It’s Inexplicable!

    Most Village signs have a clear meaning. They tell you where to go, what to do, even such a sign as “Walk on the Grass” seems to be inciting citizens to break the usual rule. This sign however, its sole reason is visually surreal, other than that it’s inexplicable! It has no apparent meaning, its only purpose is to point to the “Free Sea.” But it doesn’t point to the sea, its points to the pool and fountain. And even if it was the sea, the sea id free to everyone, therefore what exactly is the point of this sign? Unless it’s to state the blindingly obvious!

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Village Life!

    “You remind me of someone?”
    “Who?”
    “Is your name Fuller, Robert Fuller?”
    “Name? Names are not used here.”
    “What about Drake, John Drake?”
    “I’m One nine five five, always have been.”
    “You’re not John Drake working undercover?”
    “I’m a school teacher.”
    “I could have sworn.”
    “What about you Six, are you an Undercover?”
    “If I said no, would you believe me?”
    “Probably not.”
    “If you were John Drake I bet you could get us out of here!”
    “If I were this John Drake person you keep mentioning, I bet he wouldn’t have got himself in here in the first place!”
    “If he did, if he managed to infiltrate The Village, he’d have friends on the outside who could get him out.”
    “I’m just a school teacher.”
    “So am I.”
    “Well we’d better get to class.”
    “What do you teach?”
    “Village philosophy.”
    “And you?”
    “Surveillance techniques. I’m demonstrating the new “Roach-cams.”
    “Oh, I’ve heard about those. Tiny fibre-optic cameras.”
    “Who told you that? Now we use tiny cameras attached to cockroaches. The clue being in the title!”    

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Now Let’s Bring It All Up To Date!

