The Therapy Zone

The Prisoner

   If there was one criticism of ‘the Prisoner’ it was that there is no actual continuity between the episodes. That there is no logical progression in the Prisoner's captors extraordinary attempts to break him, of logical pattern to the Prisoner's bids to escape - or indeed anything else for that matter. But then as each episode can be viewed independently, as a story in its own right, it probably doesn't matter.

    Well that's as maybe, but no continuity between the episodes means that the viewer can watch any episode in any order, save for those of Arrival – ‘Once Upon A Time,’ and ‘Fall Out.’ Mind you, the viewer could always watch ‘Fall Out’ before ‘Arrival’ don't you think? After all, if ‘Fall Out’ was the first episode....... Arrival does begin at the end of ‘Fall Out,’ well at least we see the commencement of the opening sequence.

   Logical, who said ‘the Prisoner’ had to be logical? The really only logical thing about ‘the Prisoner’ series is it's ending. Because in my opinion ‘Fall Out’ is the only logical conclusion!

It’s A Question Interpretation

    It was once written by a man who thinks himself to be quite an expert on the subject of the Prisoner, no it wasn't me, "That the words of the Londonderry Air, aka Oh Danny Boy, contain lyrics about an Irish son departing for America, having been unable to secure work to obtain any appreciation in his particular place of residence. The words The Summer's gone and all the Roses dying...tis you, tis you must bide and I must go, come out of the screen to haunt the viewer. McGoohan must know his party was over, the sixties were ending and the money had run out."

   Well I suppose the money had indeed run out for McGoohan as far as the Prisoner was concerned, and after the public's response to Fall Out, McGoohan may very well have felt unappreciated.

     I have in front of me a copy of the lyrics of Oh Danny Boy, and as far as I can see there is no suggestion that Danny Boy was going to America. It could so easily have been Canada, New Zealand or Australia. The song has been interpreted by some listeners as a message from a parent to a son going off to war or leaving as part of the Irish Diaspora.

    And so if the so termed "expert" of such an interpretation of the use of the song Oh Danny Boy was suggesting that Patrick Mc,Goohan, an Irish American, was thinking of returning home to America, as he eventually did of course, But at the time of The Girl Who Was Death, the episode in which the lyrics of Oh Danny Boy featured, there was nothing to suggest that McGoohan's intention was to go to America. Because he had other projects in the pipe-line, four films he was going to produce with ITC.

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