them sadly remain beneath the radar, the shows have either influenced the entertainment universe that evolved after their unfortunate passing or doubtless will as time hyperspeeds onward.

Our picks represent merely a fraction of the rewarding cult television available for watching and rewatching in an era of rampant DVD reissues and unstoppable torrents. Let us know your own favorite cult TV classics in the comments section below. We'll make sure to collate them in a future gallery, which can then inspire its own unstoppable arguments.

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Danger Man/The Prisoner

Stuffed with surveillance, gadgetry and resource wars, Danger Man's Cold War technophilia is practically a template for the recession-proof militarism that went supernova after the 9/11 attacks shocked and awed us all.

As John Drake, the spook fixer with mysterious origins and affiliations, the late, great Patrick McGoohan knit banana republics and other geopolitical pawns together with cut-throat power players like NATO and the International Monetary Fund -- usually using nothing but his wits and spy devices, which ranged from miniature cameras, recorders and other surveillance standbys.

Along with Danger Man's timelessly surreal sequel The Prisoner, McGoohan's spy-fi hydra anticipated the mediated, metafictional madness we now find ourselves in, where we're not humans but numbers in a suspiciously engineered society and economy.

“Patrick McGoohan was one of the great heroes of my childhood and adolescence, as well as a continuing influence, via The Prisoner, on all of my thinking,” comics brainiac Grant Morrison told Wired.com after sci-fi visionary McGoohan passed in 2009. “I only knew him from the TV screen, where Number Six can never die.”

Images courtesy AMC/ITV

Authors: Scott Thill

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