Outlook!

    No.6 “I know where you stand don’t I!”
    No.2 “She’s one of our best Observers.”
    “Really, then what is she doing here?”
    “How do you mean?”
    “I should have thought she should be somewhere watching people.”
    “People like you, you mean?”
    “If she’s one of your best Observers, what are all the rest like?”
    “You’re not very complimentary are you?”
    “Well she didn’t see me try and follow her into the Town Hall did she!”
    “She wasn’t ready, she had only just gone on shift.”
    “Oh you’ll stick up for her!”
    “So what’s she doing here?”
    “Her job.”
    “Watching me you mean?”
    “You really rate yourself that highly? No, she’s keeping an eye on me!”
    “YOU!”
    “We all have our Observers!”
    “She’s your assistant!”
    “How do you make that out?”
    “Its just a feeling I get.”
    No.240 “You’re not allowed feelings!”
    “Cold, unfeeling. That might be alright for Observers of any kind, especially your kind, who are never allowed to be involved!”
    “You are a cruel man!”
    “At least I’m alive. Watch me kid, you just might learn something!”

Be seeing you

A Question of Time!

  The Prisoner’s – 14 Month Incarceration! And yet just how much time during those 14 months is actually covered in ‘the Prisoner’ series?

Arrival – 2 days

The Chimes of Big Ben – 6 weeks 1 day

A B and C – 3 days

Free For All – 3 days.

Schizoid Man – 4 to 8 weeks approximately  {depending on how long it took for Number 6 to grow his beard, as well as the time it took to condition 6} We do not see all the time of those 4 to 8 weeks, however we do know what was taking place during those weeks.

The General – 3 days

Many Happy Returns – 29 days approximate {depending on whether it took the Prisoner 2 or 3 days to build his raft provision it, take his pictures. Then 25 days at sea, then 1 day to return to The Village}

Dance of the Dead – 2 days

Checkmate – 2 days

Hammer Into Anvil– 3 days

It’s Your Funeral -– 3 days

A Change of Mind – 2 to 3 days

Living In Harmony – 3 days   {Depending on whether or not this episode takes place in real time}

The Girl Who Was Death – 1 evening

Once Upon A Time – 8 days

Fall Out – 1 day

    All of which adds up to a total of twenty-three and a half weeks, plus one evening. Not much in the life of the Prisoner, not when one considers that Number 6 had been incarcerated in The Village for 14 months.    

    The viewer actually only sees a little less than a third of that time, which in turns means, that for almost two thirds of Number 6’s time in the village there are many events that takes place to which we are not privy! Events which either relate directly to Number 6, or to general life that goes on in the village. For example, the village Festival, the Folk music concert, the exhibition of entertainment and mime. We don’t know how Number 6 and Number 24/Alison became friendly. And at the outset of ‘The General’ Number 6 appears not to know anything of Speed Learn, the Professor, or the General. So where’s he been prior to that episode? And after Number 6 has set sail aboard his sea-going raft in ‘Many Happy Returns,’ the village would have come to life soon after his departure, and life there would have gone on just the same while Number 6 was away. The village would not have been “mothballed” during that time.

   It is understandable the way the 17 episodes of ‘the Prisoner’ have been edited so tightly. Obviously the whole of that 14 month period could not be shown in the time span covered in those 17 episodes. It could be said that what we actually see on the screen is the best of ‘the Prisoner,’ condensed down into twenty-three and a half weeks!

Be seeing you

And Here Is A Personal Message

It is to

Earl Cameron

 Greetings on your 102^nd birthday

May the sun shine on you today and everyday

David

Village Life!

      “I understand it’s your birthday today 106.”

    “Yes sir.”
    “Happy birthday.”
    “Thank you sir.”
    “Would you like to take the rest of the morning off?”
    “That would be nice, thank you sir.”
    “By the way, what’s the time now?”
    “It’s almost mid day!”
    “Really! Oh well, never mind it’s the thought that counts.”
   

