The Therapy Zone

6 Private Is Anything But!

    The door might be electronically activated by No.6 as he approaches the door to leave or enter, but as home security it is left somewhat wanting! It seems that anyone can enter 6 Private at any time. From doctors and nurses, to medical orderly’s, security guards to come and take him away! Not to mention No.2, the white Queen-No.8 even came calling one evening to make No.6's night-cap instead of No.6's personal maid that one time. And that time when No.12 during the Mardi Gras of ‘The General,’ No.12 gained entry to carry out that piece of sabotage with the light bulb, a piece of wire across the contacts! Then are times when No.6 doesn't always answer the door, as pointed out by the Supervisor-No.28 during Its Your Funeral, but then he doesn't have to does he? People come in and go very much as they please! the only time there is full security lock down is at night, then even No.6 can't get out, well save for that time during the night of ‘Dance of the Dead,’ as the French door was left unlocked! And that's something else, there are no keys used in the village at any time, doors are locked electronically. The only keys we ever see in the Prisoner is the one No.6 won at the Roulette table, together with Engadine's key seen in ‘A B and C.’ Plus the key to the Prisoners house in ‘Fall Out.’

   So there's no privacy in theVvillage, and if you have nothing to hide there's nothing to worry about is there? Unless of course you have a radio set tucked away some place!

The Words Of Resignation

    A number of years ago it was wondered by certain fans of ‘the Prisoner’ whether or not it was possible to lip-read what the Prisoner says as he hands in his letter of resignation.

   By careful study, using repeated playback and slow motion on a video player, this is the result of one such experiment.

    "Right, you and me are through! I resign." And then the camera cuts to the letter of resignation. This is said very quickly and probably loudly.

   It seems that only the first few words are clear, as that is the result of this experiment. Not worth bothering with really, but then back in those days anything like this did prove to be of the finest interest.

A Worst Moment In The Prisoner

    When the helicopter takes off outside the Recreation Hall in the episode ‘The Schizoid Man,’ it's painted black and has no floats fitted. But once airborne we see a shot of the regular village helicopter, painted turquoise and fitted with floats. Yet when the helicopter lands again outside the Recreation Hall, returning No.6 to the village after his short flight, the helicopter has reverted back to being painted black and without fitted floats!

It’s Not All Allegorical And Enigmatic

  Sometimes It's Quite Straightforward really.

    As with the episode ‘It’s Your Funeral.’ A plot to assassinate/execute the retiring No.2 who has just returned to the village from a spell of leave. His execution, at the word from No.1, and organised by heir presumptive and interim No.2, with the co-operation of No.100 who has indoctrinated the little watchmaker-No.51 to carry out the actual assassination of No.2.

   No.6's involvement is brought about by using No.50-Monique as a dupe for her fathers sake to make No.6 become involved, and No.6 as a dupe because without his credibility the plan might not work. But "plan Division Q," the execution of No.2, is unsuccessful because of No.6's involvement with the plan. and so Its Your Funeral is probably the most straightforward of all the episodes. Quite allegorically free, apart from the bit where No.6's involvement is required. You would think that they would have known better than to actually voluntarily get No.6 involved. Haven't learnt much, have they?

Be seeing you

THEPRIS6NER

                                       The Control Room In The Summakor Building

    Last night it was the turn of 'Schizoid' in this latest screening of THEPRIS6NER. There is two-times-Six, and an Un-Two in the Village, although that's Two simply playing himself in an uncharacteristic role of Un-Two. Two-Times-Six wants to kill Two in revenge for the death of 4-15, the woman he loved. It is suggested that Six and two-times-Six are one and the same person, and when we see Six and two-times-Six together they represent the struggle within Six, the struggle with the Six inside! And yet there are some scenes that suggest that that is indeed the case. And yet there are times when not only Six sees the physical presence of two-times-Six, so does 147, and even when Un-Two sees two-times-six's reflection in a shop window it makes him pause and consider for a moment, but then the reflection is gone.

   As you can see the Control Room in one of the twin Summakor towers is far removed from that in the original series, alhtough the sound effect of the opening and closing of the steel doors has been retained.

    There are a number of favourite scenes in this episode, like the moment 11-12 discovers that he does not physically exist. The time when Six warns Two that two-times-Six wants to kill him, but that's how Six feels, so it is Six who wants to kill To. The transference of Two into Un-Two. When Un-two and the shopkeeper 37927 enjoy an illicit cigarette together.

