The more I think about it, the more I realise that Justins House is a modern re-interpretation of the 60s Spy-Fi classic ‘The Prisoner’.

There are just too many similarities.

The Village in The Prisoner was colourful and featured quirky architecture as does Justins House. Number 6 wore the same clothes all the time as does Justin.

Just look at the similarities!

In The Prisoner number 6 could never take what happened in the village at face value. His captors were always trying to trick him into doing something he’d rather not. In Justins house Little Monster is forever trying to trick Justin.

Number 6 was unable to leave the village and if he ever did he would be forced to return pretty quickly. Likewise Justin very rarely leaves his house for more than a minute or two.

In The Prisoner agents would be sent in to try and break number 6, if they failed they would be removed from their task without warning. In the case of Justins House what they hell happened to ‘Dee Livery’? She disappeared! Were Justins captors punishing her for her failure? I think so.

And then there was the fantastical technology. The Prisoner featured mind swaps, memory manipulation and supercomputers. Justins House features a humanoid robot that seemingly channels the spirit of Larry Grayson.

And the biggest similarity? Number 6 was rumoured to be John Drake from the series ‘Danger Man’. I have a sneaking suspicion that Justin Fletcher may actually be Mr Tumble from Something Special – remember you heard it here first!’

Justins House is not a childrens show, it is a docu-drama about a man held captive in a fantastical world against his will where he is forced to engage is pointless tasks designed to break his will.

It makes perfect sense.

I am a certified geek.

I’m proud of it and I don’t care what anyone says.

Unfortunately, I tend to view things in a fairly regimated fashion. I like things to work the way they should and have issues with flights of fancy in films and TV shows.

Let me give you an example. The monkey REALLY LOVES Chuggington, a railway based animated show that has an ear-worm theme tune. It’s bright, colourful and aims to teach children many valuable life lessons such as the importance of freindship, teamwork and honesty. The main characters of this show are young ‘trainees’ – literally sentient trains who are in training (geddit?) to become grown up trains.

They do all the typical childrens show stuff, they get in to trouble, make and break friendships and learn some important lessons along the way.

But speaking as an ex-signalman myself I find myself watching this show and saying “but railways do not work that way”. I find myself complaining, in my own head, about the show. I have particular issue with the idea of sentient trains. I know that the show is really just a  flight of fancy designed to enterchain some little moneys, but the geek in me still can’t but help moan about the the lack of reality in such shows.

Firstly, no one uses roundhouses any more and secondly, how do the trains up top get down to ground level?

Should I be like this? No way, but it’s one of those little things that being a dad does to me. You will probably experience something similar at some point too.