The Therapy Zone

   I wonder what "they" do with all this information when they get it? Probably put in a room full of grey filing cabinets we see in the opoening sequence.

   This is the room where after the Prisoner's resignation, a photograph of the man is attached to a computer printout card, the photograph is seen to be ex'ed out, and finally dropped into a drawer of a filing cabinet marked RESIGNED.

   But where is this huge room of lined grey filing cabinets? Somewhere in the village perhaps would be favourite, otherwise it would have to be in a place. A warehouse somewhere in London would be a second guess.

   It would appear that the main reason for the administration behind the village, is the gathering of information. And we see one way of gathering such information during the episode of ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling,’ via the use of the Seltzman machine. They have a man in what is termed as, "the amnesia room," in where the information in a man's head is extracted, and all unpleasant memories of the village are removed, and the man is then put back in circulation to gather more information.

   Well that's all fine and dandy, but why the need for information? Perhaps because information is power. But then what do "they" do with all this information when "they" get it? Who has access to all this information? Just the members of the villages administration? Those who run the village? Our side or theirs? An International alliance perhaps, who can request any such information which the village is in possession of. Surely "they" don't simply gather any such information, then simply bury it away somewhere deep in that warehouse full of long lines of grey filing cabinets, so that no-one has access to what "they" might see as privileged, sensitive, and perhaps even dangerous information.

Information And Observations

    My favourite episode of the Prisoner series are those which contain Portmeirion/the village. So you can guess which episodes they are.

    Machines in the episode Its Your Funeral apparently have the ability to think, as when asked for a percentile appraisal of their own efficiencies, the machines refused to give the requested data, simply by not returning that data. This does in fact go all the way back to the 1950's and Alan Turing and the "Turing Test."

    Continuing with the theme of ‘Its Your Funeral,’ this episode saw No.6 in a caring mood, in caring enough as to what would happen to the good citizens of the community should the assassination/execution of the retiring No.2 be successful. When previously No,6 cared little enough about the people, preferring his own company as in the private gymnasium he built for himself in the woods, which he built sometime either during or before the episode of Its Your Funeral.

    The fact that No.6 involved himself in the assassination plot, ie to stop it, has never sat well with me. But he did come to the aid of the community, but the people of that community will never know it, or the fate they faced.

   But this is not the first time No.6 has involved himself in the machinations of the village's administration. He did so previously in the General, and would so do again in ‘A Change of Mind!’

Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

   Did Janet, not forsake her fiancé, because I think she loved him too much to do that, but did she unwittingly betray him and professor Seltzman, by him I mean her fiancé John-No.6?

   I don't think she meant to betray him, I don't think she understood the significance of that receipt which her fiancé gave to her for safe keeping, in time of trouble a year ago. I mean, Mr. Carmicheal did sign for those transparencies at the World Camera shop, and obviously Mr. Carmicheal, whoever he was, was working for Sir Charles Portland. Because at the outset of the episode Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, Sir Charles and other men of his department, all sat together in Sir Charles study/office viewing these transparencies.

    So in all probability, it was Janet Portland's father Sir Charles, who talked Janet into handing over the receipt for the transparencies, on the promise that no harm would come of it, and that the receipt would be returned to her safe keeping.

Be seeing you