Thursday, 5 July 2018

The Therapy Zone

    So here we are 51 years, and people still crave information, information, information about the Prisoner, well before long you’ll get it. Why is it people still remain loyal to the Prisoner after all these years? I suppose the President is to blame, what was it he said? “Remember us, don’t forget us, keep us in mind,” certainly he didn't help. What wasn’t realized was the fact that the Village was dealing with very impressionable minds! In a way the Prisoner is like Speed Learn, its imposed directly onto the cortex of the brain, and with occasional boosts {screenings} its virtually indelible!
    All kinds of people from a variety of backgrounds keep the Prisoner alive in different ways, running websites, organizing different events. Did you know that once a year people escape to The Village, dress up in Village attire and indulge themselves! Why the need to escape to The Village? What are they escaping from? What makes a 60 year old woman dress like No.48 and represent rebellious youth? At this years Convention Number 6 was a woman! Mind you a few years ago both No.2 and No.6 were played by women! Whatever next, a male white Queen on the chessboard?!
    There is one thing in the Prisoner which cannot be messed about with, and that’s the Guardian! Is Rover male or female? Is it both, or neither? Rover might be a sexless entity, but it is the most iconic image in the Prisoner. What’s more Rover is in good company when it comes to appearances, because it features more in the Prisoner than even No.6, the Supervisor-No.26, and the Butler counting both the opening sequence and the closing credits. Its at the beginning and the end, and making it a constant entity. And who would have thought that of a meteorological weather balloon? It’s a prop that you wouldn’t get away with today, but in 1966 it was pure ingenuity. Well just about anything would have been better that a noisy Go-kart with a fiberglass dome on it and a blue flashing light!
    And so we are all prisoners of ‘the Prisoner’ in one capacity or another, either craving information, collecting merchandise and memorabilia. Dressing up in Village attire, owning vehicles associated with the Prisoner, producing newsletters like The Tally Ho, or through the desire of wanting to write a book on the subject. We are all like-minded individuals who share a common interest, passion, or indeed obsession. There are a few escapees, but those who do manage to find themselves outside the confines of The Village for one reason or another, lose interest in the Prisoner because they want time to spend on other passions and interests.
     And yet even after almost 51 years there are still things to find out about the Prisoner, as you will discover in my book to be published a little later in the year. Also Newspaper cuttings have come into my possession from between 1966 and 1968 regarding both Patrick McGoohan and the Prisoner, and they are most revealing. So Information is key, no piece no matter how small can be overlooked. That’s why people who know too much or too little both turn up in The Village. Why the doctor was allowed to carry on with his experiments with Roland Walter Dutton, why they persisted with No.6 in wanting the reason behind his resignation. If No.6 would tell them one small thing, then that was to have been the catalyst for him telling them everything. No.2 first tried that by getting the Prisoner to give them the time of his birth, which he did. But where was the harm in that? They knew it anyway, and the Prisoner knew it. The main purpose for The Village is the protection or extraction of information, depending on whose side you are on. What they do with this information when they get it is anyone's guess. If they don’t put it to a viable use, perhaps they store it away in those grey filing cabinets we see in the opening sequence!


Be seeing you

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