The Therapy Zone

    50 years of ‘the Prisoner,’ it had to be of course but it seemed so far off looking back. It makes one wonder where all the years have gone, and has it been worthwhile speculating, theorizing, interpreting, and asking questions? Indeed are any of us the better for it? Or are we in some way, still frustrated by the questions that remain but which can never be answered by the people who knew?! I guess that’s something we enthusiasts simply have to live with, and accept certain things in the series as they are, because they cannot be completely explained. Mind you that’s all part of ‘the Prisoner’s’ endurance, that even today 50 years later, mysteries regarding the series still remain.
    And yet ‘the Prisoner’ can still be enjoyed purely for its action and adventure, its great escapism, and I suppose when I first watched ‘the Prisoner’ as a boy of 12 to me it was action and adventure, somewhere to escape to. Oh there were questions, of course there were questions, but not as many as there were in later life. ‘The Prisoner’ seemed less complicated to me then, it’s only after becoming an adult that I really began to think about ‘the Prisoner’ and its meanings. Perhaps it’s only when we grow up to become adults that we then over complicate ‘the Prisoner.’ But then as we know that’s half the enjoyment, the fact that you can make ‘the Prisoner’ out to be anyone and anything you care to. It means what it is, well that’s what Number S1X said, but he was talking about a piece of abstract art at the time. I realize that ‘the Prisoner’ has been described by some as a work of art, but can any part of ‘the Prisoner’ be described as abstract? Perhaps as “existing in thought, or as an idea, but not having a physical or concrete existence.” Or “relating to or denoting art that does not attempt to represent external reality, but rather seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, colours, and textures.”

    “Abstract is from a Latin word meaning "pulled away, detached," and the basic idea is of something detached from physical, or concrete, reality.”

Be seeing you

6h

    It might be supposed that there can only be one of each number in The Village at any one time forgetting The Schizoid Man for the time being, and Number 1 if it comes to that. If there are two of the same number it is subdivided as in the number 113, 113b, and even 113c. 2 is also a subdivided Number as each of the members of the town council are sub-divided 2’s. And yet on the button panel of the electronic Free Information board seen in ‘Arrival’ there are two number 6’s. If one were to press both buttons, would they indicate the same cottage 6 private on the map of the Village? Not to do so would suggest there are two people living in The Village bearing the same number. But just a minute….the Prisoner newly arrived in The Village will become Number 6, they can’t have three Number 6’s if only for administrative purposes. And then in ‘Free For All’ as Number 58 presses the third button 6, yes there are three, above that 6 is another button 6h!!!! Once Number 58 has pressed the number 6 the corresponding number is indicated on The Village map. The Free Information board is something of an enigma, why the need for three 6 buttons which when pressed no doubt indicate the same location on The Village Map, and two number 1’s, why the number 1 at all? Had the Prisoner pressed the number 1 button would 1’s location be indicated on the electronic map? So who is 6h, and is every number in The Village sub-divided, because if there is an 6h is stands to reason that there would also be a 6a, 6b, 6c, 6d, 6e, 6f, 6g as well possibly 6i, 6j, 6k and so on. The number 2 is sub-dived up to “k” but that’s only due to the number of council members. If the sub-divided 2’s are former Number 2’s who make up the council, perhaps 6h suggests there is already a number 6 in The Village, but then he’s only just arrived and yet to be given that number. That in turn suggests that the Number 6 we know is the new Number 6 replacing the former Number 6. I wonder what happened to him?

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Exhibition of Arts And Crafts

                  “You ain’t seen me, right!”

