During the late 1960s and early 1970s television produced, through a series of innovative and at times unusual shows, what M. Keith Booker terms a “cognitive estrangement” (Booker 2). These shows encouraged viewers to “look at the world in new and different ways, rather than merely act as passive consumers of the television signal” (2). Yet, despite its crucial impact, television cannot be seen as a significant force for social and cultural change at the time. As a matter of fact, it was rejected by the counterculture movement, notably by one of its gurus, Charles A. Reich. Television was envisioned by Reich as an instrument of social control which deeply influenced “public consciousness” (Reich 95). Nevertheless, the present study will try to show how television eventually impacted the counterculture movement. In order to substantiate my claim, I will, therefore, examine how certain television series and films played, to a certain extent, a part in the social upheavals as well as mirrored, through a number of visual echoes, the growing scepticism of the younger generation of the late sixties and early seventies. The British cult television show The Prisoner, initially broadcast in 1967-1968, proved probably one of the most groundbreaking shows in the short history of television. The use of surrealistic scenes, psychedelic mind control and panoptical state surveillance, contributed to the show’s “surreal and counter-cultural” (Paige Wiser)1 tone which influenced several generationsof television viewers. As for the film serial Planet of the Apes (1968-1973) and the eponymous television series (1974) based on Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel,2 they clearly reverberate variousfacets of the countercultural movement: drugs, anti-war protest, racial discrimination, the fear ofnuclear weapons, etc. The last television show I shall focus on is entitled John from Cincinnati(2007) which was produced by David Milch and Kem Nunn. Although aired forty years after“The Summer of Love” when “the full force of the cultural revolution was first visible” (Reic223), the show may well be viewed as a contemporary statement on the legacy of thecounterculture movement.