Many Happy Returns

   After 50 years of ‘the Prisoner’ I still cannot make up my mind whether or not the two crewman of that motor cruiser are what they appear to be, two gun runners. For years I’ve thought them to be two agents working for The Village, who had been despatched to shadow Number 6 aboard his open raft in case of danger. And yet if the gun runners were simply gun runners, then there may well have been another boat with agents working for The Village keeping a look out for Number 6. As I find it difficult to imagine that their prize prisoner was allowed to set sail on a dangerous sea voyage into the Atlantic ocean all alone. After all he might well have perished in an accident at sea! And if they were, they certainly never stepped in when the gun runners came across the raft. If that’s the case, they had abandoned Number 6 to his own resources! Perhaps with Number 6 being put to the test in The Village ‘Many Happy Returns’ is an extreme test which they were hoping Number 6 would pass, but if not……. And that makes me wonder if it is us, the enthusiasts for ‘the Prisoner,’ who place too much importance on Number 6? It might well have been, had Number 6 actually died in an accident at sea, that would have been that. Then the authorities behind The Village would simply have gone looking for another likely candidate to “put to the test!”

Be seeing you