I'm sure I am not the first to notice this but I have seen little mention of it anywhere. There is a distinct absence of the number 7 throughout the series. There are a couple of exceptions, but for the most part the number 7 seems to have been omitted deliberately from the show.

EXAMPLES:

In 'Arrival', at 5:15 in the episode when 6 visits the Village Information Board, we see a grid of chronological numbers on the buttons used to contact different areas of the Village. It has sixty buttons in numerical sequence from left to right and top to bottom. Any time a 7 would crop up, another number or character is used instead.

1 2 3 4 5 6
6 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 2c 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 1 28
29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
8c 38 39 40 41 42 43 44
45 46 5! 48 49 50 51 52
53 54 55 56 3 58 59 60

NOTE: THE ODD CHARACTERS ABOVE(LETTERS AND !) MAY BE INACCURATE GIVEN THE RESOLUTION OF MY DVD-THE POINT IS THAT THERE ARE NO SEVENS.

Also in Arrival, at 36:28 when 6 is leaving the hospital and given his credit card and id, the chit numbers on the credit card also omit the number 7. The spaces where the sevens would be (7 and 17) are simply blank.

Throughout the series there is no character called #7.

EXCEPTIONS:

In 'Hammer Into Anvil' there is a character #73. In the same story when 6 sends his fake coded message he includes the number 47 as one of the characters in the code.

In 'Many Happy Returns' 6 writes "day 7" in his log whilst sailing away from the Village.

In 'Once Upon A Time', during the 'degree absolute' battle of wills, both #2 and #6 say the number 7 during counting sequences (2 is counting up, 6 is counting down).

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Why is this? And why the lack of consistency if it is deliberate (as it seems to be in 'Arrival' for sure)? Only three of the seventeen episodes have sevens to be found that I can count. Maybe it had meaning originally but was either abandoned or accidentally included in the three instances above. Let me know if I have missed any.

McGoohan claims that he originally wanted 'The Prisoner' to be a seven episode series, and I have read that he considers only seven episodes as essential viewing to understand the series. Number Six drove a Lotus 7. 7 is also the sum of 6 + 1, possibly a clue as to the identity of Number 1 as actually being Number 6 (assuming that McGoohan had this in mind when he filmed the pilot). 7 also has many religious associations and McGoohan was very religious.

Anybody have any other ideas?

Hi all,
maybe McGoohan did not like any reference to 007.
In the companion movie the narrator states that he was offered the role of 007 but rejected it.