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happyhippy posted:Loved this series. Echoing the love for Dangerman -- we've been wending out way through it since last Christmas. Colony Three is a prescient sort of Prisoner episode; another one that also very Prisoner-like is 'The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove' which is a bit mental as some of the stranger (!) Prisoner episodes were. If I'm not mistaken, there are at least one or two unused Danger Man's that ended up as Prisoner episodes...there is a pretty thorough fan website for Danger Man that I found, but the guy has done it up with white text on a black page, and I can't read more than bits of it at a time without getting the start of a head-banger headache. Drake gets himself into so much trouble that Mr Boods has remarked that the 'danger' part of the title must refer to him being a danger to himself -- you don't tell the bad guy who you are and what your plan is when he's got a gun on you, six thugs in the room, and your back up has no idea where you are! Drake always wins, but golly does he get knocked up the side of the head a lot. It's also a fantastic show for playing Spot the Star -- Patrick Troughton shows up as a baddie in a couple of the first series' episodes, for example, as does Kate O'Mara and Jacqueline Pearce in small roles. And in series 1, you get to see Portmerion every time the show is set in Rome. And any time an episode takes place in Japan, China, or various East Asian nations, you know the awesome Burt Kwouk is going to show up. Any hat you see Drake wearing is Patrick McGoohan's own hat. Dude loved his hats. And if you like the tiny Lotus 7, Drake drives a number of tiny cars as well, including a bitty Mini and loads of insectile Citroens. The first series is a little jarring as Drake is American, and, at about 28 minutes an episode, they jam so much action and dialogue into it, you come away reeling a bit. Plus, it's got a terrific theme tune! Enjoy some 'High Wire' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u6jYfJgj-o Finally, both of us had seen The Prisoner at various times across our youth, but Mr Boods had never seen Danger Man. I saw it as Secret Agent Man as a kid in the US -- so Mr B was quite surprised when I said, 'Notice how Drake is always trying to go on holiday and getting thwarted? And notice at the start of The Prisoner he's packing holiday brochures? Poor sap didn't resign -- he was just trying to go on holiday.'  Roach Warehouse posted:One of my favourite things about the prisoner is how wildly it oscillates between legitimately amazing 60s spy-fi and good-bad garbage, sometimes from episode to episode. Sure that was the BBC? The Prisoner is an ITV programme....(mainly asking as I'd like to read it!)
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Jun 21, 2016 08:54
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Random Stranger posted:That wasn't the theme in the US. This was: Yep -- that's how I saw it as a kid (as in the post above): Ms Boods posted:
That line 'They've given you a number, and they've taken 'way your name' isn't baffling at all -- his name's been replaced by a number. More baffling is why Johnny Rivers insisted that Drake was secretly Asian...  'High Wire' does appear in the US version, but in a cut down version after the credits...the UK Dangerman theme is actually a very short motif, then there's a cold open (don't get attached to any of those characters, cos like in the subsequent Police Squad!, characters in the cold open usually get killed), then 'Hire Wire' plays over the credits (featuring footage of planes landing or shots of Drake driving his tiny Mini like a maniac around London with no regard for lane discipline or other traffic. You half expect him simply to pull up on the pavement at headquarters a la Marc Bolan.) The series 1 Dangerman theme is quite different, but I can't at the moment find a clip on YouTube that's just the theme and not a complete episode. Same composer, though. What's amusing in watching DM after seeing the Prisoner a billion times are various sound effects and things that appear in DM -- Drake uses 'Be seeing you!' as his goodbye throughout the series, and sometimes his bosses have hidden offices (while undercover) with doors that open and shut with the same sound effect as the Village house doors.  All this reminds me that we seriously gotta get our acts together chez Boods and hit up Portmeirion for a mini break.
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Jun 21, 2016 17:47
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Roach Warehouse posted:I found it! I don't know if it's as funny as I remember, but it's made me smile while skimming it. Cheers! A bit of breakfast reading before going back to the revision grind -- thanks! Another recommendation for anyone who wants to go to Portmeirion -- it's pricey in summer, but actually in the off-season quite reasonable. They do Valentine rates  http://www.portmeirion-village.com/visit/ (You also get glimpses of it in the Doctor Who serial Masque of Mandragora and it shows up in a few of series one Danger Man episodes.) And you bet they embrace their most famous son http://www.portmeiriononline.co.uk/static/prisoner Myself am disappointed they haven't got one of those big gently caress-off sized umbrellas; Mr Boods wants one of the phones, but as I've informed him, UFO taught me at age 10 in the mid-70s that everyone in Britain had chirpy trimphones, so where is ours  (If the Wife in Space guys haven't done The Prisoner, they should.) Ms Boods fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Jun 23, 2016 |
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Jun 23, 2016 09:02
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Happy 50th, Number 6! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-37232329 Shooting started on the show on 5 September 1966.
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Sep 5, 2016 08:49
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