I want to talk to you about the Prisoner episode ‘Once Upon A Time,’ an episode which is at times a biography of McGoohan's life. Starting from his time at school where he displayed an air of rebelliousness in not telling the Headmaster who it was who had been talking in class. The pupil graduates, and is lucky enough to get a job in a Bank, and who goes on to play the role of a secret agent on television. Not too sure about the war, McGoohan was too young to have joined the R.A.F. As for the seven ages of man, well they missed out "the lover," hardly surprising is it?
It has been said that Once Upon A time is, in parts, the biography on McGooahn, well that is how it may seem, yet there is very little of McGoohan's life in this episode. True he did, for a time, work in a Bank, he also worked in a factory. He once owned or worked on a chicken farm, he was in Rep at Sheffield , but he did go on to play a secret agent by the name of John Drake. And as a boy at school, well, he was described as a "quiet boy," hardly the description of a rebel is it?
Yet Once Upon A time stands in the entire series as the strongest statement issued by No.6 {or the writer}. It is a one-on-one situation, which is hard going for McKern and McGoohan, yet entertaining for us. For what reason do we enjoy the demise of No.2? For No.6 is loathful of his victory, even angry at the death of his opponent, which is displayed by his smashing of his wine glass.
The Professor
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