The Prisoner (TV Series)
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
40 free The Prisoner (TV Series) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Prisoner ran for a single short run in 1967 and 1968 and has been argued about ever since. A British agent quits his job, wakes up in a pretty seaside village where everyone goes by a number, and spends every episode refusing to tell his captors what they want to know. It looked like a spy thriller and played like a puzzle, and its ending caused an uproar. This quiz covers the whole show: Number Six and the parade of Number Twos sent to break him, the rules and customs of the Village, the best-known episodes and their twists, the actors and the people behind the camera, and the remakes, tributes and parodies that followed. It is written for anyone who has watched the series, from first-time viewers to fans who know every episode. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up something new even on the ones you get right.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Welsh resort village provided the exterior setting of the Village in The Prisoner?
Portmeirion
Portmeirion was kept out of the credits until the finale, at the request of the architect who built it.
Q 02Rover, the white guardian that hunts escapees in The Prisoner, was made on set from which object?
A weather balloon
A weather balloon replaced the planned Rover, a wheeled machine topped with a flashing light that did not work properly on location.
Q 03Patrick McGoohan reprised Number Six from The Prisoner in a 2000 episode of which animated comedy?
The Simpsons
The Simpsons cast Homer as a fellow inmate of a mysterious island, where he escapes on a raft that Number Six had spent more than thirty years building.
Q 04Writers of which later television drama said Rover from The Prisoner inspired its Smoke Monster?
Lost
Lost is one of the series The Guardian said could not have existed without The Prisoner, which it called the Citizen Kane of British TV.
Q 05Which film role did Patrick McGoohan refuse on moral grounds before he created The Prisoner?
James Bond
James Bond was the part he was considered for in the first 007 film, and the success of those films is credited with reviving his own spy show.
Q 06Which type of cycle, drawn with a canopy, is the logo of the Village in The Prisoner?
A penny-farthing
A penny-farthing also appears behind the closing credits, where a drawing of it slowly assembles in stop-frame animation.
Q 07Which heavy metal band recorded Back in the Village, one of its two songs inspired by The Prisoner?
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden put the first song, named after the series itself, on the 1982 album The Number of the Beast, and the second on Powerslave.
Q 08Patrick McGoohan played secret agent John Drake in which spy series before he made The Prisoner?
Danger Man
Danger Man was retitled Secret Agent in America, where it gained the hit theme song Secret Agent Man, sung by Johnny Rivers.
Q 09In the opening titles of The Prisoner, which vehicle trails Number Six home before he is gassed?
A hearse
A hearse pulls up outside his London home, and a man dressed as an undertaker pumps knockout gas through the keyhole.
Q 10Which theatrical knight played Number Two in AMC's 2009 remake of The Prisoner?
Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen took a part Patrick McGoohan had eyed: by the producer's account, McGoohan declined a cameo in the remake and suggested he play Two instead.
Q 11Which future Rumpole of the Bailey star played Number Two in three episodes of The Prisoner?
Leo McKern
Leo McKern found the role punishing: filming his week-long duel with Number Six reportedly brought on a breakdown or a heart attack and halted production.
Q 12What sets the Butler who serves each Number Two in The Prisoner apart from other regulars?
He never speaks
He never speaks in any of his 14 episodes, yet actor Angelo Muscat was the only performer besides the star treated as a co-star of the series.
Q 13In the Prisoner episode The General, what does the unseen General behind Speed Learn turn out to be?
A computer
Q 21Which Prisoner episode is a Western, with Number Six as a sheriff who refuses to carry a gun?
Living in Harmony
Living in Harmony was held back from the first American run, and authors disagree over whether its gun-shy sheriff was the reason.
Q 22Which film took Patrick McGoohan away when Nigel Stock played Number Six in one Prisoner episode?
Ice Station Zebra
Ice Station Zebra kept him in America, so the writers had Number Six's mind transplanted into another man's body for the episode.
Q 23Number Six wins the craft show in The Prisoner with a sculpture that secretly doubles as what?
A boat
A boat is hidden in the pieces of his entry, titled Escape, and he buys another prizewinner's tapestry to use as its sail.
A computer built to answer any question, the General destroys itself when Number Six feeds it a single one-word question it cannot resolve.
Q 14After Number Six escapes to London in The Prisoner and is flown back, what does the new Number Two give him?
A birthday cake
A birthday cake greets him back in the Village after an escape to London, brought by the woman he had found settled in his old house.
Q 15In the Prisoner episode A. B. and C., Number Two drugs Number Six in order to watch and steer what?
His dreams
His dreams of an elegant party are meant to expose a buyer for his secrets, until he takes control of them and unmasks Number Two as the spymaster.
Q 16In the Prisoner episode The Girl Who Was Death, the whole spy adventure turns out to be what?
A bedtime story
A bedtime story told to Village children, it was watched by Number Two in the hope that Number Six would drop his guard.
Q 17Which actor took over the role of Number Six for AMC's six-part 2009 remake of The Prisoner?
Jim Caviezel
Jim Caviezel played him as Michael, a man who has quit a surveillance firm and wakes in a Village set in a desert instead of beside the sea.
Q 18What is the title of the Prisoner finale, written and directed by Patrick McGoohan himself?
Fall Out
Fall Out baffled and angered viewers so much that McGoohan said he had to go into hiding for a while afterwards.
Q 19Which composer of the Doctor Who theme also wrote the theme music used on The Prisoner?
Ron Grainer
Ron Grainer was the third composer tried, after theme tunes by Robert Farnon and Wilfred Josephs had been rejected or dropped.
Q 20In the human chess game of the Prisoner episode Checkmate, which piece does Number Six play?
The queen's pawn
The queen's pawn is also the piece Alice plays in Through the Looking-Glass, and the episode was first going to be named after it.
Q 24In the Prisoner episode The Schizoid Man, how is Number Six retrained so his double seems genuine?
To use his left hand
To use his left hand is one result of aversion therapy that also changes his tastes, and he undoes it by giving himself an electric shock.
Q 25Number Six places a Don Quixote quotation as an advert in which Village newspaper in The Prisoner?
The Tally Ho
The Tally Ho is the Village daily, and its masthead carries the same cycle logo found on almost everything else there.
Q 26Which Jeep-like car serves as the Village taxi in The Prisoner?
Mini Moke
The Mini Moke was conceived as a lightweight military vehicle, but the Army found its ground clearance too poor and it was sold to civilians instead.
Q 27In The Prisoner, Number Six is summoned by telephone to meet Number Two at which Village building?
The Green Dome
The Green Dome sits above the Embryo Room, the locked chamber where the last battle of wills with Number Two takes place.
Q 28Which ITC boss agreed to make The Prisoner after Patrick McGoohan pitched the idea to him out loud?
Lew Grade
Lew Grade approved the series on a spoken agreement, and by McGoohan's 1977 account did so despite not understanding it.
Q 29The Prisoner episode The Chimes of Big Ben claims the Village is on which country's Baltic coast?
Lithuania
Lithuania is a lie: the escape it prompts ends in a fake London office, betrayed when a borrowed watch matches the chimes with no time difference.
Q 30Which country saw the world premiere of The Prisoner in September 1967, weeks before Britain did?
Canada
Canada aired it on the CTV network from 5 September 1967, more than three weeks ahead of its British debut.