Why Did Patrick McGoohan design No.6 As A Hero?

    This is a question right out of the archive, and I suppose it depends on whose side you are on, and what interpretation you actually put on the Prisoner-No.6. As McGoohan once put it;

    "Well, I didn't initially say, "This hero," but he grew into one, I hope, in the sense that he was rebelling against the evil forces against him.

    John Drake was a hero wasn't he, certainly he was my boyhood hero. But not a rebel, that didn't actually take effect until after his abduction and subsequent arrival in the village.

    Yes, he resigned, but that didn't make him a rebel! And as to No.6 being a hero to anyone.... well we can't all go around behaving like him now, can we?

BCNU.

The Therapy Zone

The Village

    It was once written that the Village is not a copy of normal everyday life, {I should hope not}, I would agree, {goes on the author} that it is modelled on... Utopia. A community with absolute equality, {really!} all needs provided, no worries, {???} no questions, {????} no illness, happiness on all levels...{by order!} Surely this must be the perfect society? Of course this is only the surface, under which lurks a very different society. But I feel that the concept of Utopia may explain much of the general aspect of the vVillage.

   Well this may very well be true for those citizens who are not inmates, or who came to the village voluntarily. Have given, either freely or through coercion, the information inside their heads, and who are now being looked after for as long as they live in the village.

  For those who have been forced to undergo that pacification process known as Instant Social Conversion - basically a Leucotomy, the dislocation of the aggressive frontal lobes - afterwards it might appear to the patient as Utopia. But in what kind of Utopia are such operation carried out? No, for many the village is no Utopia, not for the likes of Roland Walter Dutton, and all those other inmates who are experimented on at one time or another in the hospital, by doctors who are only too keen to carry out human experimentation!

  Yet have not these things happened here in the outside world? The village is not a Utopia, but a microcosm of our own society, and reflected in that society all that goes to make up that of our own... surely.

Prisoner Observations

    The Hospital which is used daily, is not featured on Map of Your Village. But the Palace of Fun, which is never featured in the Prisoner, does appear on the ‘Map of Your Village!’

    The Palace of Fun was to have been a place of amusement and entertainment for the citizens of the village. Where they could gamble and play games. Attend musical concerts, and a theatre to put on Amateur dramatics.

    The picture of the Cockerel on the wall of the General's office, is that of General Jack, a fighting cock!

    The Colonel was murdered by with an exploding cricket ball - one run short  of his century, whilst Potter was supposed to have been watching his back. But was distracted by a pair of attractive legs at the time!

    The girl who was death was to originally have the name of Sonia, a name which is featured in the closing credits of the episode of the same name, yet the name Sonia is never actually used in the finished episode!

Checkmate

  But didn't that episode turn out to be something of a "fools-mate" for No.6? The leader of the gang hoist by his own perturb!

Be seeing you tomorrow..…back on the chessboard

Village Life!

   "You bastard Pat, you could have damn well killed me!"


BCNU

Quote For The Day

    "Oh by the way, have you thought about that proposition I put to you when you arrived?"
    "Sorry I've had no time."
    "You must have some views."
    "I'm afraid not."
    "Look old chap we've been through many scrapes before, but we've never fallen out over them. The General's not going to behead you."
    "We won't know until I've reported to the General will we?"
   "Report to the General, that's a new one!"
                                         {No.2 and No.6/12-Curtis  -  The Schizoid Man}

    And it is that "reported to the General" which made many fans think that this is a referrence to 'The General' being the next episode. For myself the General is more likely to be a person working somewhere in British Intelligence such as General Carteret in the 'Danger Man' epiosde 'The Black Book.'

Be seeing you

Caught On Camera

  Why are the new No.2 and the out-going No.2 holding hands? They hold hands from the moment they get out of the Taxi, all the way to the top of the steps to the Green Dome!
   Perhaps this has something to do with the condition of No.6. After all he appears pretty sedated and unresponsive to the gathered crowd standing on the steps of the Town Hall. So much so that the out-going No.2 had to raise the new No.2's arm with his own hand!

