It’s all a
game in The Village, and everyone has their part to play. Each number has its
exit and entrance, and in its time every number plays many characters! That’s
why a number in one episode can be a Prisoner, and a Guardian in the next.
Number 14 started out as a doctor, but by the time of ‘Hammer Into Anvil,’ 14
has been a chess champion, and then assistant to Number 2. Number 8 is
generally in touch with its feminine side, as mostly 8 is a woman, except when
it’s a man who committed suicide because he didn’t want the Judge to hit him no
more!
Sometimes there can be more than one of the same number in the one
episode. Like 66, first a maid, then a taxi driver, and finally ex-Admiral.
That can make things confusing. Then again it might have made it work better if
66 had been sub-divided like 113, 113b, and 113c, then there wouldn’t have been
any confusion. If you think it’s bad enough having the one number having three
different characters in the same episode, think what it’s like having two
number’s sharing the same character in the same scene! Yes that happened
alright, that morning of the Prisoner’s arrival when he went to the General
Stores to purchase a map of the area. One minute Number 19 is the shopkeeper,
the next its Number 56 claiming to be the shopkeeper! Then there
was that time when there was a pair of 6’s in The Village, none knew which 6
was the real 6 and which the economy pack. Both claimed to be the Prisoner. And
yet there it was, a discarded number in a wardrobe! Oh it suited the Prisoner
well enough when he chose to wear his numbered badge, which he only did on a
couple of occasions. On the first occasion, when Number 6 was discharged from
hospital in ‘Arrival,’ the canopied Penny Farthing on the badge is facing to
the left. On the second occasion in ‘The Schizoid Man’ the Penny Farthing is
facing to the right.
For official purposes everyone in The Village has a number,
but they don’t always choose to wear it. Makes one wonder how they were allowed
to get away with it!
Be seeing you
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