A Favourite Scene In Checkmate

    Except this is from ‘Arrival,’ film stock footage which was never used in the episode. How can we be sure? Well that’s the Brass Band coming out of the Pink Pavilion, and there’s the Prisoner in his charcoal grey suit. This is the scene in ‘Checkmate’ just moments before the white squares of the chessboard are laid out, making it appear quite miraculous how it is that one moment there is no chessboard, and the next there is, and all the chess pieces are ready to take up their positions on the board. There is another shot from ‘Arrival’ just after the Prisoner had walked on the grass and climbs the steps onto the Piazza. Its scenes like these that in reality make a mockery of the Prisoner, not having enough film stock footage to insert during the editing process, but by then of course it was all too late. But I suppose this kind of thing all helps ‘the Prisoner’ to be ‘the Prisoner.’ But to me it all seems to have been rushed, the filming at Portmeirion, it’s a pity that they were restricted to a month on location.

Be seeing you