The Therapy Zone

Danger man - On Parallel Lines

   It is no wonder that Patrick McGoohan gave up on the Danger Man series, not so sure about the character of John Drake though! Because the story lines were becoming a bit on the thin side towards the end, and at times the story lines sometimes repeated themselves believe it or not, and even became involved with two separate episodes!

   Take the episodes of ‘Are You Going To Be More Permanent?’ and ‘I Am Afraid You Have The Wrong Number.’ In the former episode John Drake travels to Switzerland and the city of Geneva after the Controller of M9's cell there who has mysteriously disappeared. His predecessors also have mysteriously disappeared in similar circumstances, and when Drakes takes the job of Controller it is to find out how his predecessors have disappeared and who is responsible. By the by it is Colonel Salmon who assigns Drake, which ties in with the Colonels seen in various episodes of ‘the Prisoner.’

   Once arriving in Geneva Drake has three agents to contact; Josef Laclos a waiter, Wolf Kronenberg who runs a men's fashion shop. And finally Lesley Arden who is undoubtedly the prettiest prospect of the trio. Half English half French she is the girlfriend of an Ambassador named Vladimar Synikov who apparently says indiscreet things to her.

    I shall not trouble you with a complete synopsis, suffice to say that one of these three named agents is a double agent, and as it turns out, its the girl Lesley Arden. But she is not a double agent as she has been working for Russia all the time! Which as it happens is something of coincidence, and not the only coincidence as we look at the epiosde of I Am Afraid You Have The Wrong Number.

    Again Geneva - Switzerland is the setting, Steadfast a Controller of a spy network has been abducted, and again there are three agents to contact, who all work at different Embassies; Leontine, Aurel, and a girl Leanka. One of them is a double agent, and only by meeting with each one in turn can Drake find out who is the double agent as he or she will be the one to give him away! And that double agent turns out to be the girl Leanka!

   As for the one episode having aspects of two others, this happens in the episode of That's Two Of Us Who Are Sorry. A story which takes place on an Island off the west coast of Scotland when the finger print of a man, Jock Lawson a spy, who has been dead these past twenty years suddenly turns up on a briefcase owned by the controller of a Nuclear power sation in Scotland. Drake is despatched to find this man and bring him back to London.

   This is a storyline used in the 25 minute episode ‘The gallows Tree,’ when the thumbprint of a spy by the name of Hans Brechter turns up on the dashboard of a stolen car belonging to farm salesman by the name of Craig. The action again takes place in Scotland, and as in both these episodes the identification is done through a single finger or thumb print, and discovered in much the same way.

    And the Nuclear power station? Well that is the same as in the 25 minute episode The Leak, and there's a suspected leak from this Nuclear Power station, but of paper, not radiation!

BCNU........ and with no change of mind!