Tonight I Am Mostly Watching Anvil

    Tonight 'Anvil,' and the question of surveillance. And it would seem that surveillance cameras have taken a big step backwards since the days of the original 'Prisoner' series. Because "Undercovers" have to go and physically install what are called "Roach Cams." And then two "Undercovers" have to sit on places like roof tops, and record the surveillance film footage on a lap top! What's more "Undercovers do not even try to blend in. 909 and Six while working together as "Underovers," go the to swimming pool. They are wearing ordinary clothes, instead of swimming trunks, and they both stick out like sore thumbs!
   We also learn that there is no Number 1. There has never been a Number 1, and there never will be. This according to Village history, as told by schoolgirl 1,100.
   Two offers Six the opportunity to work against him as an “Undercover,” and Six will do anything to work against Two. It is a trap set by Two, but Two wants to see if Six can turn the situation to his own advantage!
   Anvil questions surveillance, which is part of our everyday lives today. No-one knows who is watching who in the Village. "Undercovers" themselves may be under surveillance by other "Undercovers." So much so that everyone in the Village could be watching everyone else, and everyone is suspect!      
    Six is recruited by Two to work as an Undercover, to work with 909 who is Two’s best undercover, he thought Six would have noticed that! Would Six really work for Two? Oh no, no, no, not for him, but for the people he would be watching. Six pronounces so loudly his opposition to Two, his disbelief of everything Two and The Village stands for, people might trust him. Two already has his suspects, and he knows that Six wants to meet with dreamers. So Two offers Six the apparatus and expertise of their highly trained and well financed undercover operations to do just that.
  Six “Why would you give me all that, if it wasn’t a trap?”
  Two “My dear Six, it is a trap. You have such a high opinion of yourself. I wondered if you would be clever enough to turn this opportunity to your own advantage. Still….”
  “Everything you say is a trap. Alright lets do it.”
 Cue opening credits………………..
    In THEPRIS6NER-09 scriptwriter Bill Gallagher employed this idea in the episode ‘Anvil.’ When Six, working undercover as a school teacher, he asks the pupils in his class the oldest question in Village history. 1,100 replies “There is no Number One. There has never been a Number One, and there never will be." The concept of the Number Two is an act of humility. The title reminds us all that we are all public servants, even Number Two.” As for Number Two, it was Number 2 the 14^th who oversaw the reformation of The Village. As for the first woman Number 2, well it wasn’t Lady Two the Great, as suggested by one pupil. I thought it was Mary Morris! But as for there being no Number 1, that that there has never been a Number One, and that there never will be, what about Six being the One, as suggested by Two and proclaimed by both 147 and the people of The Village? Perhaps 1,100 got it wrong, and Six was the first Number 1!

“Breathe in.......breathe out......Village life goes on.”
Be seeing you