60 Second Interview With Number 14

No.113 "I contribute to The Tally Ho you know."

"No, I didn't know."

"And this is my photographic colleague Number one hundred and thirteen b."

No.113b "Smile." {click goes the camera}

"Look, I don't know what you want here, but Number Two can't see you at the moment."

No.113 "It's not Number Two we've come to see."

"Then who?"

"You!"

"I've got nothing to say."

"Pity. I was going to ask you how long you intended to be here."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're an ambitious man Number fourteen. You want to get on, promotion, perhaps rising to the lofty position of Number Two."

"So?"

"What if I told you that there's a guy in the next episode who dresses in the same clothes as you......."

"You must be out of your mind!"

".......Someone who looks like you........."

"What are you talking about?"

".......so much so, that it could be you. But obviously it isn't you, and the numbers are not the same.

"If you don't get out of here, I'll jolly well give you both a good dusting down!"

No.113b "Smile" {click goes the camera}

No.113 "We don't play Kosho!"

No.113b "No, it's Number Six you want for that!"

{No.14 walked slowly, menacingly towards us, and Number one one three and I beat a hasty retreat. For he who writes and runs away, gets to write another day.}

Reporter No.113

Photographer No.113b

THEPRIS6NER

   Well it has to be said that I am well and truly captivated by this series, what's more I've recently had contact with other fans of the original series who are enjoying the reinterpretation, contact not through blog, emails but also old fashioned postal mail!

    As we are well aware, the Village logo or emblem is on most things in the Village, and during the episode of ‘Schizoid’ I observed that the Village logo makes up the whole 'eye chart' in the 313's examination Room at the Clinic. I mean how can a doctor check your eyesight using a chart made up not of letters of the alphabet, but of the Village logo that's inexplicable!

   It was a nice touch to have the Village logo on the base of Two's tea cup, because when Two lifted up the cup to drink from and I saw the logo, I was reminded of the scene from A Change of Mind, when No.6 poured the contents of his tea cup into the flower pot, and could see the pottery mark of Portmeirion on the base of the cup.

   Yes, this series has grown on me I have to say. At times it's been a bit of a trial with a couple of episodes, but a second viewing soon had me wanting more from THEPRIS6NER, and as they say "Be careful for what you wish for, you might get it," and as it happens as this series has progressed, I have 'got it!'. And now I can't wait for the final episode, which will be in just under two weeks time, a week this coming Saturday in fact. Oh I know I could so easily unseal that DVD box set sitting in the bookcase, but I want to do things the old fashioned way, as it was with the original series. there was no putting the Video in the recorder to watch the next episode back in 1967-68, no DVD box set of the series, or IPlayer on the World Wide Web to watch. So no, I'm doing it the old fashioned way, as in the days when you had to wait for something to come along on television, and I believe in those days things were much more appreciated than they are today.

   But for now, there's Schizoid’ to watch again, and I'll be doing that tomorrow evening. There are two or three cars which are in need of identification in this episode, not to mention reliving the important scenes again, important scenes which have contained clues to the meaning and origins of this series right from ‘Arrival.’

Be seeing you, and when I go to the pub I'll have a double!

   The opening sequence of the Prisoner we know so well. Upon reaching London, the Prisoner drives his car into an underground car park, stops at a barrier and collects a parking ticket from the ticket dispenser - gets out of his car and storms through a pair of doors marked "Way Out" and along a darkened corridor to an office somewhere, and in a rage the Prisoner shouts at the man sat behind a desk as he hands in his letter of resignation.

   Well the resignation sequence of THEPRIS6NER is not so different, but has simply been reinterpreted. Michael drives his car into an underground car park, stops at a barrier, swipes his Summakor access card, enters through a pair of doors marked "Way Out," and resigns his job! I wonder why for many fans of the original series, it's so difficult for them to see this similarity in THEPRIS6NER?

     Okay, Michael didn't rant and rave at someone, he didn't even hand in a letter of resignation - he spray paints the word "RESIGN" on a window for everyone to see. Well there's nothing wrong in that. We are all individuals, and we all have out own ways of how we would resign our job. McGoohan showed us one way, and Jim Caviezel showed us another.

