Equally plauible: he had already cracked by the time the show started.
A running theme in The Prisoner was that Number Six couldn’t trust anyone or anything to be what it appeared to be, including his own perceptions. “It was all a dream/chemically induced hallucination!” would have made as much sense as any other ending.
My favourite TV show for sure. It’s the last two episodes that push it over into personal legend status. Watching the grand thesp-off in the playroom had me yelping with surprised delight the first time I saw it.
I’ve always felt that there was no straightforward “explanation” that wouldn’t be a let-down to the ridiculous and confounding atmosphere of the show.
I remember reading somewhere that Dr. Strangelove was originally intended to end with a slapstick pie-fight in the War Room. That seems to be of a world with the Prisoner ending: Dig deep enough into the collective institutional consciousness and you enter a realm of inhuman and dangerous insanity.
Which is why the buffet table in the War Room scenes is stocked with such an unusually high number of baked desserts in proportion to the number of people present.
Kubrick shot the scene, but didn’t use it. The right decision if you ask me.
I really don’t think this movie needs to be made, but Nolan would be a natural for it. He gravitates towards that nesting-dolls-of-reality thing.
This image was in an article about David Tennant playing Bond in an upcoming Comic Relief sketch. I’m looking at it and thinking that I could get behind this being part of an article about a The Prisoner reboot. Number 6 or even a Number 2. If he executive produces, he would probably fight to make it the right tone.
As an aside, this begs the larger question: who else would be on that Mount Rushmore?
Definitely not George Lucas.
If there’s an ounce of ambiguity his version it’ll be better than the godawful 2009 remake…
I’d like to formally nominate Wes Anderson for a spot on that cinematic mountaintop.
Speaking of which, the ending of Asteroid City certainly seems to belong somewhere on the list of Top Ten WTF Endings. 
“You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep!”
Considering the cultural impact Lucas made with the Star Wars films and how ubiquitous references to it still are today, there shouldn’t be a Mount Rushmore of genre filmmakers if George Lucas is excluded from it.
I hear you but: it’s Lucas and his biggest impact on film is that there wouldn’t be an actual Mount Rushmore but rather a special effect emulation of it.
Like when he returned to Star Wars he recreated the set for Babylon from DW Griffiths Intolerance digitally and on the cheap for Naboo in it.
He knew what he was doing.
Please. please no. The original is perfect. Let it be.
this begs the larger question
And here is the obligatory: “begs the question” does not mean “raises the question”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
It would be awesome if it made the same sound Teslas make when they back up.
It does now.
Language! It’s magic.
Hmm…Wes Andersons’s The Prisoner. The colours are right.
You know, now that you mention it… 
And think of the actors he could cycle through the role of Number 2!! Goldblum, Murray, Dafoe, Swinton. The mind boggles!
Gareth Edwards?
No, if there are only four then they’ll be four boring obvious choices 