BCNU

Citizen No.42

    Number 42, oh we don’t use names here, and I suggest that once they used your name, to then later use your number 42 might have confused matters somewhat. That’s why they put your name on the termination order, if it had been your number, they might have thought whose 42?
   Your name, Dutton, yes well I’ve gone and used it now, could have so easily been Chambers who was late of the Foreign Office. In fact it might have been better for a subplot storyline had it been so. In his previous life Number 6 went to try and stop Chambers from doing whatever he was going to do before the “big boys” found out. He was supposed to have had a meeting with Chambers, hoping to make him change his mind, but he never turned up. It might have been nice had Number 6 finally met up with Chambers in The Village. But then Number 6 meeting up with you like he did, well it was the same effect really, you knowing each other the way you did. Did that come as a shock to you, seeing Number 6 in The Village? I bet you thought he was the last person you would meet. That he would be too quick for them, and avoid being abducted to The Village. But no, he’s only human like you and me. The people behind The Village seem keen to bring in people from British Military Intelligence. Cobb was another, did you know Cobb? What about the Colonel and Fotheringay?
    Number 2 said Chambers talked, there I go using his name again, the trouble is I don’t know what number they issued him with. But I do know he talked, you talked didn’t you Number 42? In fact you told them everything the doctor wanted to know, trouble is he thought you were disinclined to go further, he thought you knew more than you actually did. And by the time the doctor discovered that fact, well it was too late.....for you. Mind you it could have been worse, you could have been one of the doctor’s real failures, and been buried where no-one would find the grave. But then what is worse than death, perhaps a living death, as a brainwashed imbecile. Do you know that just might have seen you co-opted onto the local Town Council, if they hadn’t dispensed with democracy in The Village!

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Village Life!

    “They’ll be in need of that!”
    “Who will?”
    “Those people who will try and fathom the depths of ‘the Prisoner.”
    “Why should they do that?”
    “Because they must, they’ll not be able to stop themselves. But with Speed Learn and a three year course in three minutes, they’ll know as much as I do about it!”

    “That’s not saying much!”
    “I know what happens to you in the end.”
    “Only because you’ve read the script! But tell me, do I die in a desperate attempt to save the Professor, or is it merely an act of suicide?”
    “You see, you need a dose of Speed Learn yourself!”
    “I was asking a question.”
    “Well ask me another.”
    “Can I trust you?”
    “Can I trust you?”
    “Is that the way it’s going to be?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Avoiding the question?”
    “It’s not for me to answer questions, but for people to make up their own minds.”

    “So who is Number One?”
    “Who do you think?”
    “It wouldn’t be you would it?”
    “Now who’s asking the questions?”
    “I could always ask the General.”
    “The trouble with the General is, it has to be programmed with the answer before it gives it!”
    “So what’s the answer?”
    “Speed Learn, a three year course in three minutes!”
    “Who will write up the lectures?”
   “I know a chap who could.”
   “Who?”
   “Divad Nospmits.”
   “Sounds like a Russian dissident!”

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A Favourite Scene in Many Happy Returns

   Number 6 having jumped out of the back of a moving vehicle finds him sprawled out in the road in Park Lane, lucky not to have been run over! He crosses the road and eventually finds himself at Marble Arch.

    “Hold it!” a voice is heard to say.
    Our friend Number 6 spins round, perhaps thinking that the game is up for him. But it’s only some chap taking a photograph of his daughter in front of the Royal Artillery Memorial. This in much the same way Number 6 went about taking photographs of The Village!
   Now back in London Number 6 seems subdued, almost as though he can hardly believe he’s actually there. Perhaps it all seems a little unreal to him after being away so long, certainly London would be a noisy place after the peaceful atmosphere of The Village!

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The Prisoner

    “That’s what the theme of The Prisoner is, the individual in revolt against bureaucracy. That sort of rebellion is in everyone, isn’t it, in one way or another?”  {Alex Cox “I Am Not A Number – Decoding The Prisoner”}

   Is it, or is it simpler than that? Not so much one man’s revolt against bureaucracy, perhaps it’s more to do with his anger at having been abducted from his home, and imprisoned in The Village. His fight against the bureaucratic administration is a fight against those behind his abduction. After all in his previous employment ZM73 was part of a bureaucratic system. Yes from which he resigned, but he hardly rebelled, he might just have become fed up, disillusioned even by the kind of work he was doing. And was going to find some peace of mind!  That hardly makes him an individual in revolt against bureaucracy.

Be seeing you