The Therapy Zone

The Symbolic Meaning of That Membranic Village Guardian

    "The balloon" according to Patrick McGoohan as he once explained "represented the greatest fear of all - the unknown, the invasion of privacy, or hidden bureaucracy. Interviews, death, taxes, or whatever."

    Well things could have been so, so different had the original MK1 'Rover' village guardian actually worked. That adapted go-kart, with its dome and flashing blue light.

  Now could you say the same about this original MK1 'Rover?' Would this mechanical contraption have the same symbolic meaning as the improvised membranic village guardian 'Rover?' Somehow I don't think so, the original MK1 'Rover' would have been just what it appeared to be, a mechanical device and nothing more, and probably clumsy with it! Unlike the improvised, agile, adaptable 'Rover' MK2, what a great piece of improvisation that proved to be, and it even looks as though it could have future symbolic meaning.                           

    And more, had the MK1 'Rover' actually been the success that its creators had hoped it would be, then the Prisoner might perhaps have been all the poorer for it, and not have had quite the same effect that 'Rover' the chalk, helium filled balloon had, don't you think?

Patrick McGoohan & The Penny Farthing Bicycle

    It has been documented in an interview with Patrick McGoohan as saying "The ancient bicycle represented progress, that it was time for man to slow down his technological progress, to stop and assimilate what man has achieved so far. That man is progressing to quickly. And judging by the technological breakthroughs of today he might very well have been right. the thing aboiut technology, that perhaps McGoohan didn't understand is, that technology never stands still, becasue man will never allow it to do so, which I believe was the point McGoohan was trying to make. One has only to be in a traffic jam for hours on the highway with a few thousand other automobiles to know what that meant. In the traffic jam, in the immobile cars, one is a statistic, a number, futile, a prisoner - you'll get home quicker on the bicycle."

   Well Patrick McGoohan appears to have got it spot on, as more and more people are reverting back to the bicycle, as more and more cars appear on our roads. McGoohan himself became a cyclist, he would cycle everywhere {because he’d lost his driving license due to a drink driving offence} even the Penny Farthing bicycle is becoming more and more popular today. In fact a new factory has recently opened in Leicester Great Britain which is producing Penny Farthing bicycles for todays market. Of the canopy McGoohan said that it respresented safety, in the way motorists were being forced to wear a seat belt at the time, and crash helmets which were also being forced to be worn by motor cyclists at the time of the Prisoner here in the Great Britain.

    Today people ride all kinds of bicycles, and the canopy of the R.S shopper bicycle seen in the Village of the Prisoner, has been replaced by a cycle helmet! Well there's progress for you!

BCNU