The Prisoner’s – 14 Month Incarceration!
And yet just how much time during those 14 months is actually covered in ‘the
Prisoner’ series?
Arrival – 2
days
The Chimes of
Big Ben – 6 weeks 1 day
A B and C – 3
days
Free For All –
3 days.
Schizoid Man –
4 to 8 weeks approximately {depending on how long it took for Number
6 to grow his beard, as well as the time it took to condition 6} We do not see
all the time of those 4 to 8 weeks, however we do know what was taking place
during those weeks.
The General –
3 days
Many Happy
Returns – 29 days approximate {depending on whether it took the Prisoner 2 or 3
days to build his raft provision it, take his pictures. Then 25 days at sea,
then 1 day to return to The Village}
Dance of the
Dead – 2 days
Checkmate – 2
days
Hammer Into
Anvil– 3 days
It’s Your
Funeral -– 3 days
A Change of
Mind – 2 to 3 days
Living In
Harmony – 3 days {Depending on whether or not this episode
takes place in real time}
The Girl Who
Was Death – 1 evening
Once Upon A
Time – 8 days
Fall Out – 1
day
All
of which adds up to a total of twenty-three and a half weeks, plus one evening.
Not much in the life of the Prisoner, not when one considers that Number 6 had
been incarcerated in The Village for 14 months.
The
viewer actually only sees a little less than a third of that time, which in
turns means, that for almost two thirds of Number 6’s time in the village there
are many events that takes place to which we are not privy! Events which either
relate directly to Number 6, or to general life that goes on in the village.
For example, the village Festival, the Folk music concert, the exhibition of
entertainment and mime. We don’t know how Number 6 and Number 24/Alison became
friendly. And at the outset of ‘The General’ Number 6 appears not to know
anything of Speed Learn, the Professor, or the General. So where’s he been
prior to that episode? And after Number 6 has set sail aboard his sea-going
raft in ‘Many Happy Returns,’ the village would have come to life soon after
his departure, and life there would have gone on just the same while Number 6
was away. The village would not have been “mothballed” during that time.
It
is understandable the way the 17 episodes of ‘the Prisoner’ have been edited so
tightly. Obviously the whole of that 14 month period could not be shown in the
time span covered in those 17 episodes. It could be said that what we actually
see on the screen is the best of ‘the Prisoner,’ condensed down into
twenty-three and a half weeks!
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