The Prisoner Blu-ray Coming in October

In an early announcement to retailers, it has been revealed that A&E Home Video will release the cult British TV series 'The Prisoner' on Blu-ray on October 27. No release details have been disclosed at this time, other than it will be a five-disc set. This series had been announced in the UK earlier in the year, but the release was abruptly postponed without a date. The series starts with a secret agent resigning his post at an unnamed intelligence agency. Shortly thereafter, he is drugged and taken to a place just known as 'the Village', a prison town where nobody has names, only numbers. The protagonist is 'Number Six'. The head authority of the Village is Number Two. Apart from the obvious plot mysteries (where is the Village? why did Number Six resign? who is holding him captive? who is Number One? will Number Six escape?), the series touches upon several pressing issues in the 1960s, such as that of individuality versus authority. Also notable was the visual aspect of the series, helped to a great degree by the use of the whimsical Welsh village of Portmeirion. The release date is probably linked to the November air date of the series remake, starring Ian McKellen and Jim Caviezel.
Source: Blu-ray.com | Permalink	Relevant for:

EricJ  » Jun 07, 2009
Nice--Looks like "Pride & Prejudice" taught A&E how to treat their film-archived television right! (Would've posted the standard geek-quote, but just that A&E is now far enough into the industry to do their SECOND Blu was more worth the post.) ...Oh, and McGoohan/No. 6 raised-eyebrow smiley: o_0

kubrick  » Jun 07, 2009
This is without a doubt the best television series ever made!! I hope it does get a UK release or at least hope the US release is region free.

JurassicMass88  » Jun 07, 2009
This is great news, one of my favorite tv shows ever! Hopefully A&E will start releasing some more of their titles on to Blu-ray. I missed out on the Danger Man set on DVD, fingers are crossed for a future BD release.

Mr.White  » Jun 07, 2009
Good news for Prisoners fans! Lets hope that complete Monty Python and Avengers (the Emma Peel ones)sets are on the horizon since there also from A&E.

TheManInBlu  » Jun 07, 2009
Awesome news! Wasn't expecting this so soon on Blu!

AlaskaDon  » Jun 07, 2009

Totally out of the blue, but very welcome. I have the Avengers mega-set and also the Danger Man set on DVD. I was planning to pick up The Prisoner, but had not gotten around to it. Now I can get it in Blu-ray. JurassicMass88 - Danger Man is still available on DVD from Amazon AFAIK. Mostly in B&W and the DVD's look pretty good. Same with Avengers. I'm not sure that Blu would be much improvement but I would buy them on Blu if I didn't already own them for sure.

DVDave  » Jun 07, 2009
Best show ever made. Hope this is the same as the Network UK remasters. Be s@@ing you.

fdm  » Jun 07, 2009
Cool. Never quite got around to picking this up on DVD. If price is right...

JurassicMass88  » Jun 07, 2009
Thanks for the info AlaskaDon, Amazon does have Danger Man, although it is out of stock ATM. I love the Avengers too, I was thinking about buying the set on DVD but now I might wait for the Blu.

Hudson  » Jun 07, 2009
Awesome. I have the entire set on DVD this will be a winner!

EricJ  » Jun 07, 2009
Thing is, Avengers may be on film stock (which is how we got Prisoner and P&P), but is Monty Python, which was filmed on videotape? Just how much does A&E own that CAN be lab-salvaged?

moverob  » Jun 07, 2009
I can't wait! This is one of the absolute jewels of television history.

PBR  » Jun 07, 2009
Great series. Too smart for most!

Al_The_Strange  » Jun 07, 2009
Ha! Neat.

Captain Rex Kramer  » Jun 07, 2009
A first day buy for sure. Love to see The Young Ones on blu soon.

Petra_Kalbrain  » Jun 07, 2009

You know what is strange about this announcement? I just went to see 'Drag Me To Hell' on June 5th. I went out for drinks before hand with my roommates and some of their friends. One of those friends and I got talking film/TV and he completely sold me on the concept of this show. So, it was still fresh in my head when I read the headline here on Blu-ray.com! I guess I can forgo the urge to buy it on DVD if it is going to be seeing a Blu-ray release. LOL

J6P  » Jun 08, 2009
Whaaaaat?!! This comes out of nowhere, and instantly jumps near the top of my most wanted list. I havn't seen any of it in decades. It'll be like a time machine back to childhood.

tom_k35  » Jun 08, 2009

A&E has the US distibution rights for many "cult" British series. I think very few of them have been remastered for hi-def yet. But besided the "The Prisoner", the first series of "Space: 1999" has been (and I believe by the same people who worked on "The Prisoner") and I think it was even broadcast in HD in the UK. The quality of some of the transfers for the A&E DVDs have been notoriusly bad, 1999 being a prime example. A really great remastering of 1999 on DVD was available in the UK a few years back, with a great selection of extras (lacking in the A&E original release). But A&E never wanted to make that available in the US. If "The Prisoner" sells well, perhaps this will encourage A&E to go Blu with other cult classics. I hope 1999 comes to Blu here. I seem to recall that the remastering of the second 1999 series has been stalled for a while. Perhaps the influx of $$$ from US interest will get it moving again.

blame_thatcher  » Jun 09, 2009
I believe The Prisoner was shot on 35mm so it should look great. I was watching an old episode of The Saint a few weeks ago and that was definitely on 35mm, which seemed to be used quite a lot in the days before most British TV drama was shot on 16mm.

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