BCNU

How Free Are We?

    This is a question once asked by Patrick McGoohan, and his own response was as follows;

    "I think we're being imprisoned and engulfed by a scientific and materialistic world."

   Well didn't McGoohan get that interpretation on the world right at the time of the Prisoner/ And does that not that statement still stand true of today, if not more so?

    Science is always progressing, not always for the better it has to be said. All you have to do is look at the state of the British National Health system and hospitals. New ways are being created in order for life to be created. Cures are being sort for all manner of diseases, and everyone is encouraged to look after ourselves health-wise. This so that we can live longer! Is it not better to have what you enjoy, to live an active life doing what you want, than to end up in the old people's home, paying someone to look after you..... for as long as you live?

    And as for the materialistic world. Well there are HD television sets and all manner of gadgetry, always new and better entertainments systems. We want bigger and faster Broadband, and the latest box set of the Prisoner is a measuring stick, it has to be seen better and clearer by fans, who seem to be in danger of losing the main event with the Prisoner, that of it's content!

   Materialistically people are no longer satisfied. No longer happy with what they have, not even when they have the latest thing on the market, like mobile phones. Because the latest thing on the market isn't very latest for long. Because someone somewhere is always on hand to almost instantly bring out something new and better! And at the end, does this not this materialistic existence make Prisoners of the majority?

BCNU.

The Therapy Zone

    During their, shall we say deliberations, No.2 found himself locked in the cage, with No.2 having found himself changed places with No.6, who then directs the Butler to unlock the door of the cage, which is something No.2 fears. "You're free!" No.6 tells him. "No, I'm No.2" he shouts with defiance. "You are number nothing!" No.6 sneers in reply.

   So what about this Number Nothing, if No.1 is the figure head for the village, Number Nothing would not actually be No.2, who No.6 described as being less than a number! But nothing is a number, nought or Zero, and that could be the collective members of the Assembly.

A Graveyard Littered With Numbers

    No.73 was driven to suicide by a sadistic No.2 in the episode ‘Hammer Into Anvil.’ There is a birthday greeting for No.6 it is from No.113 "Warmest greetings on your birthday. May the sun shine on you today and everyday." The only trouble is, for the Supervisor-No.28, is that No.113 was an old woman who died a month ago. And of course as No.6 walks the graveyard looking for a suitable number to sign his birthday message, we can observe the grave of both No.73 and 113.

   So I ask the question which I have never asked, or even contemplated before. Why should the dead retain their number as No.73 and 113 did? After all, doesn't that then make those two, and any other such number retained by the deceased, make that number obsolete for use by the living? To do so would mean duplicating any such number, along with any such file kept on any particular person or individual. only the photograph would distinguish between the dead and the living person or individual.

   In the village, I believe that the dead should have no number, only an unmarked grave. However having said that, previously the number 113 was used twice. Once by the reporter for the Tally Ho newspaper during the electoral period of ‘Free For All,’ and secondly by an old woman who died a month ago, and was never used since. Well as far as we know. So perhaps it is right for the dead in the village graveyard to retain their number. But wouldn't that mess up the Villages numbering system?

An Act Of Betrayal!

    After his escape from the village, and subsequent return to London during ‘Many Happy Returns,’ No.6 went running back to his ex-colleagues, and gave away all the information he had on the installation known as THE VILLAGE. I wonder how the Villages administration felt about this act of betrayal, how No.1 might react. Because after returning to those No.6 felt he could trust, he couldn't wait to shoot his mouth off about the village, whilst in the village No.6 wouldn't give anything away!

    I suppose it's all to do with the kind of environment which you are famlier with, in the company you are in, people who you think you can trust. And if that is the case, that No.6 could actually trust both the Colonel and Thorpe, meaning that they had no prior knowledge of the village. Then information supplied by their ex-colleague, together with the copy of The Tally Ho and that of No.6's navigational log, plus the photographic evidence are now in the hands of others!

   I wonder how the villages administration would react to this?

Be seeing you