The Therapy Zone

It’s A Question of Continuity

    Over the years there has often been posed the question of continuity within the Prisoner, looking like there isn't any. I mean one moment during Free For All No.6 is wearing a piped blazer with continuous piping around the lapel, and the next its broken piping around the lapel. But what of continuity between episodes? Well there seems to be little less of this that there is within an episode, yet there are two examples. The first is obvious, the continuity between Once Upon A Time and Fall Out, the fact being that both episodes have been written by the same scriptwriter..... Patrick McGoohan. The second is not quite so obvious, the reason being that there had been made a cut in the original script of Many Happy Returns, which was written by scriptwriter Anthonmy Skene who also wrote the script for Dance of the Dead. What was cut from the original script of Many Happy Returns was to have come at the end of the episode. This where Mrs. Butterworth-No.2 hands No.6, who having been forcibly returned to the village, a present wrapped up in a copy of the village newspaper The Tally Ho, the headline of which reading "Plane Lost Over Sea. No Hope Of Survivors." "Give in and enjoy being dead" Mrs. Butterworth-No.2 tells him. His reply as he screws up the newspaper is "I'll die first!"

    The fact that No.6 was ejected out of the Meteor Jet aircraft over the village demonstrates his untimely return to the village. However what of the pilot, who was surely an agent working for the village administration, he could hardly return to that aerodrome back in England, nor even to the airfield at Gibraltar where they refuelled. So more likely the pilots destination would be the landing stage which is only a quick flip by helicopter form the village. This referred to in the episode of The Schizoid Man. Hence the aircraft having been lost somewhere in the sea, means that No.6 would be reported as being lost in an accident at sea. And this is where the piece of continuity comes between Many Happy Returns and Dance of the Dead, because in the mortuary No.6 and No.2 are discussing the body in the long drawer.

    "In his pocket......" No.6 begins.

    "The wallet? It's still there, amended slightly. We'll amend him slightly. It's you who's dead, in an accident at sea."

    "So to the outside world....."

    "Which you only dream about" retorts No.2.

    "I'll be dead." he concedes.

    "A small confirmation of a known fact" No.2 concludes.

    I can only wonder how much improved the Prisoner might have been for other such moments of continuity as this. However when there are a number of script writers who are writing individual episodes, then any possible continuity between the episodes is lost.

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