    Number 2 didn’t get off to such a good start with the Prisoner. His first attempt was to get Number 6 to answer one simple question, then all the rest would follow…….it didn’t! His attempted plan to use the maid Number 66 to extract the reason behind the Prisoner’s resignation appears to be one off the cuff so to speak. That didn’t work either, and as we learn later on, a few tears won’t wash away Number 6’s doubt!
   So Number 2 was replaced by a new Number 2, effectively making Number 6 begin all over again. That was clever. But this Number 2 had a different approach, he demonstrated to Number 6 that escape from The Village is not possible, Number 2’s first success.
   The Next Number 2 thought to try what the first Number 2 tried, that if Number 6 would answer one simple question, all the rest would follow. He asked Number 6 whether he takes one lump of two. But Number 6 was no fool, he made Number 2 look it up in his file, and found out that Number 6 does not take sugar. 6 gave that up some four years and three months ago
    The next Number 2 really had no chance, and was up against time, and when that happens mistakes are bound to be made. He didn’t lose, Number 6 succeeded, what’s more the doctor-Number 14 seemed somewhat pleased about that.
    Elections, in The Village! Surely Number 6 didn’t think he stood a chance of being elected as the new Number 2? It could easily be a trap, but Number 6 couldn’t pass up the opportunity, even though he eventually knew that they knew exactly what he would try and do if successfully elected. One might think that would be enough to see Number 6 come to his senses. But no, that was the mind conditioning, just enough to carry him right through the election, without damaging the tissue….the brain!
    The incumbent Number 2 at the time is the perfect Statesman, while the even newer Number 2 has been in The Village all the while masquerading as the maid Number 58. And we as the viewer thought we were witnessing democracy in action. Witnessing how someone is appointed as a new Number 2. Corruption is everywhere, even in a dictatorship!
    The audacity of it, Number 6 attempting to escape The Village by impersonating Curtis! Number 2 soon saw through that little deception, the fact that Susan died a year ago, and that Number 6 couldn’t possibly know that, was this Number 2’s saving grace!
    We see something novel, a number 2 being brought back to the Village for a second term of office. That might be supposed to be fair enough, seeing as the failure of ‘A B and C’ wasn’t all his fault. And besides, this time he has no direct involvement with Number 6. So what’s to go wrong? Number 6 not trusted not to poke his nose into business which does not concern him! And for the first time Number 6 has an alley, Number 12 of Administration, whose final act was one of bravery, or suicide, depending on how you look at it.
    In this next episode Number 2 is something of a mystery, as we only get to meet her at the end of ‘Many Happy Returns,’ who turns out to be Mrs. Butterworth. So no mystery there then. The mystery about Mrs. Butterworth as Number 2 is, was she in The Village as Number 2 as Number 6 was busy constructing his sea-going raft? And did she then leave The Village for London sometime after, so that she was living No.1 Buckingham Place when ZM73 finally arrived home? Or wasn’t that the case at all? That Mrs. Butterworth’s only involvement was to be ensconced in ZM73’s house as an agent working for The Village. But that when the Police or Special Branch had called, she was then free to be taken to The Village as a new Number 2, in time to bake Number 6 a cake in time for his many happy returns there?
    Number 2 comes in many guises. We have seen 2’s feminine side, and now we’re about to see, well you can make your own minds up. But certainly this Number 2 is quite happy to use masculine phrases like “Then how very uncomfortable for you old chap.” Certainly she seems quite unembarrassed by using such a phrase. Well what can one expect with a woman playing the role of a boy who never grew up!
    The next prospect is a Number 2 who is the perfect Administrator, who is perfectly happy to let others get on with the task in hand. Confident in their abilities.
    The chain of command is only as strong as its weakest link, this next Number 2 is a weak link just waiting to be broken. What’s more Number 1 sits back and allows it to happen, he may even enjoy watching Number 6 bring this untrusting, paranoid sadistic Number 2 to his knees. It beggars belief how this person attained the position of Number 2 in the first place!
    Appreciation Day, the day when the good citizens of the community show their appreciation of those who govern them so wisely. So at long last we get to see how a new Number 2 is appointed. There is some ceremonial undertaking, in which the Great Seal of Office is worn by the out-going, or retiring Number 2, which is then passed onto the his successor. But this is supposed to be an annual event, so presumably the retiring Number 2 is the actual Number 2, and every Number 2 before or since have been interim Number 2’s. So subsequently might not the community have to suffer this particular Number 2 for a year, excluding interim Number 2’s, until the next Appreciation Day, when another is appointed? That would make the retiring Number 2 the once permanent Number 2!
    This next Number 2 has to be careful, otherwise they could lose Number 6, do you understand {tapping my temple with a finger} lose him! There’s not so much the danger of damaging the tissue, but losing the brain altogether if ‘A Change of Mind’ goes wrong! He is a delicate Number 2 nibbling on a shortcake biscuit, whose voice sends shivers down the spine “I’m not angry my dear friend. He also has a fondness for spouting sayings, as did Chairman Mao Tse-Tung “He who ploughs a straight furrow need hoe for nothing.”
   ‘A Change of Mind’ was the previous episode to ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling,’ one in which both the Colonel and Number 6 go through a change of mind! Before, there was never any real danger of Number 6 losing his mind, after all he was merely sedated. But now there was the very grave danger of his having to live out the rest of his life in someone else’s body. And that would not have been good for Number 2, as he could very well have lost Number 6, well his mind at least. And if that had happened all he had to do was to persuade the Colonel to live out the rest of his life in The Village impersonating Number 6!
    ‘The Girl Who Was Death,’ such an inept, and incapable Number 2 you are ever to have the misfortune to meet! Mind you it’s easy to knock a man when he has such poor tools to work with. He said it himself, “He might drop his guard with children!” If this was the best idea they could come up with, well the plan didn’t deserve to succeed!
    Ah now what boys and girls cannot resist playing cowboys and Indians? Well actually there wasn’t a North American native in sight, just a bunch of cowboys. Well not even that, just a bad judge, the Kid who was a dumb psychotic killer, a Saloon girl, and a one time Sheriff who had become fed up having to face up to every two-bit gunslinger who came riding into town looking to make a name for himself! Besides which a shiny Sheriff’s badge makes too clear a target to hit! It all went wrong, the moment the Judge shot The Man With No Name, and he would have to pay for this latest failure, just like any number of his predecessors!
    A one-on-one situation between Number 2 and Number 6, and the quest for the missing link, why did Number 6 resign? And to think that this Number 2 actually achieved the missing link, that he had been told. The only trouble is he doesn’t appear to have been listening, because he asked Number 6 to tell him again. Only Number 6 wasn’t in the mood to repeat himself. “You’ve been told” he said, and so had we. But it cost Number 2 his life, but if it wasn’t that, what could it have been? Unless…… murder, or assassination, but most likely a heart attack brought on by the stress of the situation!
   ‘Fall Out,’ and another failed Number 2 brought back for the final, desperate manipulation of Number 6, and you’d think that they could have thought something a little more original, as facing Number 6 with himself had been tried before. It didn’t work then, and it didn’t work now!
    Any number of Number 2’s have been employed to deal with Number 6, that was so he could not develop a relationship or rapport with Number 2. Well there were a couple of occasions at least when a relationship developed between Number 6 and Number 2. In fact during their deliberations Number 2 was distinctly heard to say “I’m beginning to like him.” And Number 6 wasn’t exactly delirious over the death of Number 2. In fact he was angry about it!
    So then there is Two to deal with Six, a different Six admittedly, but nevertheless Six, and only one Two, who’s remit is to get Six to accept The Village, to make him realise that he is Village. This time it’s not just about Six wanting to escape, but also Two, and Two’s only way out is for Six to accept The Village so that Two can hand over The Village to Six, and then he can escape! This then has at least brought THEPRIS6NER up to date. But The Village? Yes its physical location may have been changed, in the middle of a desert with nothing but sand in all directions for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Yet it has the feel of the 1950’s. The Village brought up to date, more likely it’s been regressed about 60 years!




