In 1967 a television programme hit our screens that would change the face of the medium forever. That programme was not Camp Runamuck, The Girl from Uncle (sic) or even Dad’s Army; it was The Prisoner – now celebrating its 40th anniversary with a definite DVD box set.

A spy/sci-fi/fantasy allegory to end them all, The Prisoner is the story of Number Six (the irreplaceable Patrick McGoohan), an unnamed man who resigns from a high-level government position, is drugged in his London home and promptly awakes in The Village. Unable to escape from this strange community – a kind of fascist utopia guarded by a giant bubble called ‘Rover’ (Wisteria Lane with less baking) – he battles his aggressors for cerebral supremacy. They want to know why he resigned. He wants to know where he is, who they are, and, most important of all, who is Number One.