I'm Sorry I'll Play That Again

The Prisoner - Adolf Hitler - And A Breakdown Of The Time-Space Continuum!

    It is always gratifying to hear from like minded "Prisoner" appreciationists who share some of my thoughts and ideas of what "the Prisoner" is all about.

    Repetition within "the Prisoner" has been a pet theory of mine for a number of years and which brought about the theory that Fall Out and not Arrival is the beginning of "the Prisoner," and that it was Sir's rejection of the offer of 'ultimate power,' to lead the village which ultimately made him a Prisoner in the first place! How's that for a radical theory?

    This theory was brought about with my understanding that "the Prisoner" is nothing worse than a vicious circle, with no beginning and no end there is simply "the Prisoner" with the ending of Fall Out being the commencement of Arrival. Which then in turn made me think of the possibility that the Prisoner is actually caught up and trapped within a time loop, to live and re-live his actions of the past or present over and over again in a continuous loop of repetition from which there is no possible escape!

    Then there is the question of memory recall, and how much the Prisoner might remember from his previous time in the village? Perhaps memory recall is the Prisoner's one and only way in which to break this possible time loop, to stop himself from re-living the events over and over and to ultimately escape. Because no rerun of the Prisoner's time in the village could be exact as the time before, though to us the viewer it is. It is possible that if No.6 recalls what is happening to him, just enough as to be able to alter the course of things, but then either fate or time itself, if such things are to be believed to be so prearranged in such cases, have a nasty way of countering any such alterations as to achieve the exact same result which would have happened in the first place. In this way so that whatever the Prisoner did to try and change the order of events which plague him so, the result of such events remain, although possibly adjusted slightly, basically remain to keep him Prisoner!

    But what could the Prisoner-No.6 do in order to break this vicious circle to break free of the time loop which holds himself Prisoner? Well after finally escaping free of the village in Fall Out or perhaps the second, third and even fourth time, he might try and refrain from returning to London, and if he still does, then to get into his Lotus Seven and drive as fast and as far away from the capital as he can. The same applies during Many Happy Returns once having escaped back to dear old Blighty-England. Instead of returning home and then driving off to those now ex-colleagues who put him in the village in the first place, he should have just driven off never to be seen again. Either that or not return home to

No.1 Buckingham Place

at all! Obviously No.6 must have realised by now that he could not trust his ex-colleagues. The events of ‘The Chimes of Big Ben’ should have told him that much! Perhaps No.6 would have better luck during Do Not Forsake Me Oh My darling’, although the body his mind then inhabited might not be altogether to his liking, the Colonel's! But then what about the poor old Colonel himself, I mean it wouldn't exactly be a bed of roses for him. Prisoner in the village, his mind trapped in another man's body!

    Whether the events of this so called vicious circle are physical or simply all in the mind of the Prisoner is difficult to say, possibly they are both. How ‘the Prisoner’ became to be so in the first place is another question. Physically he was a man whom the village authorities saw as having a future with them, so much so and having survived the ultimate test was duly offered ultimate power and the chance to lead them or go. The Prisoner chose the latter and escaped the village along with three comrades, the ex-No.2, No.48 and the Butler. Mentally I can only offer the theory of the Prisoner being so single minded, that he simply kept going over the events leading from his action of resignation and subsequent abduction to the village, such events being so imprinted in his mind he could think of nothing else, going over and over them time and time again. And this way he was suffering from a self-persecution complex as suggested by the doctor-No.14 in ‘A B and C.’

   However if the events taking place during "the Prisoner" are of a physical nature, then there could be a breakdown in the Time Continuum thus causing events to be repeated over and over again, possibly with no realisation of this occurrence. Well people have uttered those fated words that "the Prisoner" is timeless and even more, is ahead of its time, and in this could raise the question of immortality!

    Adolph Hitler once said of the Third Reich that it would last one thousand years. Thinking about it he may very well have been right, after all hardly a day goes by when there is not a Second World War film on television, the discussion of the Holocaust. Television documentaries about the Nazis and Adolph Hitler are on all the time, most recently "Nuremberg." Its keeping it in mind that keeps something or someone alive, and isn't that what the President in ‘Fall Out’ said to sir, "remember us, don't forget us, keep us in mind." And in that way "The Prisoner" will live on in the minds of men and women the world over as much as the village is kept alive in the mind of the Prisoner-No.6, is in itself a form of immortality when something cannot die perhaps.

   Remember us, don't forget us, keep us in mind!

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