Rating: 
Summary: Television's best
Review: Set Three of A&E's The Prisoner series features three episodes of the television program and an interesting interview with the production manager for the show, Bernie Williams. I won't spend too much time talking about the individual episodes. If you've seen the series before, then you know exactly how good they are. If you haven't seen them, then you owe it to yourself to view them. The transfer to DVD was very well done with nice little touches added in the menu pages. The video is excellent and the sound is superb; Number Six has never looked better.The three episodes here are a great representation of the series. In THE SCHIZOID MAN, the Prisoner is confronted by an agent sent to test his own sense of identity. This episode is excellent and mind-bending; it definitely deserves several viewings on its own. The interview with Bernie Williams may be a bit light for the hardcore fanatics, but as a casual fan of the series I found it to be quite enlightening and interesting. Williams goes over the creation of some of the classic show elements such as Rover and the various Number Twos.
Rating:
Summary: From His Doubling To His Involvment In The Community...
Review: There are a few reasons why this set could stand on its own without the entire series. It lands the viewer squarely in the middle of the drama, it contains an interview about the series from production manager Bernie Williams, and the episodes explain more about the community environment of the village...
The Schizoid Man, the first of these episodes, is a great episode because it pits No. 6 against his most irritating foe yet- himself! Their sparring (both physically and mentally) is hilarious, as the doppelganger gives No. 6 a taste of his own self-righteous medicine.
Many Happy Returns, the next episode on the set, may be my personal favorite (except for maybe Fallout). It takes the main action away from The Village and shows No. 6 at the peak of his skills. I don't want to give anything away, but the ending is a real stinker for No. 6 ;)
It's Your Funeral is, in my opinion, one of the weaker offerings of the series- but it makes a good finale for this set. However, the introduction to and ending of the story are well handled and the fellow who plays No. 2 is a riot. He thinks he sooo smart, and he is... but smarter than No. 6? Don't count on it...
Although the set only has three episodes, the final one detracting somewhat from the epic scope of the show- it still earns its five stars for The Schizoid Man and Many Happy Returns. And It's Your Funeral still deserves four to four and half stars anyhow. Watching McGoohan mix it up like an English prep schoolboy is always worth the price of admission. :)
-Be Seeing You!
Rating: 
Summary: Another good series for Prisoner fans.
Review: This set contains Episodes 7, 8, and 9 (although there is some debate about the "true" order of the episdoes). The first two episodes are excellent but frustrating: in both, Number 6 has an opportunity to escape but (of course) is defeated in the end. In the third episode of this series, however, Number 6 scores a small victory against his captors, but despite this, I found the episode to be more slow-moving and not enjoyable as the others. Overall, however, this is a good addition to The Prisoner collection.
Rating:
Summary: Another good series for Prisoner fans.
Review: This set contains Episodes 7, 8, and 9 (although there is some debate about the "true" order of the episdoes). The first two episodes are excellent but frustrating: in both, Number 6 has an opportunity to escape but (of course) is defeated in the end. In the third episode of this series, however, Number 6 scores a small victory against his captors, but despite this, I found the episode to be more slow-moving and not enjoyable as the others. Overall, however, this is a good addition to The Prisoner collection.
Rating:
Summary: Still a lot of Kafkaesque fun
Review: You had best watch the second offering on the first DVD of Set 3 of <The Prisoner> to get the shocking news that none of us original fans could figure out what was going on because Patrick McGoohan himself began filming before he could figure it all out! Still what fun we had back in the 1960s when this Kafka-cum-Orwell series first came to our US tellies. All this and more is revealed in an all too short interview with Bernie Williams, the Production Manager for the series. Thank you, A&E, for including that. The first section of that DVD treats us to the popular episode titled "The Schizoid Man" in which Number 6 gets to fight with himself in several excellently handled sequences as the nasty Number 2 (Anton Rodgers) tries to convince him the other Prisoner is really Number 6 while he is the specially prepared Number 12 (double six, get it?). Even the Rovers are confused at this one. Good fun all around here. "Many Happy Returns" has no logic whatsoever. The Village is deserted entirely solely to let Number 6 escape by raft. He is nearly murdered by two Germans who find him after 18 days of exposure (are they part of the plan? and if not why did the Village risk his being killed?), gets back to London and finds his house there occupied and car driven by a very friendly middle-aged woman (Georgina Cookson). The twist ending makes no sense whatsoever because we are never told the purpose of the exercise other than the usual "You see once again you can never escape us." "It's Your Funeral" actually involves two Number 2s, one of whom is planning to assassinate the outgoing one, thereby putting Number 6 in the strange situation of trying to save the latter to prevent punishment being dealt out to the innocent Villagers. One of the more interesting episodes. Set 4 begins with "A Change of Mind" with a particularly revolting Number 2 (John Sharpe), a most attractive