The Girl Who Was Death

    This episode Mister X being given the instruction of going to the Magnum Record Shop, the chief will speak to him there.

    At the Magnum Record Shop, Mister X gives the shop assistant a signal with his tie, and is handed a record. Mister X then goes to a booth, where he places the record on a turntable, and we hear the voice of the chief giving Mister X his briefing, and instructions of how to act next.

    This might seem a bit comical, especially when Mister X makes the comment 'Thank you very much' to which the voice on the record replies 'What was that?' 'Nothing' Mister X replies. Yet getting instructions from a record is nothing new. Dan Briggs, of the first season of Mission Impossible on occasion, would go to a record store, and gain instructions for his next mission via a voice on a record.  

    This for me is an enjoyable break between the mind change No.6 went through during ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ and what was to come, the ultimate test sealed in that Embryo Room of ‘Once Upon A Time.’ A fairytale, all be it a dangerous fairytale, which takes us back to the days of John Drake and Danger Man. Something to be taken for nothing more than what it is, pure escapism to be enjoyed between two torturous episodes. The one not knowing if he would be restored to the man he was, and the other having to be the one or the other, which could result in the death of either one of them. And believe you me, there won't be much fun in that!

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Village Life!

   “What’s up with you this morning, you’re in a sombre mood.”
    “I have a funeral to attend later today.”
    “A friend of yours, the deceased?”
    “No, I never knew him.”
    “Oh I see it’s an official duty. Wait a minute, I haven’t heard any announcements of deaths in the village recently.”
    “No, it hasn’t happened yet. Number Two told me it’s a suicide that’s going to happen at the hospital about mid morning by jumping out of a window!”
    “And it’s up to you to make the arrangements I suppose.”
    “Yes. Can I borrow your tape measure?”
    “Of course old boy, I’ll come with you, two undertakers are better than one!”

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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!”

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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!

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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.”
   

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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. 

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