The Therapy Zone

    "I envisaged the ending from the beginning {that’s not what he told Lew grade at the time!}. 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."

                                                Patrick McGoohan

    "Life in The Village can be quite enjoyable for those who resign themselves from their circumstances. Each resident is given his or her own luxurious cottage with maid service and all the comforts. But they are prisoners and are constantly reminded of their station by persistent electronic surveillance and the presence of a castle which serves as a conditioning centre to break down rebellious ideas."

                                                Patrick McGoohan

    "My Village is not 1984, but 1968. People disappear into camps like this. It's not imagination-it's fact. These camps are actual physical map references. At this moment, individuals are being drained of their personalities and being brainwashed into slaves. The inquisition of the mind by psychiatrists is far worse than the assualt on the body by torturers. We read in the paper of crashed spy planes and captured spy boats. And we take it for granted when the patriotic pilots and commanders are paraded in public by their captors as grey, blank-faced old puppets who, without any sort of outward damage, pit at their country and beliefs. It's not fiction. It's a Chinese newsreel. It's as real as the headlines. More than anything else, I believe passionately in the freedom of the individual. I want to yell back: "That's our right. The loss of one's own individuality is the nightmare." And if I haven't made my "yell back" clear in The Prisoner, the individual viewer has the right to shout "Nuts to you Paddy boy."

                                             Patrick McGoohan

Be seing you