[2] McGoohan portrays Number Six, an unnamed British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village after resigning from his position.

[5] Although the show was sold as a thriller in the mould of Danger Man, McGoohan's previous series, its surreal and Kafkaesque setting and reflection of concerns of the 1960s counterculture have had a far-reaching influence on popular culture and cultivated a cult following.

[6][7] The series follows Number Six (Patrick McGoohan), an unnamed British intelligence agent who, after abruptly and angrily resigning from his highly sensitive government job, prepares to go on a trip.

This is assumed to be part of a larger plan to disorient Number Six, but sometimes the change of personnel seems to be the result of the failure of the previous incumbent, whose fate is unknown.

Frank Maher, McGoohan's stunt double, who is seen running across the beach in the title sequence, also appears extensively in "The Schizoid Man" and in "Living in Harmony".

Several attempts have been made to create an episode ordering based on script and production notes and interpretations of the broader narrative of Number Six's time in the Village.

[13] The opening and closing sequences of The Prisoner have become iconic, cited as "one of the great set-ups of genre drama",[14] by establishing the Orwellian and postmodern themes of the series.

[16] The Prisoner was created while Patrick McGoohan and George Markstein were working on Danger Man, an espionage show produced by Incorporated Television Company.

In a 1988 article in British telefantasy magazine Time Screen, though, McGoohan indicated that he had planned to pitch The Prisoner before speaking with Grade.

[19] Other sources, however, credit Markstein, then a script editor for Danger Man, with a significant or even primary portion of the development of the show.

[6] A four-page document, generally agreed to have been written by Markstein, setting out an overview of the themes of the series, was published as part of an ITC/ATV press book in 1967.

Booth points out that McGoohan had outlined the themes of The Prisoner in a 1965 interview, long before Markstein's tenure as script editor on the brief fourth series of Danger Man.

[21] Part of Markstein's inspiration came from his research into the Second World War, where he found that some people had been incarcerated in a resort-like prison in Scotland called Inverlair Lodge, near Inverness.

[22] Markstein suggested that Danger Man's main character John Drake (played by McGoohan) could suddenly resign and be kidnapped and sent to such a location.

Furthermore, a 1960 episode of Danger Man entitled "View from the Villa" had exteriors filmed in Portmeirion, a Welsh resort village that struck McGoohan as a good location for future projects.

"[23] Further inspiration came from a Danger Man episode called "Colony Three", in which Drake infiltrates a spy school in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

[5] In a 1966 interview for the Los Angeles Times by reporter Robert Musel, McGoohan stated, "John Drake of Secret Agent is gone."

[5] Author, Dave Rogers claims that Markstein had wanted the character to be a continuation of Drake, but by doing so would have meant paying royalties to Ralph Smart, the creator of Danger Man.

[26][27] McGoohan had originally wanted to produce only seven episodes of The Prisoner, but Grade argued that more shows were necessary in order for him to successfully sell the series to CBS.

[5] Filming began with the shooting of the series' opening sequence in London on 28 August 1966,[17] with location work beginning on 5 September 1966, primarily in Portmeirion, North Wales.

Markstein's concept was that John Drake (of Danger Man) had once proposed a strategy for dealing with retired secret agents who could still pose a security risk.

Years later, Drake discovers that his proposal was put into practice, not as a benign means of retirement, but an interrogation centre and prison camp known as The Village.

However, due to the range of nationalities and agents present, Drake realises that he can't be sure whose Village he is in—his own, or one belonging to the other side.

[17] In North America, MPI Home Video released a total of 20 VHS videotapes in 1984 encompassing the entire series: one tape for each of the 17 episodes plus three more containing "The Alternate Version of 'The Chimes of Big Ben'", a documentary, and a "best of" retrospective.

MPI also released editions of nine LaserDiscs in 1988 and 1998, the last disc of which comprised the final Episode 17, "Fall Out", plus "The Prisoner Video Companion" on side two.

The A&E issue included an alternative version of "The Chimes of Big Ben" and the MPI-produced documentary (but not the redundant "best of" retrospective) among its limited special features.

[17] The Prisoner: 40th Anniversary Special Edition DVD box-set released in 2007 featured standard-definition versions from high-definition masters created by Network.

In the 1970s and into the 1980s, as the series gained cult status, a large amount of fan-produced material began to appear, with the official appreciation society forming in 1977.

Some members of the production crew have released books about their time working on the series including Eric Mival and Ian Rakoff.

[59] The first series also featured John Standing, Celia Imrie, Ramon Tikaram and Michael Cochrane as Number Two and Helen Goldwyn as The Village Voice/Operations Controller.