The Therapy Zone

Dance of the Dead

   It was the shock of the electric force-field which No.6 encountered on the steps of the Town Hall, Not the fact that it was the Town Hall, that

surprised No.6. This episode must follow that of  ‘Many Happy Returns,’ on the simple grounds of the one piece of real continuity between the episodes. That of No.6 having died in an accident at sea, which must have been reported after Many Happy Returns, the Gloster Meteor jet – lost at sea. This is confirmed by the amended body with the amended

wallet in his pocket “A small confirmation, of a known fact,” No.2 informs the Prisoner during ‘Dance of the Dead.’

   The Tally Ho – Feb 10^th / Is No.2 Fit For Further Term? I now feel that although this issue was used for both the episodes ‘The Schizoid Man’ and ‘A B and C,’ the date was not to have been noticed in the one episode, and the newspaper headline in the other. In this the use of the same issue of The tally Ho in two separate episodes makes sense. Well you cannot have two episodes running on the same day…or could you?

The Prisoners Double meaning

    It was written some years ago that incredibly many years on from the original screening of the Prisoner that some people have still not twigged onto the double-meaning behind the series, even though McGoohan blew the whistle on himself rather obviously for the final two episodes.

    the Prisoner works very well a continuation series of Danger Man, dealing with what happened to John Drake after he resigned. Of failing to see that No.6 and John Drake are the same character, a spy series where a man who resigns is abducted to the village to have the reason behind his resignation extracted, and coercion used against him to turn him towards the village, seeing as this man has a future with the village.

   But then the financial rug was pulled out underneath McGoohan, and so he abandoned the spy theme of the series, which most viewers had been following the stories on this surface level, and with the final two episodes swapped from symbolism to surrealism, then all hell broke loose. As the final episode was to reveal all, but which at the time revealed little or nothing upon the original screening of Fall Out. Because then it went and gone, leaving the viewer with only what he could remember at that time.

    There was a great deal to take in at the time, and so short a time to take it in, 50 minutes to learn what the Prisoner was all about. which side ran the village - the location of the village, seemingly at the end of the A20 close to Dover as some fans thought! Who was No.1, well you met with him and still didn't get it! Why did the Prisoner resign? Well you were told, perhaps you were not listening, listen again why don't you. Would the Prisoner escape? Well he was just as much a prisoner at the end as he was at the beginning, it was, after all, his future!

Living In Harmony

    Where mob rule is the norm, and illegal hangings are allowed by the Judge, as in the case of Cathy Johnson's brother. Illegally hung from a tree, instead of a gallows. In fact the towns people seem to dispense justice as the citizens in the episode ‘Dance of the Dead,’ even if it was the Judges boys who actually hung Johnson. Certainly the mob of the towns people have the same thing in common with the citizens of the village during the ‘Dance of the Dead,’ in the same way they scream and bay for blood of some poor victim!

Be seeing you