The Tally Ho

The Prisoner    by our own reporter

  Its been 50 years since The Prisoner to become known as No.6 faced his arrival in The Village {that’s him pictured on the right} his abduction having taken place in September 1966. He looks good for his age, doesn’t look a day much over 38 years. Some would say the Prisoner looks better today that he has for ages.
   Why he was put in The Village is anyone's guess. There are those who believe that it was because he had resigned his job, and refused to give a reason. But then when one resigns a job one has to do so by letter, but is not obliged to give a reason. That must have been infuriating for No.2, seeing as all he seemed to want was to bring No.6’s file up to date. There’s no parole from The Village, which is basically a picturesque, Italianate prison. However he did manage to escape once, but no sooner had he returned to London, than it seemed he couldn’t wait to return to The Village! I suppose its as No.2 once said, “He’ll eventually go to his room, it’s the only place he can ever go.”  And yet the Prisoner has been released over the years on video tape and in DVD box-sets. He’s been digitally re-mastered, turned into Blu-ray, and high- definitionied so much so that the Prisoner no longer looks his age, and seemingly as though it was filmed only last year! There just one problem with that, he wasn’t!
   But back to the Prisoners abduction, I’m of the opinion that his resignation wasn't the reason for his abduction to The Village, that and his resignation was a pure coincidence. After all he had been under the closest possible surveillance even before he resigned. By whom? Well it could have been by his own people, perhaps he had become suspect of something, no longer to be found trust worthy. More likely the surveillance cameras were placed in his house by those who organized his abduction to The Village! I think there’s a question of time here. And I don’t think it was  that bureaucrat to whom ZM73 handed his letter of resignation, because he couldn’t possibly have had time to organize the two agents {in the guise of undertakers} to be waiting at the entrance to the car park in order to follow ZM73 back through London to his home. Thinking about it, the two undertakers could have driven  into the car park themselves, and abducted him from there. But then again perhaps the nerve agent used by one of the undertakers, sprayed out from a gas gun, only works best in confined spaces!
   There was the question over the Prisoner’s sympathies. No.2 might know where they lay, but people change, so do loyalties. And yet No.6 seems to maintain his loyalty, but to which side? The department which he once worked for, or that of The Village? On the other hand, if those responsible for The Village, are ZM73’s former colleagues, then he maintains his loyalty to both!   As to the question of the Prisoner-No.6’s identity, some would have it that he’s ‘Danger Man’ John Drake, others see him as representing Everyman. And yet in my book he’s Patrick McGoohan! But either way readers will no doubt keep our friend No.6 under the closet possible surveillance in 2017-18.  

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The Pri50ner

    What is it you find most fascinating about ‘the Prisoner?’ For myself it might be how after ‘Checkmate’ Number 6 stopped making escape attempts. That might have been because he had exhausted all the ways of attempting escape. One might be of the opinion that he could have attempted twice more to escape, after all in ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ he had broken Number 2, but even then the way out still remained closed to him. ‘It’s Your Funeral’ may well have proved an easier escape, after all Number 6 had the ticket out of The Village. The bomb hung about the new Number 2’s shoulders, and he with the detonator. But no, Number 6 realized there was no escape for him, that’s why he gave the opportunity to the recently retired Number 2, while Number 6 remained behind to stop Number 2 from removing that Great Seal of Office from about his shoulders. And the question is, had Number 6 taken the opportunity to escape by that method, who was there he could have trusted enough to delay Number 2 from removing the Great Seal and taking action?

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Teabreak Teaser!

    In ‘It’s Your Funeral,’ Number 6 has decided to pay a call on Number 2 which is all fine and dandy. Yet he might find that a bit difficult, because what’s wrong with this picture?

BcNu

Is That No.6?

    That was clever, simple and uncomplicated! All that happened was the telephone started bleeping, the Prisoner picked it up and the voice on the other end asked him
    “Is your Number Six?”
    “Yes.”
    That was a neat trick, and a fine tribute to their methods, to get the Prisoner to acknowledge his number, even before he’s been issued with it!

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Naming!

