Patrick McGoohan died this week in Los Angeles. He was 80.

Born in New York but raised in the U.K., McGoohan was best known as the creator and star of the TV series “The Prisoner.” It was a surreal story about a secret agent who is abducted from his London flat, branded “Number Six” and confined to a picture-perfect village. It lasted for only 17 episodes, which originally aired in England in 1967. But for many years after that, “The Prisoner” was syndicated in the U.S., mostly on PBS stations, and for me it was almost as intoxicating a taste of the world beyond my basement as the Beatles. (The final episode of “The Prisoner” includes a memorable shoot-out to the tune of the Fab Four’s “All You Need is Love.”)

I memorized “Prisoner” trivia, from the license plate of his sports car (KAR 120C) to the real-life location of “The Village” (Portmeirion in North Wales) to the Prisoner’s actual name (”Drake,” which was mentioned only once and was a sly reference to McGoohan’s character in the series “Danger Man” AKA “Secret Agent”).

Watching “The Prisoner” got me hooked on late-night PBS, which led me to “Monty Python,” “SCTV,” subtitled movies and “Siskel & Ebert.” Which led me to this job.

It all started with this awesome opening-credit sequence:

We’ll be seeing you, Number Six.