The Therapy Zone

Its Inexplicable

   "This is what I want you to do. When the village clock strikes four......" says No.6 to an hypnotised 86 in A Change of Mind. Well the Clock Tower isn't is it, it's a Bell Tower. Well we never see the clock mechanism when the Prisoner first climbs the Bell Tower on the morning of his arrival in The Village. What's more there's, "Daily No.6 climbs the Bell Tower......" according to the daily activity prognosis report on No.6, to consider. You see you can have one or the other, but not both. So in parts of the Prisoner it's a Bell Tower, and in others it's a Clock Tower, so it would appear you can have both, but not at the same time!

    A disapproving Headmaster.

    2 That is cowardice!

    6 That's honour, sir

    2 We don't talk about such things.

    6 You should teach it, sir.

    2 You're a fool!

    6 Yes sir. Not a rat.

    Rats run together! They race for position. Fools like in the Shakespearian tradition, are non-conformists, outlaws, outcasts. They are out of the common fun. The headmaster exists to train his charges into the ways expected of them. Hence the headmaster in question, does not want to see his prize pupil grow up to be a "Lone-Wolf!"

   On the other hand, there is another form of "Rat," one who "rat's" on his mates, tells on them to the Headmaster for example. That is the kind of honour the Prisoner was talking about, the honour of not "ratting" on the boy who was speaking in class, the schoolmate who he took the punishment for.....12, not 6, of the best!

Numbers Don't Change Only People

   Take Number 8 for example. The first No.8 we encounter in the Prisoner is a plant - Nadia Rakovski. Then she leaves The Village and 8 is given to the White Queen in Checkmate. Something must happen to this No.8, she either leaves The Village, escapes, or dies, otherwise why should her number be reallocated to another woman from the computer room who has a "Daily prognosis report" carried out on No.6 during It's Your Funeral." But then there comes another change for the Number 8, this time in Living In Harmony, but this time No.8 is a man. I wonder how the Prisoner series would have shaped up if the likes of Number 8 had remained the same character in The Village, after Nadia Rakovski had left that is. We would still have had the same characters, but their numbers would be different, and no real reason to keep the character of the white Queen from Checkmate. Mind you, there's that doctor No.40 from Dance of the Dead, played by Duncan MacRae, if the series had kept him for Checkmate, then there would have been no need for the doctor No.22 who we see in Checkmate played by Patricia Jessel.

Living In Harmony

  Someone once wrote, I forget who, "How on earth did the drugged No.6, and others, ride a cardboard cut-out horse?

   Well of course the answer is that they didn't, because the live action was only in No.6's mind, together with The Judge, Cathy, and the Kid. In reality No.6 would simply be running about slapping his thigh as children once did when they played "Cowboys and Indians. I mean can you imagine what No.6 is doing in "reality" as the events of Living In Harmony is being played out in his mind? I can!

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