A Favourite Scene in The Prisoner

    “Pata-cake, pata-cake Bakers man, bake me a cake as fast as you can.” That’s what they put in, and that’s what came out. Number 2 thought it must be a special code and that the computer wasn’t programmed for it!

   The scene in the computer and cipher room during ‘Hammer Into Anvil.’ Poor old Number 2, he was so angry that the code wasn’t broken, that he tripped over the base of the arch on his way out. I have sometimes wondered whether that was on purpose, or by error on the part of Patrick Cargill, and so it was left in the episode to make the scene more human!

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Village Life!

    “Clear off!”
    “Oh don’t be like that Number Six.”
    “If you think I’m coming out there, you’ve got another think coming!”

    “Come and join the Conventioneers.”
    “I’m not falling for that old one! I’m listening to music, it makes for a quiet mind, so keep the noise down!”
    “He’s a bit on the grumpy side this morning.”

    “Come on, lets go and visit the Prisoner shop.”
    “What with him in there?”
    “Well have a cigarette then.”   
    “Where did you get those?”  
    “They’re Number Sixes.”
    “Does he know you’ve got those?”

 

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FALL OUT

    The 17^th and final episode of ‘the Prisoner’ series. It was supposed to have given all the answers, and yet it answered nothing. I was twelve years of age at the time, and ‘Fall out’ was a complete and utter mystery to me. What was it? Whatever it was, it went and gone, and it was almost another ten years before I was able to see it again, and even then it was just as much a mystery. I hade no idea what Patrick meant by it. No idea that he called it an allegory. Oh I saw Number 6 confront Number 1, that they looked identical, but it would be years until the penny finally dropped that Number 1 and Number 6 are supposed to be the alter ego of each other. Other than that they found another doppelganger for Number 6.

   ‘Fall Out’ maybe the most complicated episode in the series, but it must be admitted that ‘Fall Out’ makes ‘the Prisoner’ what it is, lifting it clear of the accepted norm. And yet in regard to Number 1 ‘Fall Out’ can be a burden, because once you have seen the episode, you realise who Number 1 is, and that makes any possible argument as to who Number 1 is during the previous 16 episodes null and void!

   ‘Fall Out’ breaks the rules, it was groundbreaking at the time, and anything remotely normal is thrown out with the bathwater! And yet, one can look upon the episode as being a James Bond style of ending to ‘the Prisoner’ series. Number 6 finally escapes the confines of The Village, and appears to survive and returns to London. But does ZM73 survive, or is he still as much a prisoner at the end as he was at the beginning? Is ‘Fall Out’ the beginning? And that’s the thing about ‘Fall Out,’ it answers without answering anything because it withholds. We are left to make up our own minds.  
   The moment when Number 6 tears off the masks to reveal that Number 1 is himself, that he has been responsible for The Village, his own incarceration, torment and torture, is over in an instant. At the age of 12 it was difficult for me to comprehend, and there was no second chance of watching it again back in those days before the world went digital. Today the cliché is “We are our own worst enemy,” but not so in 1968. ‘Fall Out’ showed us that the enemy is within ourselves, something I wasn’t old enough to realise that at the time.

    ‘Fall Out’ is weird and wonderful, and still worthy of further analysis, and possible criticism. It is easily dismissed as nonsense, and was by many at the time of its premier screening here in Britain in 1968. Visually ‘Fall Out’ is exciting, its action packed. Number 6 and his confederates realise there is only one way out, to use good old fashioned brute force, and to shoot their way out! Is that what ‘Fall Out’ comes down to in the end, violence, guns, bullets, and the irony of a song “All You Need Is Love.” But as a series finale it left much in the air, and really it’s not an ending at all. That’s why it’s more likely to be the beginning, there had been a falling out. Number 6 discovered that he is responsible for The Village, so he went and resigned. Eventually two undertakers come for the Prisoner, and he’s abducted to The Village, a Village for which he is responsible, from which he resigned! ‘Fall Out’ is a strong link in what ‘the Prisoner’ is………………a vicious circle!

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Teabreak Teaser

   A question, since when did Number 6 take to visiting children in their nursery at night to tell them a fairy story? And whose children were they in the first place? That’s two questions!

