THEPRIS6NER

    The episode Anvil is a game being played out between Two and Six. More than that it's a challenge that is set by Two to see if Six can turn a given situation to his own favour. It's a trap set for Six to fall into. Two tells Six as much, but still Six cannot resist the challenge. Because every breathing moment of Six's existence in The Village is set to work against Two.

   Anvil also looks at the morality of surveillance. We are all being watched by someone, our every move watched and recorded, more than anyone else in the world here in the United Kingdom. If you have nothing to hide, then you've nothing to fear. The trouble is that here in the United Kingdom CCTV cameras are everywhere, and we have allowed this to happen. But the thing with CCTV cameras is that if you live long enough with them, you arrive at a point where you no longer notice them.

   In The Village I would have thought that technology would have made it possible for a number of people in a Control Room somewhere to be sat observing everything through remote cameras, as in the original series. But it would seem not to be the case, as "Undercovers" are put to use watching people as they go about their daily business. Small cells of "Undercovers," and the members of each cell are unknown to members of other cells, so that everyone is capable of watching everyone else. But this need not necessarily be the case. Simply to have that as a threat would be enough to control people's behaviour. But everyone is guilty of something, and it's the task of "Undercovers" like 909 to find out what the citizens of The Village are guilty of. The trouble with this system is, that anyone can become suspect, even through a quite innocent action or non-action. I mean you might do something regular, like attending regular Yoga classes. But then one day you're not feeling well and don't go, that's out of normal activity, and someone see this, and then you become suspect! But such is the teaching and indoctrination of the students regarding surveillance, that anything which happens from the normal activities of the subject they are watching, automatically makes the subject suspect.

    Children in The Village are taught surveillance techniques, and Six is their teacher. Because Surveillance was Michael's occupation back in New York. He was an observer watching people, writing reports on them, which is not so very different from what "Undercovers" do in The Village. Six sets his class on a mission, to find out who they are working for? What do they want? What's their secret?

   So does everyone live in fear in The Village? I shouldn't be surprised, but at the same time they get on with their everyday lives. You see we're all gossips. We like to be in each others business, so that Six eventually finds himself compromised by the situation. We are all nosey, the difference in The Village is, if someone reports you, then you are sent for treatment!

    Six and 313 are not so very different. Six has the same questions as 313, but Six vocalises them, whereas 313 doesn't. Village life doesn't work very well, and 313 is aware of this, but chooses to keep her head down, just in case anything happens to her to send her back to that other life of hers, to become Sarah again. And 313 doesn't want that, so she will put up with life in The Village, because it is a life more preferable to the one she has known.

   11-12 is basically a lost character who needs love and a cuddle. He couldn't get these from his father, so he turned to 909. As for the relationship between 11-12 and 909, well that's been going on for some considerable time, long before THEPRIS6NER series starts. It doesn't all start with the Prisoner waking up in the desert! Which begs the question, just how long has The Village been going?

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