Somewhere behind the Iron Curtain, there's a top-secret installation called "Colony Three", a perfect reproduction in every detail of an ordinary English village. Spies from all over the Communist bloc are sent here to take a three-year graduate course, before they're dispatched to do their nefarious work in Great Britain.
For total verisimilitude, the trainers hire actual Britishers (under false pretenses) for townspeople, to run the local government and businesses. This gives John Drake (Patrick McGoohan) his chance to infiltrate the place. The problem is, once you've arrived, there's only one way Drake's class of "employee" leaves the Colony: dead.
Drake's assignment: surreptitiously photograph the spies-in-training, and somehow get himself and the photos out of the Colony, without tipping off the authorities.
If some of this sounds familiar, it's a tantalizing fact that McGoohan would later work with this same director (Don Chaffey) in several episodes of "The Prisoner". I can't help but think "Colony Three", with its placid facade of everyday life in a small village concealing the workings of a sinister elite, may have been a partial inspiration -- or possibly a prototype -- of a major element of the later series.
It's certainly true that "The Prisoner" referenced the earlier "Danger Man" series in numerous ways. (The photograph that's X-d out in the title sequence of "The Prisoner" is a publicity shot of Drake used for this series.) But besides its inherent interest for fans of "The Prisoner", this episode stands quite well on its own, with a nicely paranoid atmosphere seeping around the edges of the idealized village, and solid supporting performances from the likes of Niall MacGinnis.
Highly recommended.
For total verisimilitude, the trainers hire actual Britishers (under false pretenses) for townspeople, to run the local government and businesses. This gives John Drake (Patrick McGoohan) his chance to infiltrate the place. The problem is, once you've arrived, there's only one way Drake's class of "employee" leaves the Colony: dead.
Drake's assignment: surreptitiously photograph the spies-in-training, and somehow get himself and the photos out of the Colony, without tipping off the authorities.
If some of this sounds familiar, it's a tantalizing fact that McGoohan would later work with this same director (Don Chaffey) in several episodes of "The Prisoner". I can't help but think "Colony Three", with its placid facade of everyday life in a small village concealing the workings of a sinister elite, may have been a partial inspiration -- or possibly a prototype -- of a major element of the later series.
It's certainly true that "The Prisoner" referenced the earlier "Danger Man" series in numerous ways. (The photograph that's X-d out in the title sequence of "The Prisoner" is a publicity shot of Drake used for this series.) But besides its inherent interest for fans of "The Prisoner", this episode stands quite well on its own, with a nicely paranoid atmosphere seeping around the edges of the idealized village, and solid supporting performances from the likes of Niall MacGinnis.
Highly recommended.