The Prisoner

    There is a television station called 'True Entertainment,' and at the moment ‘the Avengers” is being screened, the series with Diana Rig as Mrs. Peel, in black and white. Television stations don’t usually screen old black and white television series these days, they seem to think that they don't draw large audiences. I wondered to myself if ‘Danger Man’ might not be repeated? More than that, would True Entertainment screen ‘the Prisoner?’ It doesn’t look like ITV will. Shouldn’t wonder if that doesn’t harp back to royalty payments! Then it was suggested to me that it might be thought that ‘the Prisoner’ will never be re-screened on any television network, or by any television station, well at least not here in Britain. If that is the case, then it’s a tragic state of affairs. Mind you, even if they did, it might be transmitted at some ungodly hour in the middle of the early hours, giving anyone little or no chance of actually watching the series live so to speak. Oh I know what they’ll say, why do you crave a television screening of ‘the Prisoner’ when you’ve got the series on DVD, in high-definition? Because no matter how many times I have ‘the Prisoner’ on video and DVD from Precision Video to Channel 5, Carlton, Polygram, VVL to Network DVD, including the series recorded from a television screening on BRAVO, a total of 11 sets and I suppose that should be enough for anyone. 'The Prisoner’ has been released so many times on both video and DVD, I've felt compelled to collect almost all of them. I don’t have ‘the Prisoner’ on Blu-Ray or in high-definition, as one friend has. He said a few years ago, watching ‘the Prisoner’ in high-definition makes the series look as though it was filmed yesterday. “That” I said “is the trouble, it wasn’t, and should never have been made to look as though it was!” Only yesterday I caught a scene in an old western on television, 'The Sons Of Katie Elder,' which had been re-mastered. After watching it, I said I would stick to watching the film via my old video copy, as on the re-mastered version it was only too obvious that during the fight scenes the punches did not connect. Too much clarity isn't always a good thing, not unless one is occupied in a certain amount of research.

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