   Overall it has been another thoroughly enjoyable screening of the series thus far. But once again it's going by all too quickly. Next week its the final episode of 'checkmate,' and that's only 45 minutes long!

"You only think you are free!"

Be seeing you

Village Life!

    No.112 "Good morning sir, how can I be of assistance?"

    No.6 "Good morning. Now assistant......"

   "Just a minute sir, I'm not the assistant, I am the Shopkeeper."
   "Then you're just the fellow I want to talk to. Your assistant yesterday...."
   "My assistant sir?"
   "Yes him. I came into your emporium yesterday, and your assistant was completely unhelpful!"
    "Was he sir?"
    "Yes."

    "Well let me see if I can help."
    "Good, you seem to be a man who I can do business with."
    "I'll certainly do my best sir."
    "The bacon, has it arrived?"
    "No sir. We decided to keep the pig."

    "Did you?"
    "Yes sir."

    "Well I'll take half a pound of your sausgaes."

    "You should have come sooner sir."
    "Should I?"
    "Sold the last pound of sausages half an hour ago."

    "Did you!"
    "To Number Thirty-six."

    "Well I seem to be out of luck."

    "I could sell you a nice Cuckoo clock."

    "What might I do with a cuckoo clock?

    "Hang it on the wall." 

    "Special import, International are they?"

    "Yes sir, they're from Switzerland!"

    {Cuckoo goes one of the clocks}

    "I couldn't agree more. That just about sums up your Emporium!"
    "I'm sorry you're feeling unsatisfied sir."

    "What's that to do with anything?"

    "I really don't know sir!"

    "Well don't get personal!"

    "Well sir, can I get you anything else?"
    "Have you any cheese?"

    "Yes sir, what can I get you?"

    "Half a pound of Wensleydale."

    "I'm sorry sir, I'm fresh out of Wensleydale."

    "Oh well never mind, what about Red Leicester?"

    "No."

    "Never mind, onward stout fellow. How about Tintern?"

    "Sold the last piece this morning."
    "Stilton?"
    "Phew, it's gone off sir!"
    "Has it?"
    "So it appears."

    "Appearences can be deceptive you know. What about a good plain cheddar?"

    "Yes sir, I have some cheddar."
    "Good half a pound please."
    "Oh damn!"
    "What's the matter?"
    "The mouse has eaten it!"

    "Has it?!"
    "I'm sorry sir."
    "Not as sorry as I am!"

    "Will there be anything else sir?"
    "A box of matches please."
    "I'm sorry sir......."
    "No, don't tell me. They're on strike!"

    "How did you know that sir?"

    Ting-a-ling-a-ling sounded the shop bell.

Exhibition of Arts and Crafts

   A Watercolour Portrait of the Prisoner-No.6

BcNu

The Prisoner Under The Spotlight

     

Electrifying ‘The Prisoner ‘Have you ever though how electrifying ‘the Prisoner’ can be? Well it was Nadia-No.8 who was first to find out during her interrogation during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ how electrifying the experience could be. You will recall that the floor of the interrogation room had been electrified, this she discovered by sprinkling water onto the floor. But for No.6 electrification came through another conductor, the arms of a leather upholstered chair during the truth test of ‘Free For All.’ So electrifying did No.6 find the experience, that he couldn't rise from his seat!

    In the episode of ‘The Schizoid Man’ No.6 was again electrified by the experience of electro-therapy. In this to adjust his right-handedness to being left handed, and it was by the use of electricity which enabled No.6 to reverse his left-handedness. This via a short circuiting electric table lamp which was enough to give No.6 a short sharp electric shock and reverse his left-handedness back to being right handed.

   But electrification can be a deadly thing, as both the Professor and No.12 - of administration - quickly discovered in the episode of ‘The General.’ The Professor who was actually electrocuted to death by the General, his own creation! And in turn No.12, who gallantly tried to save the Professor's life, but who was also electrocuted to death in the attempt. And finally during the episode of ‘It’s Your Funeral’ we learn that amongst the retiring No.2's achievements is the electrification of the clocks!

    Rovers Controlling Influence. It's not just No.2 who has a controlling influence over the citizens of the village, there's that white membranic mass of the village guardian which gives its own peculiar controlling influence first demonstrated in Arrival when No.2 orders the citizens to "Be still" from the balcony of the Gloriette and seconds later the Village Guardian puts in an appearance. And again at the start of  ‘Checkmate’ the white mass of the Village Guardian come rolling and bounding along the street, giving out its blood curdling roar as it goes. Pedestrians step to the side of the road almost as one, with an almost military drilled precision as cyclists dismount thie bicycles and do likewise. taxis come to a halt, even the fountain in the central piazza has its jet of water it stopped, as Rover passes by.

