The Village.

Number Six: I am not a number. I am a person.

The Arrival, The Prisoner

Friday afternoon, and we're off to spend the weekend in Whistler.  As a non-skier, British Columbia's best know winter sports destination isn't normally on my list of getaways, but as a scholar of science fiction, Whistler itself has always held a certain fascination for me.

There is, of course, a town called Whistler, where people actually live, and do things like grocery shopping, dropping off dry cleaning, and so on.  This is not to be confused with the resort portion of Whistler, an artificially created environment known as the Village.

This might not resonate with everyone, but for me it's impossible to visit Whistler Village without thinking of The Prisoner, a cult SF classic from the 60s.
 
This strange, surreal British television series, which ran for a brief 17 episodes in 1967, deals with a government agent who is kidnapped and held prisoner in an idyllic dystopian community following their abrupt resignation.  This community, known only as the Village, is barred by mountains and the sea, and warded by both conventional security forces and bizarre bouncing globular guardians.

 

The overseers of the Village seek information from their captive, who has been deprived of his name and is now known as Number 6.  Everyone in the Village is designated solely by number, making it impossible to distinguish the guards from the prisoners, the interrogators from the captives.

 

Number 6, played by Patrick McGoohan, embarks on an extended game of cat and mouse with his captors, most notably Number 2, who is replaced every time one of their schemes to break Number 6 fails.  The identity of Number 1 remains a mystery, although the enigmatic conclusion to the series hints at who it may be.

I realize that there's already been a "reinterpretation" of The Prisoner, the 2009 version with Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen, but maybe it's time for a reboot.  Imagine awakening in the middle of a manufactured community, isolated on all sides by mountains and snow...

I wonder when I'll get my number?

And what number will I be?

- Sid