Be seeing you - if I don't resign first that is!

The Therapy Zone

Many Happy Returns

   It has been supposed that this episode concerns itself with demonstrating that no matter where Number Six goes, he can never evade to long reach of the Village. Meaning that there is nowhere he can go, where he cannot be found, retrieved from, and returned to the Village.

   Well that's as maybe. Yet I know feel there is much more to this episode of the Prisoner's incarceration than that. ‘Many Happy Returns’ gives a false freedom to the Prisoner. His is the torture of escape only to be recaptured and returned to the confines of the village, to continue his incarceration, after being given a glimpse of his world, to move in it as he had once done. But to find someone living in his home, owning the car he built with his own hands. Then to have that world suddenly snatched away from him again.

    For his captors, there is the pleasure of control, the manipulation of the Prisoner, in watching him build his sea-going raft, to gather his provisions, and finally to escape the village must surely have been most amusing, knowing that he could be returned to the village at their will. And don't forget the smashing of the cup and saucer on the table. That was a torture in itself, in making the Prisoner suddenly think that he had gone to so much trouble, effort, and hard work, but now the game was up. But at the same time giving the Prisoner renewed hope, in that the game was far from up, and that he had a chance of escape.

   The pleasure for the captors of the Prisoner was in the control there exerted over him, but also in the hunt, and recapture of the Prisoner, and thereby returning him to the village, so that they could continue with their manipulation of the Prisoner, in other and more fascinating ways.

    This I learned from the Marquis De Sade

Many Happy Returns

  At first I was really surprised to see that in Many Happy Returns the Prisoner went back to his old colleagues. I'd have thought he'd learned his lesson with the Colonel and Fotheringay during The Chimes of Big Ben. But I suppose that the Prisoner had no-one else who could help him in gaining the answers he requires.

   Mind you, seeing as how The Chimes of Big Ben and Many Happy Returns were written by different script writers, there could be no continuity between the epsiodes. As it is in Many Happy Returns, it gives the impression that the Prisoner has forgotten his pervious experience with the Colonel and Fotheringay. Had both episodes been written by the same script writer, then there would be the chance of continuity between the episodes, as the Prisoner would have remembered his previous experience, and that in turn would have had an effect upon his running back to he old colleagues. At least he'd have been more wary of them, don't you think?

The Mechanics Of It All

   On the day of his arrival in the village the Prisoner, at becoming annoyed with the constant drone of piped music into his cottage, trampled a black loudspeaker underfoot. Yet with the loudspeaker smashed to pieces, the music continued to play.

The Prisoner "How do you stop this thing?"

No.66 {the Prisoner's personal maid} "We can't. It’s automatic."

   Then towards the end of the Dance of the Dead No.6 rips the out the wiring of a tele-printer, which causes the machine to stop printing whatever instructions were coming through for No.2.

   The only trouble is, that No.6 can never win, and the proof of that is in the restarting of the teletype, the wiring and paper of which lie upon the floor, ripped out by No.6!

    Well in all probability the tele-printer had a back-up system, and there was more than one loudspeaker in the Prisoner's cottage...... simple, fool proof. "Perhaps too simple, too fool proof" as No.6 once said.