   During ‘The Chimes of Big Ben’ when Nadia-No.8 is attempting to swim away from the village, who was brought back to the shore, not by one Village Guardian, but three. And likewise in ‘Free for All’ Rover brings back the escaping No.6 who is foundering in the water. One village guardian of the regular size, and two smaller versions of the same membranic being which work together in order to return No.6 foundering, half drowned to the shore.

   Not only that, but Rover is the perfect guard dog, or perhaps that should be sheep dog. As it easily heard No.6 away from the helicopter after his attempted escape in Arrival. This is because no resistance is offered by No.6, who has probably learned his lesson from an earlier encounter with the village guardian down on the beach. Because the village guardian offers no resistance either, as the Prisoner-No.6 tries to punch his way out of trouble. Well there's balloons for you! And of course during the evening of ‘The Schizoid Man’ Rover had the job of distinguishing between No.6 and No.12, and then immediately went into the attack as soon as it had made up its mind. Although it might have been more advantageous for Curtis to have stood his ground, and not to have run away as he did like a scared rabbit!

   You might look upon the white membranic mass of the Village Guardian - Rover - as a prowler, a guard dog. Perhaps as some alien thing, or possibly the result of genetic engineering. But put quite simply, Rover is a balloon with attitude!

  Dealing With the ‘Fall Out!’  Well Patrick McGoohan didn't deal with the aftermath of ‘Fall Out’ very well at all. He did a runner, claiming attacks upon himself and family in London from upset viewers. I shouldn't think that the frustrated viewers of the Prisoner episode  Fall Out actually knew where McGoohan lived in London at the time. Eventually McGoohan and his family settled in California first after Wales and Switzerland.

   The viewers were left to pick up the pieces after ‘Fall Out,’ but had to wait nearly ten years before Fall Out, together with the whole Prisoner series, could be re-examined. And even then things became no clearer, well that's not quite true. Because if you put the allegory in a box and forget all about it, then the ‘Fall Out’ begins to clear away.

   For McGoohan, I think ‘the Prisoner’ was his ruination, certainly it was not his making. But yet the Prisoner is what people and fans alike remember him for. If cornered, people, the fans, and members of the media only wanted to ask him about the Prisoner. Even escaping or running away to settle in California the millstone of the Prisoner still hung about his neck, and the evidence is to be seen in the Colombo episode Identity Crisis, as he uses the phrase "Be seeing you" on more than one occasion. It never goes away you see, it remains for all time, and now I'm just as much a prisoner as McGoohan became of the series. Perhaps even more so, because unlike McGoohan, because I embraced the Prisoner while McGoohan tried to push it away and the fans with it.

   For myself, I joined the fans, became a long term member of Six of One - the fan club/society set up for the series many years ago. But now I plough a lone furrow in Prisoner appreciation circles, along with my wife of course. But like McGoohan, for me ‘the Prisoner’ is still there, as you will probably have judged for yourselves by the amount of Prisoner blog-articles written here. Because ‘the Prisoner’ is all consuming, I am consumed!

   Bela Lugosi was buried in his Dracula cape, perhaps it's a piped blazer for me along with my Prisoner archive to be placed in my coffin with me. On second thoughts, better make that a mausoleum!

Be seeing you

The Therapy Zone

It Makes You A Prisoner

    Such is the powerful opening sequence of ‘the Prisone’r both visually and with the opening theme music, that it instantly makes prisoners of us all, at one time or another. Here already, during that opening sequence, there is drama, and action which sets the scene, telling the viewer all that is needed to know before ‘The Arrival,’ even to the extent of who No.1 is!

I Was Just Wondering

    Just who No.6 was thinking about  when he wrote that false message to XO4 during that episode of Hammer Into Anvil, not to mention who D6 might be. After all, there was PR12 in ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling,’ an ex-colleague of the Prisoner whose code name is ZM73. So it follows that D6 and XO4 must be out of the same school so to speak, whomsoever they happen to be.

    There was the school, of thought a number of years ago, that the 'D' of D6 might have stood for 'Drake' - Drake6, and being a possible in-joke. Although I never gave much credence to this train of thought, thinking it most unlikely. Although there are a few so called "in-jokes" such as part of the address on the envelope the Prisoner sent to Professor Seltzman in ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ - 20 Portmeirion road.

