The Therapy Zone

Dance Of The Dead

    No.6 sits on an outlook on top of the cliffs tuning in the pocket transistor radio. Suddenly he picks up a transmission, it's a message which begins "Tonight when the moon rises, the whole world will turn to silver. I have a message for you....................." As No.6 listens to the message there comes a point when the voice on the radio asks "Do you understand? It is important that you understand." Well of course No.6 doesn't understand, yet there is no ambiguity about who the message was for. Because the radio message is not meant for No.6, but the man No.6 found dead, and washed up on the beach, who I believe was No.34 who the Supervisor told the Observer-No.240 was dead.

   So having listened to the radio message, No.6 goes down onto the beach looking for a light, a ship, a plane, someone from his world. But of course there is no sign because as it stated in the radio message, "The appointment cannot be fulfilled. There are more important things which must be done tonight." It would seem that with No.34 the Village had a "plant" within it's confines, but "they" got to him first, before No.34 could receive the message that whoever it was coming, is no longer coming to The Village. A message which clearly seems that No.34 has been abandoned by whoever, and for whatever reason, to his own devices in The Village. Just who was behind the voice, and from where the transmitted message originated, and what it was that No.34 had originally expected to happen, and who exactly was No.34 is where the ambiguity lies.

You Get Nothing For Two Pairs In The Village

   No, we are not talking about the two sets of twins, but numbers. In ‘Arrival’ there are four No.66's in the Village, two ex-Admiral’, and the Prisoner's personal maid, and the taxi driver who drives No.6 back to the Village from The Hospital. Then in ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ there are two No.243's, a laboratory technician, and the bomb disposal man. I had thought that there is one person per number when filming the Prisoner on location in Portmeirion, and another for when filming on-set so to speak, which would explain away there being two different people for the same number in 'Arrival,' a simple case of non-continuity between location and set filming. However this does not explain the fact of two different people for the same number, both having been filmed on-set. No nor does it explain how four people in ‘Arrival’ can have the same number - the Prisoners personal maid, and two ex Admirals, who are presumably the same character, played by two different people while on location!

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