Be seeing you

Prismatic Reflection

    If there is one question which is most frequently asked of 'the Prisoner,' it is this, "Why did you resign?" Well to be perfectly honest, that question has been done to death. I mean we all know why the Prisoner resigned, he resigned for peace, for peace of mind. We hear that from the Prisoner’s very own lips, the trouble is I don’t think Number 2 was actually listening at the time, because he asks the Prisoner to tell him again. But the Prisoner was in no mood to repeat himself, “You’ve been told” he said, yes and so were we, the television viewer but were we listening?     So what is the next most asked question of ‘the Prisoner?’ Where am I? We know where the Village is, it’s in the county of Gwynedd in North Wales, any damned fool can tell you that. Unless of course you are of the opinion that the Village is situated somewhere on the Baltic, on the Lithuanian coast. Or even somewhere south west of Portugal and Spain, even on the coast of Morocco, it might even be an island!
    “What do you want?” might be the next most popular question, the answer to which is a simple one, “We want information, information, information!” Which after all is the main priority of the Village Administration, the acquiring of information. But then that begs the next question, what is it they do with all that information when they get it? Well you see that long room filled with grey filing cabinets, of the type in which the Prisoner’s card having been marked, is dropped in the filing cabinet marked RESIGNED, well there you have it. Information stored away for, well for a very long time. Ah, I perceive that you are about to ask who has access to this information. Well whoever requests it I suppose. What would the point of gathering all that information only to see it stored away in a room full of grey fling cabinets, for no-one to have access? I mean this isn’t AREA 51!
    And then we come to the question “Who are you?” To which a disembodied voice answers “I am Number Two” or “I am the new Number Two,” depending on which Number 2 it is at that time. Only three Number 2’s were ever returned to the Village for a second term of office, well four if you include Number 2 who was due for retirement. The thing is though, three out of the four Two’s to be returned to the Village had previously failed in their exploits against Number 6. Although in two cases Number 2 could not be expected to take the full blame for failure, one of whom was brought back because he would have no direct contact with Number 6, as he would be overseeing the educational experiment of Speedlearn. The second would be given a chance to break Number 6 under his own terms, and the third Number 2, well he would be overseeing the proceedings of ‘Fall Out’ in the matter of democratic crisis. Oh yes I was forgetting, and the fourth Number 2, well he hadn’t failed at all. He had been far too busy working on the infrastructure of the Village for the good of the people, and the community in general to be involved with Number 6! But of course none of this answers the question of who Number 2 is.
    We do know that one Number 2, he of ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ ‘Once Upon A Time,’ and ‘Fall out,’ came from London, for that is the place to which he returned after escaping the confines of the Village. We are witness to him being dressed in a bowler hat and business suit, as he strides passed the Houses of Parliament in the City of Westminster in London. In fact this former Number 2 actually enters the Houses of Parliament, but in what capacity he is there we do not know. Perhaps someone out of the Foreign Office perhaps.
    Yet this former Number 2 is not the only one to be connected to Westminster. Number 6, an Irish-American, who achieved the position of Number 2, if for perhaps the shortest term of office in Village history, has a house in the City of Westminster, No.1 Buckingham Place. What’s more the underground car park in which the Prisoner parks his Lotus 7 in the opening sequence of ‘the Prisoner,’ is but a stones throw from the Houses of Parliament. So would it be too left of field to assume that somewhere in the Houses of Parliament there is a small office where the Prisoner handed in his resignation?
    As for all the remaining Number 2’s, I am of the opinion that the majority, if not almost all, had been recruited from within the British Civil Service. There is an argument for Number 2 of ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ to be that of Thorpe of ‘Many Happy Returns,’ if only fictionally speaking. And for the same reason Number 2 of ‘Arrival’ could be Colonel Ross of British Intelligence in the three Harry Palmer films ‘the Ipcress File,’ ‘Funeral In Berlin,’ and ‘The Billion Dollar Brain,’ but even fictionally speaking that would be stretching a point.
    One Number 2 is an American perhaps recruited from the CIA. Another is Welsh, while a couple of them are Australian, while the rest are English born.
    So to the answer of who is Number 2, I have done my best. But as Number 50 once said “Who is anyone here?” {meaning the Village}.

Be seeing you

Caught On Camera

    On the wall screen in the episode 'Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling' some of the Prisoner's activities are shown on the wall screen in Number 2's office. One section of the film enjoys bit of surreal cutting, because as Number 6 approaches the single steel door, as though into the cave as he does in 'Free For All, he ends up storming through the front door into the foyer of the Green Dome! As the following three stills demonstrate.

I'll be seeing you

Thought For The Day

   Today I spare a thought for the Colonel, because no-one seems to spare him such a thought in the actual episode. The Colonel whose mind dies in the body of Professor Jacob Seltzman "Tell Number One I did my duty," being the Colonel's last words. The Colonel was certainly dedicated to the cause, even the man's dying thoughts were for Number 1!

Be seeing you

Exhibition of Arts And Crafts

    From my portrait period

BcNu