Saturday, 19 November 2011

The Therapy Zone

Measure For Measure

   That was No.6's revenge on now fewer than two separate occasions. The first for the suicide of No.73 at the beginning of Hammer Into Anvil. The Prisoner's revenge taken against No.2 who hounded No.73 until she could not stand any more of his interrogation, driving her to commit suicide by jumping out of that hospital window.
   Then in Living In Harmony Cathy a saloon girl who was brutally strangled to death by the Kid. This made the stranger, the man with no name - No.6, put on his gun and face the Kid in a gun fight who he out draws and guns down.

 The Seltzman Machine

    There has always been some confliction regarding which side was trying to find out where Doctor Jacob Seltzman is during the episode of Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling. Whether or not Sir Charles Portland was aware of the village, and that it might have been he who sent the Colonel to the village in the first place. Whether or not its the village who is after Seltzman's reversal process for its own good, or whether the village is working with Sir Charles Portland, or that both sides are after Seltzman's reversal process.
    Well its quite possible that Sir Charles department and that of the village are separate entities. Because Seltzman himself said that both sides want his reversal process. Which in turn means that both sides have the Seltzman machine!
    Well if you can make any logical sense out of the episode Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, then please let me know! Because Doctor Seltzman's reversal process wasn't needed in the first place!

Did McGoohan Get The Response He Wanted?

   Well according to what McGoohan said, he wanted to make people think, he wanted to make them angry. So yes I think he did. People did think about the enigma that the Prisoner is, indeed they still do to this day. And at the time people did get angry, because they felt cheated by the allegorical ending which McGoohan presented us with. Most were expecting a James Bond style of ending, which if you forget all that allegorical rubbish, is just what McGoohan did present to viewers, a james Bond style of ending. But because McGoohan wrapped it all up in an allegorical box, the public at the time, and for sometime after, could not see it!

Did McGoohan Achieve That Which He Set Out To Achive?

   Yes I think he probably did. He made a television series the Prisoner, he got people thinking instead of vegetating in front of the television. And he made people angry, those who felt cheated by McGoohan's allegorical ending of Fall Out. But then people at the time didn't see Fall Out as being anything else than utter rubbish and blamed McGoohan for it, although I'm not sure he expected that bit!


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