The Therapy Zone

You Are Free To Go

   The President tells Sir during the trials of ‘Fall Out.’ Why, what has change all of a sudden? Sir may have survived the ultimate test, he may have vindicated the right of the individual to be individual. Over come coercion, held fast, maintained, fought, destroyed and resisted, but what has changed? They still have no idea of why the Prisoner resigned in the first place, a secret which they were so desperate to learn. The Prisoner still has secret information inside his head, and what's more the Prisoner, or Sir as he became known, now knows all about the village! It seems most improbable that 'they' would allow Sir to leave the village, not with the knowledge of the village inside his head. Surely they must recall his intention once he had escaped "I'm going to escape and come back. Come back, wipe this place off the face of the earth, obliterate it and No.2 with it." No, ‘Fall Out’ is the ultimate manipulation of the Prisoner, and you can see this in the way the Prisoner, even after having been given the title of Sir, that he's edgy, untrusting of the proceedings. No, they could never allow No.6 to go free, and the proof is in that vacant and un-numbered 'Orbit Tube' in the rocket.

     Once having arrived in the village in the episode of ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling,’ and his duties there having been explained to him, exactly how much persuasion, or coercion was used against the Colonel to make him undergo the mind exchange process?

   Did he undergo the process willingly, calm and collective in both manner and thought. Carrying out orders without question as he must surely have done as a Colonel in the Guards Regiment at one time, he's wearing a Guards tie. Or was it the case that the Colonel had to be taken kicking and screaming to the "Amnesia Room," makes for a pretty picture if you care to imagine what it must have been like for him. Or possibly the Colonel had to be tranquillised for the operation to be carried out, such might have been his state of mind the Colonel had got himself worked up in. Agitated, questioning, afraid of what might happen to him. The possibility of the possibility that he might not be a whole man again must surely have weighed on his mind.

    Presumably the episode of ‘The Schizoid Man’ should occur before that of ‘Many Happy Returns,’ as the date of the newspaper The Tally Ho is Feb 10th,, because the Prisoner returns to London during ‘Many Happy Returns’ on March 18th, the day before the Prisoners birthday.

    It has been said that with the episode of ‘The Schizoid Man’ that the attention to detail has never been more apparent, in the case of the penny farthing on the soda siphon. Well during ‘Many Happy Returns’ we have Village film on the roll of film in No.6 possession. Village cooking oil, and Village Darning needles.

   The book on the lap of Curtis-No.12 when he is lying on the bed holding a gas gun in his hand as No.6 pays him a call. The book is entitled "The Home-Coming" by Leonard Barnes. This came out under the banner of Peter Davis, a publishing firm which no longer exists.

    Arrival No.2 is replaced by a new No.2 without any sort of explanation, has he retired? Gone onto better things? Or perhaps his term of office had simply come to an end. Or maybe he had served his purpose in de-briefing and briefing the Prisoner on the Village, but having twice failed to extract the reason behind the Prisoner’s resignation.

    Script writer and co-writer of ‘Arrival’ George Makstein, explained his dislike of the 'bank manager syndrome'. He described how one might voice a complaint, as a customer, to a particular bank official. then, having returned the next day to resolve the grievance, the customer would only find that the original bank manager was absent. A new bank manager, having taken his place, would claim to have no knowledge of the matter, thereby putting the customer at a disadvantage. Hence the reason for the exchange of No.2’s, making the Prisoner begin all again with a new No.2! Well that's one explanation. But as it happens that was not the reason why Guy Doleman {No.2} was removed from the production of ‘Arrival.’

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