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Tuesday 7 July 2015

Checkmate!

    Number 6 once said, in his opening election speech, that he was going to discover who the prisoners and who the warders. In ‘Checkmate’ Number 6 learns how to distinguish between the black and the whites, in other words the prisoners and the guardians. This is explained to him by Number 14 the chess champion.
   Number 8 volunteered to help Number 8, who saw he was going to escape, because in her understanding everyone tries to escape when their spirit’s broken. But Number 6’s spirit didn’t appear to be broken! However Number 6 eventually gets his “reliable” men, starting with the Rook, then Number 42, Number 14, amongst others. Number 8 is not amongst their number, well Number 6 was looking for “reliable men,” and besides he doesn’t trust her. You will recall that Number 6 doesn’t trust women, and as it happens with good reason. Mind you he’s also been betrayed by male ex-colleagues too. After Number 8 makes Number 6 his nightcap of hot chocolate he might have changed his opinion of her. Except the next day the reaction transmitter is discovered in the locket she wore. After that we do not see Number 8 again, except on the wall screen in the Control Room. Perhaps that was because she had lost the locket containing the reaction transmitter, and therefore was responsible for the failure of the doctor’s latest experiment. However the original script has Number 8 going aboard M.S. Polotska with Number 6, their having had a narrow escape! That means Number 6 must have taken Number 8 with him on the pair of rubber lilos {which seems strange seeing as he doesn’t trust her} while transmitting the automatic distress signal himself in order to make contact with M. S. Polotska, having left the Rook behind with the rest of his reliable men. However they are confronted by Number 2 sitting in a chair actually aboard M.S. Polotska! Of course that doesn’t happen in the episode, as Number 2 is tied up in his office. But who is later released by Number 6’s reliable men, the Rook having put to Number 6 his own test. But it does make for fascinating thought, as to what might have happened to make Number 6 change his mind about Number 8 and to take her with him on that dangerous and fateful sea voyage.


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