Streaming Sci Fi TV: The Prisoner Is Available on The Roku Channel, SHOUT! Factory, and More (as Is Danger Man)

Streaming Sci Fi TV: Tracking down sci fi and fantasy shows of interest available on the streaming services.

What Is It?

In this British made series, a secret agent abruptly resigns from his position but is abducted and taken to a place known as “the Village”, which is designed to contain and get information from people who “know too much”. He undergoes nightmarish and dehumanizing experiences trying to get him to reveal information, but he may just be the one individual this place cannot break.

Aired 1967-68. ITV (Syndicated in the U.S.), 1 Season Totaling 17 Episodes

Starring: Patrick McGoohan, Angelo Muscat, Peter Swanwick, Leo McKern

Created By: Patrick McGoohan, George Markstein

Why Watch It?

The Prisoner is a classic of dystopian television, acting as a spin-off of sorts from the British spy fi series Danger Man (aka Secret Agent). That globally popular show (with the hit theme song “Secret Agent Man”) followed Patrick McGoohan’s John Drake, a NATO secret agent who is called in to handle the most dangerous missions of international security. It was never established that Number 6 from The Prisoner was indeed John Drake, but it was heavily implied as the character also had a past as a secret agent.

And The Prisoner was very much in the same vein as Danger Man, though much darker with its dystopian and Orwellian themes. McGoohan used the prisoner to address political and social issues primarily involving the basic conflict of the individual vs. society and/or the state. It was pretty heady stuff for its day and surprisingly still seems quite relevant today. The series only has seventeen episodes because McGoohan did not want to drag this one out for multiple years. And the finale has become infamous as (Spoiler Alert?) one of the most confounding, WTF episodes ever produced for a television series. But this one is definitely a must-watch for sci fi fans as well as anybody who likes intelligent and engaging television. (You can read more about the show at Cult-SciFi.com.)

Where Is It Streaming?

The Prisoner is currently available to stream on several of the free streaming services such as The Roku Channel, SHOUT! TV, and Pluto TV. All of those do include ads, but the first two do not run too many per episode. Amazon’s Prime Video also has the show available for streaming, and they have one tier with ads and one without. If you want to go back and watch Danger Man, that is also available on The Roku Channel and SHOUT! TV, and you can find it streaming on Prime Video as well.

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