Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

   It is such a pity that Vincent Tilsley’s script for this particular episode was edited so drastically after he had written it—because in his mind they had made a bad script into an incomprehensible bad script, or words to that effect. To be perfectly honest I’m not one for reading scripts, yet having glanced through the original script Face Unknown, the episode in hand, it would have been more effective and enjoyable, and far less mixed up for the viewer, if David Tomblin and co had not messed the script about, but left it as it was originally written.
    According to the original script the Prisoner was sent back to London, his mind having been regressed back to the day of “crisis,” to the day of the Prisoner’s resignation—a most important moment in time. Originally we would have seen the Prisoner in his London home on the evening before the day he resigned, wearing a dressing gown as he settled down to write his letter of resignation—and having finished it he places his letter on the mantle piece and retires to bed. The mind of the Prisoner having been regressed back to the day before he resigned. He then awakens in what appears to be his own home, the camera makes a search, everything is quiet, and then we hear the Prisoner’s voice;
    “Where am I? Home…. This isn’t home…. There’s something wrong.”
   The Prisoner’s hand appears into shot and picks up the travel brochures. This leads to a shot of a framed photograph of Janet Portland.
    “Janet… You’ll understand. I hope you’ll understand.”
   From the mantle piece the Prisoner takes an envelope which contains his letter of resignation.
     “My letter of resignation. Wrote it last night. Said I’d sleep on it. Sleep… Was it only last night\?”
   The camera searches suspiciously.
“Do they know what have they done? They’ve done something… Something …. There’s something different… What have they changed?”
   The camera hurtles to the window.
     “That’s it! Out there! There’s something different out there” Looks the same. What’s changed?... Nothing. Nothing.”
   The Prisoner stuffs the letter into his pocket and heads for the door.
     “It’s all the same. Why should I think it’s different?”

   The door opens violently and we see feet hurrying down the steps as the Prisoner hurries towards his parked Lotus 7. A hand opens the door, and he gets into the drivers seat, the engine is fired into life and revved up.
     “Of course it seems different. Of course. Things are different. Because -I– - am  -resigning! Now!”
   The Lotus 7 picked up in the ant-like traffic in a panoramic shot of London, and zoomed in on, as the Lotus darts angrily through the traffic. There is a high shot of the Lotus as it enters the underground car park, and a shot through the car's windscreen as the Lotus enters the car park.
   The Prisoner storms along a darkened passageway.
    The Prisoner bursts into the office, the standard office which we see in the opening sequence and gives his letter of resignation to the man sat behind the desk. The man looks surprised.
     Danvers “YES. What’s this?”
     The Prisoner “Read it.”
     “I don’t understand.”
     “Get me Sir Charles.”
     Danvers {frightened} “Who are you?”
     Prisoner “Who am I?”
     Hands reach out and grab Danvers by his jacket, jerking him to his feet.
     "Get me Sir Charles Portland. At once!”
   Well if that isn’t enough to convince you that it was a mistake to change that to what we actually see in the episode, I don’t know what will. I think the episode would have stood better if the script had remained truthful to Vincent Tilsley’s original writing.
    What’s more, we see in the actual episode a man lying on an operating table in the “amnesia room.” He was very co-operative, apparently told them all they needed to know in three days, with hardly any persuasion.  All unpleasant memories of the village are then wiped from the man’s memory, and he is put back into circulation in order to gather more information. And that is apparently what they have done to Number 6, wiped all unpleasant memories of the village from his mind, and sent him out into the world in order to find Professor Jacob Seltzman and so he is brought back to The Village.   

  

Be Seeing You