Be Seeing You…
Patrick McGoohan
1928-2009
-
Patrick McGoohan, who conceived, wrote, directed and starred in the most innovative, challenging and prescient series ever on television died Tuesday in Los Angeles.
McGoohan’s television series, The Prisoner, was the antithesis of the reality show garbage that passes for television entertainment today. The Prisoner was engaging, complex and rife with symbolism. The series forced you to think and confront your own ideas as it raged against the machine while at the same time singing a hymn to the individual.
McGoohan was a powerful actor who later played the warden in Escape from Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood and was featured as Longshanks, the evil king in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.
Our condolences to the McGoohan family and a particularly fitting Irish prayer for all those whose lives Mr. McGoohan touched:
Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Everything remains as it was.
The old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no sorrow in your tone.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effort
Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was.
There is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting, when we meet again.
-
-
[Number 2 is describing the Village]
Number Two: What in fact has been created? An international community. A perfect blueprint for world order. When the sides facing each other suddenly realize that they’re looking into a mirror, they’ll see that this is the pattern for the future.
Number 6: The whole world as the Village?
Number Two: That is my dream.
Sound familiar?
-
-
Photo credit: AllPosters.com
-
I mourn with you…
I treasure my boxed set of The Prisoner even more, now. My older brother turned me on to it when it was running for the first time. So good.
Actually, the series LOST (which is very good) was probably based on – or at least influenced by – The Prisoner.
There is also a Simpson’s episode with McGoohan as #6. Even funnier since it’s so obscure…
Wonder if he woke up on the Island?
Interesting, Sean. Lost never affected me the same way as The Prisoner — possibly because I’m older now but I credit McGoohan’s series with concretizing, for me, a healthy disrespect for authority and an over-arching concern for the individual.
I’ll have to dig up the Simpsons episode which I’ve heard referenced but have never seen.
I loved The Prisoner, both McGoohan and his character.
The Prisoner is one of the few shows that I even remember from back then.
What I do remember is that the show really resonated with me and after reading what Mark said in his comment I finally understand why.
I’ve never watched Lost of the Simpsons. (As you may have guessed, I’m not a pop culture person:)
My he rest in peace. Lovely post.