Unrelated Numbers!

   Within ‘the Prisoner’ it is astonishing how many times a particular number is reused, such as 8, 10, 14, 22. The number 8 for example is nearly always issued to a woman, only in one case was it issued to a man, that of Number 8 in ‘Living In Harmony.’ We know what happened to Number 8 during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ she was allowed to leave The Village. But what happened to change the number 8 of ‘Checkmate’ for a man in ‘Living In Harmony?’ While the number 14 is mostly a male number, only once issued to a female, that of a doctor in ‘A B and C.’ What might have happened to the good doctor-Number 14 in order for that number to be reissued to the ex-Count in ‘Checkmate?’ Who apparently wasn’t returned to the chessboard like Number 6, seeing as the number 14 is re-issued again to Number 2’s assistant in ‘Hammer Into Anvil.’

    And yet there are those in The Village who turn up in different episodes and wearing a different number! Have they been promoted, or demoted? It might well be that too much is made out of the numbers. ‘The Prisoner’ series is made up by 17 separate stories, so its quite probable that any numbers used in one episode are not relative to those same numbers used in other episodes, unless of course a character appears in more than one episode with the same number. There are only three numbers in ‘the Prisoner’ which keep to the same characters throughout the series, they are 2, 6, and 26, being the Supervisor.

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