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Thought For The Day

    The Schizoid man, no I don’t mean Number 6, well I do, but the other Number 6, Curtis. When Number 6, who was by that time conditioned to be Number 12-Curtis, Number 2 said to him that they had to pull all the strings they could in order to get him seconded back to them. Does that mean Curtis had been with The Village before, and if so in what capacity? Perhaps he had been like so many others, brought to The Village as prisoners, who were made to talk, then turned to work within The Village. Or perhaps like Cobb, released back into the outside world, but as an agent working in the interest of The Village. But Curtis had a special attribute to bring to bear, his remarkable resemblance to Number 6, and was eventually returned to The Village in order to impersonate 6!
     There was another opportunity for The Village Administration, to send Curtis out into the world in order to impersonate ZM73. He could have spun a yarn saying he’d changed his mind about resigning, and if accepted back into the fold, could infiltrate the department for which ZM73 had previously worked within British intelligence, but working for The Village. And there would be no need for the use of the Seltzman machine in this case. Mind you, if it was ZM73’s previous employers who are behind The Village, well Curtis might well find himself back in The Village if they didn’t believe his story! No that wouldn’t work, because if it was ZM73’s own people behind The Village, then it was them who pulled all the strings they could in order to get him seconded back to them. But that would indicate that Curtis had been with them previously in The Village, wouldn’t it? Remembering Number 2’s own words that is, “We had to pull every string we could to get you seconded back to us!”

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Caught On Camera!

    Enthusiasts can theorise about ‘the Prisoner,’ come up with fresh ideas and interpretations as we all do on occasion. However there is another way of looking at the series, and visually I am always astonished by what can still be found by simply looking at the series, and from time to time putting “the Prisoner’ under the microscope” to coin a phrase from a friend of mine recently. Because visually ‘the Prisoner’ still has secrets to reveal, even after the past forty-eight years.

   It was while I was studying ‘The Schizoid Man,’ looking for a certain image, that I observed something which made me stop and look closer. I don’t know if anyone has spotted this before, but Number 6 seems to have found a new use for a then obsolete object from the previous episode of ‘Free for All.’

   Pictured here are the two ballot boxes used in the Polling Station in the Town Hall used by citizens to cast their votes. The next picture, was taken during the fight scene between Number 6 and Number 12 in ‘The Schizoid Man.’ As Number 12 is thrown over the breakfast counter, forced back against a kitchen cabinet in the grip of Number 6, a black box can be seen on the floor in the bottom right-hand corner, apparently marked “ballot box!”

    It would seem that Number 6 has laid his hands on the box and is now using it as a kitchen waste bin!

   Incidentally, the table upon which ballot boxes are set was once used by a landowner. The table has a number of drawers set in it in which the land leases of his tenant farmers would be kept. The drawers would be indexed with the letters of the alphabet, except for ‘X’ and ‘Z.’ Upon each quarter day, the tenant farmers would go to pay their rents. The landowner would take each land lease from the correct drawer and mark down that the quarterly rent hand been paid by each tenant farmer. 

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Exhibition of Arts and Crafts

                       “Terrible?”

                  “This is a dreamy Party!”
BcNu

Thought For The Day

   After handing in his letter of resignation, the Prisoner returned to his home to collect two suitcases, his passport, and an airline ticket. The question is, when did the Prisoner purchase that airline ticket? At least by the day before he resigned, which makes his act of resignation one of premeditation rather than a spur of the moment thing.
    In ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ the Prisoner is returned to London the day before he was to have resigned his job, and sometime after, he was to have attended his fiancées birthday party, that of Janet Portland, which is what was supposed to have happened had the Prisoner not been abducted to The Village. But then would it? I don't think the Prisoner had any intention of attending his fiancée’s birthday party, simply because of what we witness in the opening sequence. The evidence of the Prisoner's passport and airline ticket is compelling, indicating that he was on his way to London Airport.
    It is highly unlikely that the Prisoner intended to go and see Janet Portland before he left, because the evidence suggests that he had not even told her about his resigning his job. Janet Portland had expected to see him at her birthday party. What’s more, he had cynically accompanied her the previous evening to her last dress fitting for the party, knowing very well that he was not going to be there. 

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