THE SBL FORUM has published a number of new essays this month. This one in particular caught my eye:

They’ve Given You a Number and Taken Away Your Name’: Gnostic Themes in The Prisoner, Television’s Ultimate Cult Classic

Mark Holwager and Valarie Ziegler

Surprisingly, no one has discussed The Prisoner’s striking parallels to Gnostic religions. Using the Gospel of Thomas and “The Hymn of the Pearl” from the Acts of the Apostle Thomas, we will demonstrate how The Prisoner exemplifies the Gnostic myth of descent and return, depicting a hero who refuses to be fully embodied in the hateful world in which he is imprisoned, who insists (contrary to evidence) that he is from a truer world in a higher realm, and who risks everything to return to the beginning and reunite with his genuine self....

It's quite interesting. The Truman Show is another example of a retelling of the Gnostic demiurgic redemption myth in modern media. The parallels are so strong that I'm inclined to think they're deliberate. Truman is the True Man trapped in the false world of the Demiurge Christof (the off-Christ) and is inspired to escape by Sylvia (Sophia), and so on. But I'm hardly the first to point this out.