What if…….the Prisoner got away before the two undertakers came for him? That would seem to have been extremely unlikely, seeing as they had followed the Prisoner’s car from the underground car park, and through the busy London streets. Yet, the two undertakers had not followed him all the way to his home of No.1 Buckingham Place, because as the Prisoner parked his car outside the house, the hearse is already parked in Buckingham Place, with the pair of undertakers sat inside waiting for him to arrive home!
So what about if No.6 that time in the cave during ’The Chimes of Big Ben,’ had taken his time and thought it out, asking himself how was it possible for Nadia to have been able to contact the man in the cave from the Village. He might have seen Nadia for what she was….a plant! Ah, but then what good would that have done him? Having over powered Post 5 and Nadia, just how far would No.6 have managed to get before either ‘they’ or ‘it’ {meaning the Village Guardian} caught up with him? Had the doctor in A B and C told No.2 that No.6 had opened his eyes and seen her, then things for No.2 might have turned out differently.
The election period of ‘Free For All.’ There he was No. 6 elected by the people as the new No.2, and what did he do? He tried to organise a mass break out, he just couldn’t help himself. Not a man our No.6 to keep calm, play the game, no matter whose game he might be playing at the time, and try to bring the system down from within. No, he had to go for it while he could, not that ‘they‘ would have allowed him to remain the new No.2. Such was his desire for escape, which incidentally was the driving force behind him during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben’ which made him believe Nadia Rakovsky’s story, if indeed that was her name in the first place!
You are free to go he said. He had command, he would immobilise all electronic controls, obey me and be free. Do you think No.6 wanted the people to be free? Not a bit of it. All he wanted was to create mass confusion, and then with any luck No.6 would escape amid all the confusion! No.6 cares only for one person, himself. He looks after No.1, and as it turned out, No.1 had been looking out for No.6 all along. We mustn’t damage the tissue let me remind you. No.2 didn’t want No.6 damaged, not a man of fragments. He wanted No.6 with a whole heart, body and soul! Only later did something change, that No.2 was actually allowed to try and break No.6, as in the affair of ‘The Schizoid Man.’
Now there are two No.6’s in the Village, except one isn’t No.6, he’s No.12 who is impersonating No.6, who had been conditioned to be No.12. Then as No.12 he undergoes certain changes to make him look like No.6 because No.2 wants No.12 to impersonate No.6. So that now we have No.6 impersonating himself, twice! What luck it was that No.6 did not know that Susan had died a year ago.
‘Dance of the Dead,’ the only “what if” I can think of here, is what if the mob screaming for No.6’s blood had actually caught up with him, they would have ripped him apart!
“Checkmate,” No.6 learns how to tell the blacks from the whites, in other words the pieces on the chessboard, the Guardians from the warders. So desperate for escape was No.6, that down on the beach that night he had to make a choice. To go back to the Green Dome, or to put to sea aboard the pair of rubber lilos in order to bring the boat in-shore to the Village so as to effect an escape. Sadly for No.6 he chose the latter, had he chosen the former, well anything was possible.
I could go on, but I think the point has been made that ‘the Prisoner’ series is full of choices, “what if’s?” And yet, even before ‘the Prisoner’ went into production, you see there is a serious side to this. If Patrick McGoohan had not gone filming scenes for ’Danger Man’ at Portmeirion. Had he accepted the role which had been offered to him of James Bond, he may very well not have produced ‘the Prisoner.’ So no show, no Appreciation Society. And that would have meant that many friendships through that society would not have been made. People would not have come together, not met and eventually married, as they did because of their appreciation for ‘the Prisoner.’ And of course their children would not have been born.
‘The Prisoner’ is but a television series, and aficionados of the series have discussed and debated the meaning of ‘the Prisoner’ for the passed 45 years. And yet, such a television series does still attract new fans as well as maintaining life time fans as myself. In fact there is a serious side of ‘the Prisoner,‘ which enjoys a fan base which extends all around the globe, people of varying nations, of faith, of colour, of ethnic background. ‘The Prisoner’ has brought all kinds of people together over the years and decades, from all walks of life, and social backgrounds, but people who have one thing in common…….’the Prisoner.’
I’ll be seeing you
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