Bad Girl (Angela Browne), and an all too pat reaction from the Villagers at the end that is simply out of touch with what has gone before it. In "Hammer into Anvil," we have a Number 2 (Patrick Garghill) who is so paranoid that he cannot see through the very obvious reign of terror that Number 6 perpetuates--and again the script stretches our credulity too far. The next two episodes, however, are both the most clever and completely different ones before "The Girl Who Was Death," which holds its own special place in the series. In "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling," we have our star appear only in flashbacks and at the very end. In order to find a Scientist who has perfected a mind-transfer device right out of the old sci fi flicks of the 30s (not to mention an exceptional entry in "The Avengers" series), they put Number 6's mind into the body of a Bad One (Nigel Stock). Therefore it is Stock who plays the main character here--but with The Prisoner's mind, mind you--who eventually leads Number 2 and company to the scientist. (This plot was made necessary when McGoohan had to be away to film "Ice Station Zebra.") Possibly the most talked-about episode (with the possible exception of the last two) is "Living in Harmony." Here Number 6 has been translated into a sheriff resigning his position at the beginning in an alternate-universe version of the expected opening, and turns to violence only to save a beautiful woman. In short, his virtue is turned into a vice by his Wardens. This episode contains the first of two appearances by Alexis Kanner, who will share star billing in the very last episode. However the western sequences end too soon and the ending is too sudden and too pat for us to believe in it. This is a shame, since what goes before is really marvelous on several levels. So all we can do now is look forward to the final sets while we enjoy over and over the first four from A&E.
Rating:
Summary: Still a lot of Kafkaesque fun
Review: You had best watch the second offering on the first DVD of Set 3 of to get the shocking news that none of us original fans could figure out what was going on because Patrick McGoohan himself began filming before he could figure it all out! Still what fun we had back in the 1960s when this Kafka-cum-Orwell series first came to our US tellies. All this and more is revealed in an all too short interview with Bernie Williams, the Production Manager for the series. Thank you, A&E, for including that. The first section of that DVD treats us to the popular episode titled "The Schizoid Man" in which Number 6 gets to fight with himself in several excellently handled sequences as the nasty Number 2 (Anton Rodgers) tries to convince him the other Prisoner is really Number 6 while he is the specially prepared Number 12 (double six, get it?). Even the Rovers are confused at this one. Good fun all around here. "Many Happy Returns" has no logic whatsoever. The Village is deserted entirely solely to let Number 6 escape by raft. He is nearly murdered by two Germans who find him after 18 days of exposure (are they part of the plan? and if not why did the Village risk his being killed?), gets back to London and finds his house there occupied and car driven by a very friendly middle-aged woman (Georgina Cookson). The twist ending makes no sense whatsoever because we are never told the purpose of the exercise other than the usual "You see once again you can never escape us." "It's Your Funeral" actually involves two Number 2s, one of whom is planning to assassinate the outgoing one, thereby putting Number 6 in the strange situation of trying to save the latter to prevent punishment being dealt out to the innocent Villagers. One of the more interesting episodes. Set 4 begins with "A Change of Mind" with a particularly revolting Number 2 (John Sharpe), a most attractive Bad Girl (Angela Browne), and an all too pat reaction from the Villagers at the end that is simply out of touch with what has gone before it. In "Hammer into Anvil," we have a Number 2 (Patrick Garghill) who is so paranoid that he cannot see through the very obvious reign of terror that Number 6 perpetuates--and again the script stretches our credulity too far. The next two episodes, however, are both the most clever and completely different ones before "The Girl Who Was Death," which holds its own special place in the series. In "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling," we have our star appear only in flashbacks and at the very end. In order to find a Scientist who has perfected a mind-transfer device right out of the old sci fi flicks of the 30s (not to mention an exceptional entry in "The Avengers" series), they put Number 6's mind into the body of a Bad One (Nigel Stock). Therefore it is Stock who plays the main character here--but with The Prisoner's mind, mind you--who eventually leads Number 2 and company to the scientist. (This plot was made necessary when McGoohan had to be away to film "Ice Station Zebra.") Possibly the most talked-about episode (with the possible exception of the last two) is "Living in Harmony." Here Number 6 has been translated into a sheriff resigning his position at the beginning in an alternate-universe version of the expected opening, and turns to violence only to save a beautiful woman. In short, his virtue is turned into a vice by his Wardens. This episode contains the first of two appearances by Alexis Kanner, who will share star billing in the very last episode. However the western sequences end too soon and the ending is too sudden and too pat for us to believe in it. This is a shame, since what goes before is really marvelous on several levels. So all we can do now is look forward to the final sets while we enjoy over and over the first four from A&E.
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