When
it comes to interviews with McGoohan post ‘the Prisoner,’ I have learned to
take what he had to say about the series with a large pinch of salt. For
example, when it comes to the 7 episode serial or mini-series he suggested for
‘the Prisoner,’ when asked about it in different interviews he never gives the
same suggested 7 episodes!
What has to be remembered is, there is a
great deal of difference between what McGoohan said at the time during the
production of ‘the Prisoner’ and what he said post ‘Prisoner.’ To give you an
indication of what I mean in a newspaper cutting I read McGoohan stated that he
had written the last episode ‘Fall out’ first, and worked backwards from that.
However it is on record that as the production was working to the end of the
series, McGoohan actually went to Lew Grade and told him that he couldn’t find
an ending to the series. So the question is why did McGoohan choose to lie
about it in a newspaper article when there was absolutely no need to? for
myself I think the truth of the matter is far more interesting than the lie!
Lew Grade said he wanted 26, possibly
episodes to ‘the Prisoner’ so to make it easier to sell it to the American
television syndicates. McGoohan said he would prefer a 7 episode mini-series,
but they settled on 17 episodes. Remember this was long before McGoohan wrote
the script for ‘Fall Out.’ So the 7 episodes would be ‘Arrival’ {2 3 4 5} ‘Once
Upon A time’ and ‘The Conclusion’ as McGoohan called it. So what would the
remaining 2 3 4 5 episodes have been? To my mind three of them would have been
the three other episodes filmed at Portmeirion, so we have;
Arrival
Dance
of The Dead
Free
For All
Checkmate
? ? ?
Once
Upon A Time
The
Conclusion
So what would be number 5? The answer can be
found in the production order. The first four were filmed at Portmeirion in
September 1966, and then completed with the studio scenes filmed at
Arrival
Dance
of The Dead
Free
For All
Checkmate
The
Chimes of Big Ben
Once
Upon A Time
The
Conclusion
It makes sense to have ‘The Chimes of Big
Ben’ as the 5th episode as it runs consecutively with ‘Once Upon A
Time’.
So there you have it, the 7 episode
mini-series, of course the last few seconds of ‘Once Upon A Time,’ after the
Supervisor enters the Embryo Room, were edited in because of ‘Fall Out.’
Originally the episode would have ended with the body of No.2 lying on the
floor in the cage.
I realize this subject has been talked about
and debated by fans of ‘the Prisoner’ for years and decades in fact. And all of
them have come up with their own idea of what episodes McGoohan would have used
for the mini-series. And of course Patrick McGoohan himself, post ‘Prisoner’
production, mused about it in a few interviews when asked. But what fans
forget, or choose to forget, and what McGoohan forgot in later years, is that
at the time when he first suggested the idea of a 7 episode mini-series none of
the remaining episodes had been made! So it makes little sense to bring
episodes such ‘The Schizoid Man,’ ‘The General,’ or ‘Many Happy Returns’ into
the equation, because if McGoohan had had his way over a 7 episode mini-series,
none of the remaining episodes after ‘Once Upon A Time’ would have been
produced anyway apart from ‘Fall Out.’.
As for McGoohan telling Howard Foy about
‘Once Upon A Time’ and ‘Fall Out’ originally being conceived as a single
(possibly 2 part) entity, well I take that with a large pinch of salt.
Certainly there is no-way he could have envisaged ‘Once Upon A Time’ and ‘Fall
Out’ as a single entity, because when ‘Once Upon A time’ went into production
he had no conception of ‘Fall Out,’ or of any ending to the series if it comes
to that. But what he did have was another 9 episodes to produce after ‘Once
Upon A Time’ before he came to ‘Fall Out.’
And there lies the nub of the matter, when
McGoohan was interviewed years, even decades after the production of ‘the
Prisoner,’ he could say anything because no-one would have known any different.
And when he’s talked about the idea of a 7 episode mini-series introducing episodes
like ‘The Schizoid Man,’ ‘The General,’ or ‘Many Happy Returns’ he was talking
with hindsight.
When it comes to ‘the Prisoner’ some sources
can be rather misleading. It’s true that originally ‘Arrival’ was intended to
be 90 minutes in length. The opening sequence would have been much longer than
it is, which would have made it rather monotonous to say the least. Also ‘The
Girl Who Was Death’ was also originally to have been a 90 minute feature, but
would also have been rather monotonous. For example there were originally more
scenes in which Mr. X continued his pursuit of the Girl, but these were cut
from the script and never filmed. But those were the only two episodes which
were intended as 90 minute features.
So either ‘the Prisoner’ envisaged by
McGoohan as a 7 episode serial, well the THE HERALD-
So a 13 episode serial would have
looked like this;
Arrival
Dance
of The Dead
Free
For All
Checkmate
The
Chimes of Big Ben
Once
Upon A Time
The
Schizoid Man
It’s
Your Funeral
A
change of Mind
A
B and C
Hammer
Into Anvil
The
Conclusion
This of course is judging by the production order of the series. Had McGoohan all 17 scripts in front of him at the very outset of production, he might have chosen one or two of the other scripts against one or two of the production order. But its quite impossible to say which of the episodes McGoohan would have chucked away, but I can think of three strong favourites for the wastepaper basket! Although we must not forget Lew Grades idea of a 26 episodes series, which is rumoured could have been two 13 part series, in which case ‘Once Upon A Time’ was to have been held back to become the final cliff-hanger episode of the first 13 part series of ‘the Prisoner.’ That way No.2 would have remained dead in the cage in the Embryo Room.
Be
seeing you
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