory, it would be broken up by a TV commercial . In other words a teaser, then the start.
ReplyDeleteSay, the western episode was not originally shown in the US because it was too controversial with the Vietnam War going on.
The opening is long. We watched once and now scroll past. The western (!) will be a surprise, wherever it lands.
ReplyDeleteIn the mid-1980's my university chums all watched it. My TV reception at work was very. bad when the western episode played, so I thought I had the wrong channel and switched it off. They really crowed with laughter when they heard.
ReplyDeleteA British co-ed told me the Village still exists, a little off the beaten path. No tourist dogs allowed, except service animals. Here's an official link from the village council: https://portmeirion.wales/about/the-prisoner
"I am not a number; I am a free man!"
ReplyDeleteThe Village reminds me all too much of The Villages, the (nightmare) retirement community in Florida.
ReplyDeleteElaine and I now realize how much Stranger Things appears to have borrowed from The Prisoner. But if anyone knows more about that, please, no spoilers.