An extremely interesting actor and one of the main creative forces behind an early relative of just about everything interesting on your modern TV screen has passed on at age 80. Irish-American by birth and British by upbringing, after turning down the role of James Bond in Dr. No (and he would have been about as great as the bloke who actually agreed to do it) McGoohan made it big on a pair of English spy series, probably today best known in the U.S. as the source of the Johnny Rivers hit, “Secret Agent Man.”

That led to a 1967-1968 non-sequel, The Prisoner, which had McGoohan playing a secret agent (which he always denied was Secret Agent Man John Drake) who tries to quit but instead finds himself in “the Village” — basically the ultimate gated community with just a dash of Gitmo (waterboarding not included), where the not-secret-agent-man is given a number, 6, and his name is really taken away. Despite constant prodding and head games (which get ever more heady as the show progresses), No. 6 fails to cooperate — but just why and what he’s fighting is not a simple matter of something you can quote at an ACLU meeting.

McGoohan appears to have effectively been the showrunner of the series, which for decades was often cited by critics as probably the single best TV series of all time. Though the competition for that title has increased exponentially over the decades, it was without a doubt, a major force in my adolescence, and world geekitude in general, when it was revived on PBS and later on cable and home video. McGoohan went on to a solid movie career as a character actor, usually playing very interesting antagonists/bad guys in movies like Escape from Alcatraz and Silver Streak, but The Prisoner was always the one that people talked about when they talked about McGoohan.

It was for good reason. Like his acting, the show bore an unmistakable stamp of originality and commitment that’s impossible to forget.  His L.A. Times obit includes this quote from Peter Falk, who exposed him as a murderer not once but twice on Columbo.

There are many very, very talented people in this business, but there are only a handful of genuinely original people….I think Patrick McGoohan belongs in that small select group of truly original people.

I think Falk would know.

More from master-compiler David Hudson at his new IFC locale and also from Bullz-Eye’s esteemed TV maven Will Harris.

Be seeing you, Mr. McGoohan…

And now, well, you know I can’t resist. Best. TV show opening. Ever.

I really think so.

UPDATE:  In memory of #6, Jim Emerson has reposted his analysis of the above. Definitely recommended.

AND ANOTHER UPDATE: Via Brian Doan, some words from Glenn Kenny, who also digs up a revealing quote from David Cronenberg about the rough going he experienced with McGoohan on Scanners, a movie I really should be able to handle, now that I’ve got my gorephobia partially under control. Why, I wouldn’t mind seeing it right now (except that I won’t).

AND YET ONE MORE UPDATE: The amazing Kimberly “Cinebeats” Lindbergs has some good stuff up on the subject as well, though I disagree with her that the prospect of a new Prisoner TV show is necessarily depressing. To me, everything is basically a remake of something, admitted or not — it’s just a matter of whether the remaker has something new and worthwhile to bring to the party. On the other hand, after what I’ve been through with Frank Miller’s vile travesty of The Spirit and Neil Labute’s ridiculously clueless and bluntly misogynist The Wicker Man, I can very definitely see her point.