The Therapy Zone

Drugs!

   Drugs feature large within the Prisoner series, be they simple sedatives, or experimental drugs like the one used by No.14 to enable her to get into No.6's dreams. Or be they Supermoprobermates used on No.50 in the episode It's Your Funeral, or Mytol used by No.86 in A Change of Mind. Or whether they be mind altering hallucinogens, Drugs form the basis of medical experimentation, and therapy in The Village. Even Fall Out is not free from drug related puns, as No.48 says "Thanks for the trip Dad." And as the President said to No.48 "Now you're High." But No.48 is on a downer, not an upper, as he replies "I'm low!"

  If the Observers are so good that they do see and hear everything as the heir presumptive No.2 told No.6 in ‘It's Your Funeral,’ then No.6 wouldn't have been allowed to get away with half the things he did. Like following No.14 to that laboratory somewhere in the woods in ‘A B and C.’ And when No.6 pours that drugged cup of tea into the flower pot, that would have been observed during ‘A Change of Mind.’ Also the fight between No.6 and Curtis in his cottage, the fact that No.6 took the false mole from Curtis' left wrist and placed it on his own, not to mention the fact that by using a short circuiting table lamp, and earthing himself to a gas pipe, No.6 was able to reverse the conditioning he underwent to make him left handed! What price Observers? No price at all!

    Get the message? Yes I think we just got it! Even No.48 makes his point during his trial of Fall Out, is given the opportunity to plead his case before the assembly. And the ex-No.2 has the opportunity during his address to the assembly, to spit No.1 in the eye! But Sir, who has become so important to them, and who is asked to make a speech by him but for them, is shouted down at each attempt! What could Sir possibly have to say that frightens the assembly so much, alright we didn't get it after all!

    Get the message? Well not quite the first time around we didn't, because Patrick McGoohan failed to make himself understood! But then later in the late 1970's, nearly a decade later, certain individuals who did get the message, began to gather together, and in time formed a fan club for the Prisoner and in so doing Prisoner appreciation was born.

   In ‘It's Your Funeral,’ the heir presumptive No.2 orders a daily activities prognosis be carried out on No.6. No.8 takes that report to the interim No.2, and during reading out the report No.8 tells him that No.6 is very active. Well just how active is No.6? I mean whenever I've seen No.6 working out in his own private gymnasium, it's someone else on the high bar, and it's someone else "cooling off" water skiing. In Free For All, in a long aerial shot of No.6 escaping in the jet boat, it's not Patrick McGoohan. It's not even a stuntman.........it's local man to Portmeirion, Brian Axeworthy who doubled for No.6 escaping in his jet boat, just as he did for No.6 when he was supposed to be water skiing!

   I was sat doing a crossword last night, when I came across a clue which I set  down here, "A self contained part of a larger whole." I wanted to answer "The Village Guardian," but there were too many letters, and "Rover" was too short!

Are They Running Out Of Time?

   Why in ‘A B & C’ is No.2 given so little time to work with No.14 and her new drug? I mean such an important experiment surely deserved more time to achieve the required result. Yet right from the very beginning No.2 is put under enormous pressure to succeed. Pressure which No.2 tries to transfer to the doctor-No.14. I mean it just doesn't make any sense. When one is put under extreme pressure, that's when mistakes are made. Is it a question of time I wonder, as No.6 put to No.2 in ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ are they, even by ‘A B & C,’ running out of time so soon?

Be seeing you