The Therapy Zone

Here’s A Question

    Once having arrived in the village in the episode of Do Not Forsake Me Oh My darling, and his duties there having been explained to him, exactly how much persuasion, or coercion was used against the Colonel to make him undergo the mind exchange process?

   Did he undergo the process willingly, calm and collective in both manner and thought. Carrying out orders without question as he must surely have done as a Colonel in the Guards Regiment at one time, he's wearing a Guards tie. Or was it the case that the Colonel had to be taken kicking and screaming to the "Amnesia Room," makes for a pretty picture if you care to imagine what it must have been like for him. Or possibly the Colonel had to be tranquillised for the operation to be carried out, such might have been his state of mind the Colonel had got himself worked up in. Agitated, questioning, afraid of what might happen to him. The possibility of the possibility that he might not be a whole man again must surely have weighed on his mind.

The Colonel

    There are four separate encounters with the Colonel seen in the Prisoner, during The chimes of Big Ben for example. This Colonel is a desk man, desk -bound if you like, save for when he's been seconded to the village. But even then when he is, he's still in his office, albeit a replica!

    The Colonel in Many Happy Returns, does get out and about, and is prepared to take action, even to help an ex-colleague like No.6. A more hands-on approach is adopted by the Colonel during Do Not Forsake Me Oh My darling, as he, like one of his predecessors, is seconded to the village by the highest authority. And once having arrived at the village the Colonel had no choice but to take part in the experiment, to change the minds of two people, that of the Colonel's and No.6. They, whoever 'they' are, were taking a hell of a risk with not only No.6, but also the Colonel. If things had gone wrong, which in the case of the Colonel, they did, No.2 would surely have to pay the price!

    Then last but not least, Colonel Hawke-Englishe who was on the trail of a mad Professor Schnipps who had built a rocket with which to destroy London. But who came to a nasty end whist playing in a cricket match. Blown to bits as he was, whilst at the wicket one run short of his century.

   It is usual for agents like Mr.X to go out into the field, even using a standard disguise. But not so superiors such as the Colonel, even disguised or not. They are the men who sit behind large oak desks in elaborately decorated offices, who have nothing more to worry about than not having "proper biscuits," the ones with the cream in the inside! Administrators who send the likes of John Drake out into the field to face what dangers there may be to face. Perhaps never to return if captured or killed in the process.

Before The War-Since The War-Which War?

    Well that's a good question, because the village has been around for a very long time, you just ask the ex-Admiral-No.66 and the General, because they've been here a very long time.

   So just how long has the village been in existence? Well before the war certainly, since the war almost assuredly because any time is between wars. So really the heart of the matter is which war?

   The Boar war might be going back too far, and the Napoleonic wars is going back even further, but not as far as the War of the Crusades I think. the truth is, we simply do not know. Every country has its own form of Secret Service, their own agents and counter-agents. Agents who get clumsy and captured by the enemy, the information inside their heads of great value to one side or the other. And once that knowledge has been obtained by fair means or foul and then any such enemy agent being of no further value is dispensed with..... ie is put up against a wall and shot! Well what else do you do with enemy secret agents? Well if they are defective agents, recalcitrant agents, or people who simply know too much or too little? Why you build such an installation as the village and put them in it for the duration, or for as long as they live, anyway whichever is the longer!

   For whatever it may be worth, I should say that the village was established some time after WWI. I offer no evidence or reason for this, my own assumption, because there is no reason or logic behind it nor do I have any form of evidence. Any such evidence or information there might be, I am not privy to at this time.

   Perhaps you have an opinion on this matter, if so then you might wish to disclose it, and then we can discuss it.

I'll be seeing you.