   I was listening to ‘Thought For The Day’ on Radio 4 one morning recently, and I heard the speaker say “To use a person’s name is to know him or her, it is an act of intimacy.” That struck a cord with me in regard to ‘the Prisoner,’ because to know his name would be to know him, and there might grow a kind of intimacy between us. But the Prisoner doesn’t want us to know who he is, hence his reluctance to use his own name, to give a false name to Mrs. Butterworth, but perhaps to him one name is as good as any. And yet why did he want to look at both the lease of the house and the logbook of the Lotus 7? Was it simply to check Mrs. Butterworth’s story, or did he want to see his own name on the documents as a reassurance of his former existence in the outside world!
   In ‘Do Not Forsake Me’ Number 6 went running back to the people he turned his back on when he resigned from the department, because he saw them as being the only ones who could help him in his current predicament! He went back to the office where he handed in his letter of resignation and there behind the desk sat Jonathon Peregrine Danvers whose name ZM73 is quite happy to use. Then again perhaps Danvers isn’t important enough to have a code name! Then another chap, PR12 arrives on the scene and asks the man his name.
   “Code or real?”
   “Code.”
   “In France Duval, in Germany Schmitt, you would know me best as ZM Seventy-three, and your name is PR Twelve.”
   So it appears that ZM73 has a code name to coincide with the particular country he’s in at the time. What’s more it appears that even a person’s real name is not used even between friends, and former colleagues. They are very careful types in British Intelligence! And between lovers? Even Janet Portland didn’t use ZM73’s name, not even when she realized who the man was after the man he gave her that special message and she held him in her arms.
   “Who else could have given you that message?”
   “Nobody but…..”
   “Wouldn’t you say nobody but you? I need your faith.”
   “Nobody but you.”
   I would have thought Janet would have used his first name during that scene of intimacy……but no. Whether or not she went on to use his name we shall never know because the camera fades out!
    It appears that even with his mind wrongly housed in the Colonel’s body ZM73’s handwriting remains the same. And so it appears that in the tender love scene, ZM73 still kisses as himself!

    Footnote: Further to the non use of the Prisoner’s name, in ‘Many Happy Returns,’ he is quite happy to use the Colonel’s first name James, and Thorpe’s surname, Thorpe who doesn’t use his ex-colleague’s name at all. And although the Prisoner considers himself to be on first name terms with the Colonel, the Colonel gets away with not using his ex-colleague’s name by calling him Number Six by way of a black joke!

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Page 6

    There’s been a question of time, regarding certain episodes, that too much undue pressure is being placed on Number 2, even the suggestion that Number 2 is running out of time. Well if you ask me it’s Number 1 who’s running out of time! I mean to say one Number 2 was only given a week in order to extract the reason why Number 6 resigned. A week, I ask you. If Number 2 couldn’t get Number 6 to give up the reason behind his resignation in about a year, he wasn’t going to do it in a week was he now? But more than that Number 2 wasn’t allowed to use the usual methods, nothing extreme, they weren’t allowed to break him, or damage the tissue, they didn’t want a man of fragments. Anyone would think Number 1 didn’t want to know why Number 6 resigned, and even if he had found out, what then? Perhaps Number 1 hoped that they could turn Number 6 in order to work as an agent for The Village, a man of his calibre. You never know, in time they could have brought Number 6 back to The Village as an interim Number 2 in order to deal with an exceptionally difficult prisoner. Someone who wouldn’t talk for example, but who had knowledge that needed to be extracted. As Number 2, Number 6 would have expert knowledge of what not to try, and what it takes to break a man of steel that he once was! I think that would be rather a novelty. The next time the Prisoner comes back to The Village, he should come back as Number 2!

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Citizen No.8

    Don’t be alarmed, you’re safe home, and amongst friends. But of course you already know that don’t you, so there’s really no need to play games with me! I’m quite sure they briefed you on The Village, so you are simply playing at being shocked for the benefit of those who are watching. I’m also sure you are a good field agent, otherwise they would not have sent you here. However there is one thing about you which is something of a puzzlement. Are you working for British Intelligence or the Russians, or were you once in The Village before, as a prisoner, and now co-operating with the Villages administration as an agent working for them in an act of mutual co-operation? Do you know the Colonel and Fotheringay? You see I have a problem, I don’t know which side you are on, unless there is only the one side, The Village!
    Number 2 said you were brought here for recuperation, but you told Number 6 all you did was resign. You know you people should really get your story straight. So which is it? Of course it’s neither of them! You are a very beautiful lady spy, but we’ll soon see how good you are when faced with an unspeakable horror that is the Guardian. I’m curious, you muttered something to yourself when you were in Number 6’s cottage, what was it now? Oh yes, you didn’t think it would be like this? Did you mean The Village, you didn’t expect it to be like this, what did you expect it to be like, a Soviet Gulag?! Never mind, you’re alright, Number 2 won’t let any harm come to you, he can’t afford to.
     You did your job, you were the first woman to get close to Number 6, but only because he thought you had something he wanted to know, the location of The Village. He was certainly blind to you, he never once wondered how it was possible for you to be able to contact Karel, when you were in The Village. They made you a damsel in distress, and that’s one chink in Number 6’s armour, he cannot resist a lady in distress. Had it not been for one tiny detail. But I expect the result would have been the same, had Number 6 been wearing his own wristwatch. As both Post 5 and Number 6’s wristwatch would have been set at the same time, Greenwich meantime!
   Just one more thing, you were going to stress in your report that Number 2 did his best. To whom were you going to give that report? Not the Colonel obviously, he already knew that the plan had failed. So someone else, someone higher up, Number 1? No, I cannot see someone like you reporting to Number 1. So it had to be someone, or some organisation outside The Village. But British or Russian? Perhaps those new masters Cobb talked about as he was leaving The Village!

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