The Theray Zone

    "I envisaged the ending from the beginning. In a series like this, you have to know at the outset what you are aiming at. You have got to know the ending before you begin. So I had the idea for the final episode first of all and took it from there. I know what they've been saying behind my back. It's true that I have been unpredictable and impatient. You get that way when you're working at high pressure. I do, anyway. But I haven't lost a friend in the unit. Acting is a job, a craft. I arrive at the studios on time. I know my lines. I do a job the way that a carpenter does a job. I don't know anything about art. The scriptwriters, directors and every member of the unit have been plying me with questions, and I am hoping that viewers will be sufficiently intrigued to follow the series until they find out! The Prisoner himself is asking questions, and once he finds the answers he will be well on the way towards solving the mysteries that are baffling him. Just watch."

    "When the last episode was shown, people in Britain were so incensed, the Network's switchboard was blocked for hours. I had to go into hiding for two weeks, or I would have been killed. A lot of people didn't get what they expected. I'm not at all annoyed. I love people. They are entitled to their views. The Prisoner was a very time-consuming activity. I was doing about four jobs non-stop. When I'm not working I'm contemplating work. The best way I know of relaxing is working, when I care about something. The function of any art is to speak ahead of the times, to herald the warnings that are not obvious but which are there in the atmosphere."

                                           Patrick McGoohan

A New Mission For the Prisoner!

The other day I received an email from an old friend, who said something on the lines that the new series of the Prisoner should not be called the Prisoner. Probably on the grounds that it's nothing like the original series. Well why should it not be called the Prisoner, just becuase No.6 is played by Jim Caviezel instead of Patrick McGoohan. After all there are many Prisoners in the village, and anyone could be No.6, one time it just so happened to have been Patrick McGoohan. If Edward Woodwood as Callan had been abducted to the village, would he not be the Prisoner? Or Michael Caine as Harry Plamer, he would have been a Prisoner if abducted to the Village. See the point I'm trying to make?  After all, we are all Prisoners of one sort or another, and ‘the Prisoner’ itself!

Be seeing you