Be seeing you

A B And C

  “Well You’re In My Country Now!”  Where exactly is that? In ‘A B and C’ it is suggested that we shall see what would have happened had those behind the village not got to Number 6 first. Yet there was still the possibility that ZM73 would still have been abducted, not to The Village, but possibly behind the Iron Curtain by ‘A,’ seeing as he defected about six years ago, making World news in the process! 

   Having been abducted by ‘A’ and his henchmen, during the car journey ZM73 remarks that Paris hasn’t changed much, and eventually the Citroen D6 car arrives at a chateau. Getting out of the car ‘A’ says “Well you’re in my country now.” Which country might that be? Because they do not appear to have driven very far, which suggests that the Chateau is just outside Paris. Perhaps ‘A’ only defected across the English Channel to France! So was ‘A’ working for French Military Intelligence? Throughout the 1960s and into the 70s, Franco-British relations and British foreign policy were dominated and largely shaped by efforts to convince the French to accept British membership of the EEC. But as we know espionage can be a very dirty game, and dirty tricks are generally employed in that game. And yet we do not know whether ‘A’ is working for a foreign agency, or independently, possibly in the hope that he can sell ZM73 and the information in his head to the highest bidder! And that line from ‘A,’ “Well you’re in my country now,’ does suggest that they left France, otherwise they would have been in ‘A’s’ country all the time, and therefore ‘A’ would have been wasting his words. Also we do not know how long that journey should have taken. Remembering that Number 6 is in a dream. a long journey can take only a few moments. So in one minute ‘A,’ his henchmen, and ZM73 are on a car journey in Paris France, the next perhaps they are in Russia or East Germany well behind the Iron curtain. There is no logic when it comes to a dream. Or alternatively, the chateau could have been a country residence of an Eastern Bloc Ambassador. 

Be seeing you

I Smoke Black Cigarettes!

    ‘The Schizoid Man,’ Number 6, is conditioned to smoke Black Russian cigarettes, so why doesn't he in the episode? In fact rarely do we see anyone in the village smoking. Number 6 does try to smoke his favourite brand of cigar, but that has been doctored with a piece of plastic to make Number 6 cough on it! Number 24-Alison lights up in the same episode, and Mrs Butterworth of ‘Many Happy Returns’ enjoys a cigarillo, half cigarette and half cigar. The only time we see Number 6 smoking a cigarette is during ‘Living In Harmony.’ Many fans are under the impression that Number 6 is smoking a cheroot, but he actually rolls his own cigarette using tobacco and a liquorice cigarette paper.

    So if No.6 rarely smokes in ‘the Prisoner,’ why are his fingers so nicotine stained? Because Patrick McGoohan was something of a chain-smoker. Certainly as ‘Danger Man’ John Drake he was always lighting a cigarette. And in the 50 minute episodes, every time Drake wanted to take a photograph he would have to light a cigarette, because his micro camera is hidden in his cigarette lighter!

Be seeing you

Village Life!

    “Which way do you think he’ll vote?”
    “Any which way I suppose. He’s what they call the silent majority!”
    “A majority of one?”
    “Is that what you think you are? A person being on the right side

of the question which counts for more than all the people who are on the wrong side of the question or issue.”
    “That’s the vicar of Bray isn’t it?”
    “He’ll vote for whichever side butters his bread best.”

    “Who, the Vicar of Bray?”
    “No, our diminutive friend there, he serves without question the next master who comes along. If you win the election you’ll soon get used to his little ways.”
    “Not much on conversation is he.”
    “No, but then he probably has nothing worth saying. He shows his rebellious side to his nature’”
    “How.”
    “By appearing to be different, he wears his cape inside out!”
    “And what about you, since when does Number Two wear a jacket like yours?”
    “We all like to be a bit different!”
    “Is he expecting rain?”
    “How do you mean?”
    “What’s he doing with my old umbrella?”
    “You’ve never used it, and besides he’d look damned silly with a parasol!”

Be seeing you