bCnU

Supervisors Report

    Being a Supervisor in the Control Room is a huge responsibility. On the odd occasion we get it wrong, but mostly us Supervisors and the Control Room staff are on the ball. True one such Supervisor did get Number 6's birthday wrong, but there was no such conspiracy as suspected by Number 2.
    Most of the work carried out in the Control Room is routine surveillance, even the two sat upon the metal see-saw device, helps keep their attention focused, so I'm informed.  There is the occasional 'yellow alert' or if things get a bit extreme, like when Number 6 is trying another escape attempt, then we go to 'orange alert.’ But there is no given situation that we cannot deal with, our efficiency is second to none. Once a pigeon was tracked by radar, and then we brought it down by use of the beam, and no harm came to that pigeon. Not one of its feathers was singed!
    Occasionally experiments are conducted from within the Control Room, like the time the doctor was trying to gain information from Number 6 through using Number 42 as a communications medium. Such experiments should be conducted in the hospital. A more relevant experiment was to do with the alarm system, Number 8 was helping another doctor that time, with what they called a reaction transmitter.
     However the occasional anomaly is thrown up, such as that time Number 2 suspected Number 6 of planting a bomb at the door of the Green Dome, a bomb housed in a blessed Cuckoo Clock for heavens sake! Well of course there wasn't any such bomb, as Bomb Disposal soon found out when the Cuckoo clock was dismantled, and for many here in The Village there was only one Cuckoo..... yes well mustn’t speak ill of the mentally sick and paranoid!
    'Visual Records' is where all the surveillance tapes are stored. There technicians and archivists who review the surveillance tapes, in case the observers have missed something. And then one day the report came through that we did, or I suppose it could have been an error...... I suppose it could!
    "What do you make of it? Number 2 asked sternly.
    I recall looking at the two images on the wall screen, I studied them carefully.
   "Surveillance stills from, I would have to check, but isn't that Number 8 walking behind Number 6, and there just behind his right shoulder" I found myself replying, and yet seeing nothing strange.
    "So?" said Number 2 from the comfort of his chair.
    "The surveillance photographs are from Checkmate" I replied with confidence.
    "Ordinarily you would be correct. But in this particular instance you are wrong!" said Number 2 rising out of his chair.
    I was stunned I can tell you!
    "So" said Number 2 drawing up close "where do you think the surveillance footage for these actual stills came from?"
    I thought for a moment, but had no idea, so I told him "I've no idea Number Two."
   "Then you will be as surprised as I was to discover that the actual surveillance footage, came from The Chimes of Big Ben!" Number 2 said with assured certainty.
   "The Chimes of Big Ben" I responded in startled confusion "but that's impossible, there must have been a mix up with the tapes!"
    "I am assured not" retorted Number 2 "bring Number Six in for questioning, and that blessed Number 8 I want to know what the game is!" barked Number 2.
    "Game Number Two?" I questioned.
    "Yes, they've concocted something up between them, probably something to do with those blessed Jammers!" stormed Number 2 back in the comfort and security of his chair.
    "Perhaps time travel is in it as well!" I quipped in return.
    "Oh don't be stupid! Get out and have numbers 6 and 8 brought in for questioning."
    "Yes Number Two, at once."
    Well we never did find out what the anomaly was, perhaps it was a simple mix up of the tapes by the technicians in visual records, though they never owned up to it if it was. Who knows, perhaps time travel is in it as well, as Number 6 himself once suggested!

    {You could always review the surveillance footage yourself. The section in question takes place in 'The Chimes of Big Ben,' soon after Number 6 has placed the loudspeaker in the refrigerator}


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Exhibition of Arts And Crafts

                      “Not Bad News!”

BcNu

Thought For The Day

    The Village Guardian, is the Guardian of The Village. It serves and protects the community by helping maintain the security of the citizens. This it does by acting as a policeman, or rather as a “guard dog” when summoned.
    It is not a natural thing, certainly not natural or indigenous to the planet earth. It is unlikely to be of another planet, so therefore it has to be a man made thing. Genetically engineered, beginning life as a piece of synthetic membrane born in a Petra dish in a laboratory. And yet the Guardian is just as much a prisoner as any other prisoner in The Village, whether confined in a containment area somewhere on the seabed, or in so termed Lava Lamps. The Guardian, a malevolent being in a Lava Lamp, acting as a reminder of that which awaits any malcontent Prisoner or potential escapee.
   Man or woman if cunning enough may escape The Village, but the Guardian is born of The Village, even if escape for it was possible, where would it go? Where could it exist other than in The Village? But to be a prisoner is to know confinement, to be put away from others of one’s kind, to be isolated. But the Guardian although confined, has not been isolated from others of its own kind, because there are no others of its kind, it is unique! We do not know if the Guardian is capable of conscious independent thought, and thereby realising its own circumstances.
   The Guardian is also a slave, at the beck and call of those who command, and to them it must obey when summoned. Like a Kraken being summoned by the Gods on Mount Olympus during some game of chess in which Jason and his Argonauts are but pawns. We do not know whether or not the Guardian was genetically engineered for The Village itself, or that it was part of an experiment carried out for use in the world beyond.
    Of course The Village must be protected, while at the same time have a deterrent, something so fearsome that the very thought of it would be deterrent enough for any would-be escapee. And if not proved to be sufficient deterrent enough, a means of subduing a malcontent prisoner, or to pursue and recapture anyone attempting to escape. Such is the Guardian, it’s just as much a prisoner as Number 6.
   It is written that the Butler appears in ‘the Prisoner’ second only to Number 6, so what of the Guardian? If we set aside both the opening sequence and the closing credits of the series, the Guardian appears in a total of 9 episodes. In ‘Arrival’ it puts in 3 appearances, and in two other episodes there are three Guardians. And in ‘A Change of Mind’ the Guardian appears only on a screen in the Aversion Therapy Room. So after Patrick McGoohan as the Prisoner, Angelo Muscat as the Butler, and Peter Swanwick as the Supervisor, the Guardian is placed forth in the appearance stakes in ‘the Prisoner.’ 

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