So let us presume, and it’s not always a good thing to presume where ‘the Prisoner.’ is concerned. But let us say, for arguments sake, that you have arrived at the answers you were looking for. What then? Do you stop there, and say that’s good enough for me? If you do, then you are a better man than I, and many like me. Because I didn’t stop at the answers I wanted. I had been reading letters and articles in ‘Prisoner’ based magazines and newsletters for several years. Articles written by other fans of ‘the Prisoner.’ And I began to correspond with some of them, either directly, or via letters published in the newsletters and magazines to which I had contributed. They didn’t always agree with what I had to write on the subject of ‘the Prisoner,’ but readers always found my letters and points of view regarding the series of great interest. For my part I didn’t always agree with what others were writing about ‘the Prisoner’ series. And so we come to the question of interpretation, and are we right to interpret ‘the Prisoner’ any differently from how Patrick McGoohan visualised ‘the Prisoner’ series?
I think we should continue with asking ourselves how McGoohan had originally envisaged ‘the Prisoner’ to be. He had the idea of having one man in isolation, and demonstrating the effects of that isolation. Take a man out of his normal environment, isolate him in an alien environment, and see how that affects him. Take away his identity, his individuality, and see how he reacts. Or words to that effect. That’s Mcgoohan’s original interpretation of ’the Prisoner.’ Another interpretation would be that ’the Prisoner’ is an action adventure, a spy series which is a sequel to ’Danger Man.’ Such was George Markstein’s interpretation of ‘the Prisoner,’ somewhat simpler than that of McGoohan’s. And yet by the time McGoohan had finished writing the script for ‘Fall Out,’ even his interpretation had changed. Now ‘the Prisoner’ had suddenly all been about No.6’s struggle against himself, against his alter ego No.1, who he had been trying to beat! Suddenly because of ‘Fall Out’ the game has changed, Patrick McGoohan had changed the game by reinterpretation. He had changed his idea of ‘the Prisoner’ to fit in with ‘Fall Out,’ and we the television viewer, the fan or aficionado, was supposed to believe that since the Prisoner’s abduction to the Village, that he as No.6, had been in a personal struggle with himself, against No.1. I wonder how many fans actually believed that when they first watched the series, I mean without having heard McGoohan’s explanation about ‘Fall Out?’ I never thought that the very first time I watched ‘the Prisoner.’ Yes there was No.1 in the background, intimated at by No.2, with No.6 occasionally asking the question who is Number 1? When it comes to ‘Fall Out,’ fans of the series have their own thoughts and ideas about the conclusion. My wife for example, she had seen ‘the Prisoner’ before I had met her, and she had something to say about ‘Fall Out,’ and asked me to include it in this article.
“I felt very let down the first time I saw Fall Out. The Prisoner left the Village, but I didn’t feel that he’d actually escaped, it was neither one thing nor the other. I also felt that the episode seemed in a way to be making fun of everything that had gone before, that I’d taken very seriously.”
So there you are Patrick, perhaps you were being too clever for your own good with ‘Fall Out!’ But really could there have ever been any other conclusion to ‘the Prisoner?’ For myself, I’ve felt that ‘Fall Out’ is the most logical conclusion to the series, despite any allegorical content, or that of a James Bond Style ending. It would seem, that even the conclusion, can be anything you want it to be.
But really is that Number 1 who Number 2 is speaking to on the telephone? And if it is, why doesn’t Number 2 recognise the voice being that of Number 6? If indeed we are dealing with the alter ego of Number 6, being that of 1 as Patrick McGoohan suggested with ’Fall Out.’ You see, the deeper one delves into ‘the Prisoner,’ the more complicated it becomes, and that is something I have found with THEPRIS6
But are we supposed to delve into ‘the Prisoner’ as much and as deep as so many of us apparently do? Perhaps not. Perhaps we should accept ‘the Prisoner’ as it is, for what it is. With our interpretations of situations within the series, is there not the danger of making ‘the Prisoner’ what we, as individuals, want to make it? And yet, there is man’s enquiring mind, and women for that matter. Because ‘the Prisoner’ attracts the fairer sex to the series. It’s that enquiring mind that asks the questions, interprets situations. Take the opening scene of ‘the Prisoner.’ Dark clouds gather over a long and empty road that stretches into the distance. Wrong! That’s not a road, it’s a runway on an old World War II airfield! That would be called a spoiler today, and yet where is the advantage in calling it a road, when it’s as plain as the nose on your face that it is a runway? But road or airfield, the main question is, where is the Prisoner driving from? We know where he’s going, but where has he been? And what’s he been doing, this man who is to become the Prisoner?
You see it’s up to the individual as to how much anyone delves into ‘the Prisoner,’ but remember the deeper one delves, the fewer the answers. Which in turn leaves more of ‘the Prisoner’ open to personal interpretation, but one has to be careful how one interprets any given situation, so as not to go into the realms of fantasy. It is all to easy to misinterpret, or to interpret something which can never be proven. But we still do it, don’t we? And for many that’s half the joy of ‘the Prisoner,’ encouraged as we were by Patrick McGoohan, to find the answers for ourselves.
I’ll be seeing you
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