Can You Smell Gas?

    Fans of ‘the Prisoner’ come up with the strangest interpretations over the years. One such explanation concerns the way that the nerve gas is introduced into the study where the Prisoner is busy picking up his wallet, passport, and airline ticket, while completing a last minute packing. Apparently the nerve gas is so powerful as it streams in through the front door, that if you watch carefully, the camera does a quick retreat backwards as the gas pours in to suggest that it is travelling a short distance. What through the keyhole of the front door, into the hallway, along the hallway turning right after a short distance, and through the keyhole of the study door! Come off it, isn't it easier to believe that the pair of undertakers had been able to acquire a front door key to No.1 Buckingham Place?

   Over the years fans of the Prisoner have put some extraordinary explanations to simple everyday occurrences in ‘the Prisoner,’ and have arrived at extraordinary interpretations in order to explain certain circumstances in the series. Circumstances, which I have found, are better explained by a much simpler interpretation, than arriving at some of the extraordinary explanations, and interpretations arrived at by many of its fans.

Have You Observed?

     How the Village has two cafes and two graveyards, but no church? I shouldn't have thought there was much call for two cafes in the Village, the one of ‘Arrival’ and the one seen in ‘The General,’ ‘Hammer Into Anvil,’ perhaps it is the improved café facilities as mentioned as being on of  the retiring No.2’s achievements listed during his speech during the Appreciation Day ceremony in ‘It’s Your Funeral.’ Mind you, the second cafe isn't in the Village at all, but then again it is if you see what I mean, not the actual village that is. Seeing as how tea, coffee and the like are also served down on the lawn of the Old Peoples Home as well.

   And that's a funny place to have a graveyard - on a beach, as seen in Arrival! If the sand were to shift, as it does from time to time, then the dead would rise up, perhaps in time for the ‘Dance of the Dead!’

It Goes Against The Grain

   In the episode ‘Once Upon A Time,’ No.6 could not bring himself to kill his opponent No.2. At the beginning of Living In Harmony, No.6 as a Sheriff, he hands in both his badge and gun, and refuses to wear a gun whilst working for the Judge in the town of Harmony. Yet the Prisoner is capable of killing, he kills the Kid and the Judges "boys" in two gunfights in the same day.

   It was the murder of Cathy which made the Prisoner kill, and we would all do it, kill that is, no matter how much you might deplore the use of violence. We are all capable of killing, all that is required is something to kill for! And the Prisoner, as it turns out, is no different to anybody else.

Be seeing you

Village Life!

   No112 "Good morning sir."
   No.6 "Ah good morning assistant."
   "Just a minute sir, I'm not the assistant, I'm the Shopkeeper!"
   "What's the difference?"
   "I'm wearing a stripy apron and a strawboater hat."
   "I see, well assistant, I'd like some sausage."
   "Yes sir, what kind?"
   "Lincolnshire sausage."
   "I'm sorry sir, be only sell Village sausage."
   "Well I'll have some of those."
   "Ah!"
   "What's the problem?"
   "They haven't been made yet!"
   "Haven't they?"
   "No sir."
   "Well perhaps some bacon then."
   "We should have had a delivery this morning."
   "Should you?"
   "Yes sir, but the mini-moke broke down!"
   "Did it?"
   "Yes sir. We should have some bacon in tomorrow, once the pig's been slaughtered."
   "By then I'll have lost my appetite for it!"
   "Well what about King Edwards?"
   "I wouldn't deprive him of it!"
   "Potatoes sir."
   "What do you do with them?"
   "Put them in an oven and bake them. A sprinkle of salt and pepper, very tasty, very sweet."
   "I don't think so. You mentioned potatoes."
   "Yes sir."
   "Do you have any tobacco?"
   "Yes sir."
   "I'll take twenty Number Six."
   "You trying to be funny sir?"
   "No, apparently not!"
   "Do you have any cheese?"
   "I'll have a look sir.........................................................nnnnnnnnooooooooooo. Should be in this afternoon."
   "Should it?"
   "Yes sir, if you'd like to come back."
   "Will it be worth it, or will I simply be wasting my time?"
   "No sir, you'll just be wasting your time. I'm not expecting a cheese delivery. Will there be anything else sir?"
   "No, I don't think so."
   "Well I'm glad of your custom anyway sir."
   "It's been an experience! Well good day to you assistant."
   "I'm the Shopkeeper!"

   Ting-a-ling-a-ling sounded the shop bell.