The Prisoner Challenge: Musical Appendix

This is the "celebrating, triumphant, joyful" music from Fall Out.

The Prisoner Challenge: Fall Out

How can I review Fall Out, my favourite piece of television ever?

I mean, The Prisoner isn't my favourite series of all time - I have only watched it all in the last five-or-so years and there are a number of series that have been with me for so long (e.g Doctor Who, Blackadder) that I don't think they can ever be overtaken.

Ah well, I'll take a deep breath, and here goes...

It's the music, I think, that makes it. I've seen plenty of films and TV programmes that are weird and wonderful - Aeon Flux, Sapphire and Steel, to name but two - but the music in Fall Out adds so much to the experience of watching it that even when it threatens to be a string of nonsense robbing a magnificent series of a coherent ending, the music is there saying "this is it." I love the music.

Once Upon A Time is a tough episode to follow. The performances by McGoohan and Leo McKern were sublime, and it culminates in Number 2 dying and Number 6 has passed the Village's "ultimate test." If that had been the end we might have been left satisfied that Number 6 had finally won out over the Village, and in as near-to-perfect an Ultimate Showdown as one could wish for.

But that wasn't quite the end. It finished with the Supervisor standing at the door. "Congratulations," he says. "What do you desire?"

"Number 1."

"I'll take you."

We are promised the answer to the question "Who is Number 1?" that Number 6 has been asking every episode since the series began. And if that question is to be answered, why not the others? Where is the Village and whose side is it on? Maybe even: who is Number 6 and why did he resign?

Fall Out picks up events from exactly where Once Upon A Time left off. Number 6, the Supervisor and the Butler leave the Embryo Room and go down in a lift to a room where Number 6 is given a suit of clothes like those he arrived in the Village wearing.

"We thought you would feel... happier... as yourself."

Doors open to reveal McGoohan. He is dressed as his old self again, but his face is still suspicious.

All You Need is Love (by The Beatles) plays. They walk down a corridor past a selection of jukeboxes - this isn't incidental music; it's playing where they are. And given where they are, this couldn't be more incongruous. But this is just the beginning...

They enter an underground chamber full of soldiers and men in masks and robes - the assembled delegates who are, or so it seems, the secret masters of the Village.

The Supervisor joins them at 'Identification.'

There is a man dressed as a judge, he is the 'President' of this assembly and is played by Kenneth Griffith, who was Number 2 in The Girl Who Was Death, so perhaps he has a similar role here?

Number 6 is presented to the President, who says "he must no longer be referred to as Number 6 or a number of any kind." So with that I shall no longer refer to McGoohan's character as "Number 6" as, from this point on, neither do they.

The President calls McGoohan "sir" and invites him to sit in the "chair of honour." McGoohan appears puzzled by what they are doing but goes along with it, perhaps still suspecting this is yet another Village plot.

Number 48 (played by Alexis Kanner, and one has to presume this is not the same character he played in Living in Harmony) is presented to the assembled delegates, and McGoohan, as an example of rebellious youth. He is found guilty of a number of crimes relating to this and is held prisoner.

Then the late Number 2 of Once Upon A Time (Leo McKern) is resuscitated. This is a neat trick if he really was dead, but it is unclear if this was the case. McKern steps up to the President's podium and addresses the assembly. It appears he doesn't know how his seeming death was accomplished by the Village, but the President says "there have to be some security secrets that are kept from a late Number 2."

McGoohan interrupts their exchange to ask of McKern: "Did you ever meet Number 1?"

"Face to face?"

"Yes."

"Not him," is the ambiguous answer, and then he looks at the rocket that dominates this chamber. It is marked with a big, red '1.'

He stares into its green 'eye' and then spits. For this he is seized and put with the captive Number 48; no longer Number 2 but a prisoner.

The President deplores the forms of rebellion exhibited by Number 48 and the former Number 2. "They are to be stamped out," he says.

But then he turns to McGoohan's form of rebellion: "He has revolted, resisted, fought, held fast, maintained, destroyed resistance, overcome coercion." On behalf of the Village the President concedes that he was right, and then offers him a choice: "lead us, or go."

If he chooses to go then they will give him his house back (the key to the door is offered in token of this), £1,000,000 in traveller's cheques, a passport - specified as being "valid for anywhere" - and a bag of "petty cash." All in all a tempting prize, but what's the catch?

Ever suspicious of Village tricks, McGoohan asks the question that destroyed the General: "Why?"

And to every answer the President gives him he asks it again, until:

"I'm an individual?"

"You are on your own."

And then, more explicitly, the President says "we concede. We offer, we plead, for you to lead us."

These words echo the last, desperate attempt by McKern's Number 2 in Once Upon A Time to find out why Number 6 resigned. Could it be that the Village has learned from this and is trying a final plan, gambling that this will succeed where all their other attempts have failed?

"Or go?"

"Go if you wish," says the President with sincerity in his voice.

It seems he is persuaded they are genuine, as he rises from the 'chair of honour' with a smile on his face. The masked delegates applaud as he picks up and pockets the items offered from him to take if he chose to leave.

Before he departs, he accepts the President's offer to address the assembly, ascending the podium to do so. But when he speaks the delegates shout over him and drown him out.

Four times they do this, as the President looks on silently. He gives up, and the President says "Sir, on behalf of us all, we thank you." There is a look of utter bemusement on McGoohan's face.

The President continues "and now I take it that you are prepared to meet Number 1? Follow me, if you would be so kind sir." Accompanied by the Butler, McGoohan enters the lair of Number 1 and comes face to face with a masked figure with the number '1' on his robes.

This is possibly the most famous - or infamous - scene of The Prisoner. So much so that I'm not even going to go into any more detail than that. If elements of Once Upon A Time were open to individual interpretation, how much more so the rest of this episode?

Who is Number 1? My present theory is that the answer we are given - on screen, before our very eyes - isn't the answer, because none of the questions asked by The Prisoner are answered - we don't find out who Number 6 is or why he resigned. We don't find out which side the Village was on. And the closest we get to finding out where the Village is - well, that's ambiguous to say the least, not to mention contradicted by other episodes. So we get an ending in Fall Out, but no answers.

Not convinced? Alright, how about this one then: McGoohan sees himself because they have just made him their leader. It seems very likely that Number 6 believed that Number 1 was a fixed person - like Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Number 1 of SPECTRE in the James Bond films - and viewers had been led to believe this as well. Now it seems that Number 1 can be replaced. But how? If Number 1 has the power to replace Number 2, who has the power to replace Number 1? No individual, it would seem, but a committee...

No? Like the film Clue, I have a third possibility for you. If they can bring back McKern from the dead, why not Curtis - the lookalike from The Schizoid Man? He's not Number 1 though; there is no Number 1. The delegates assembled outside rule the Village by committee, with Number 2 (who may or may not be the same person as the President) as their representative in the Village. In this scenario, Curtis is playing Number 1 as part of their plan to break Number 6, and based on McGoohan's reaction, it almost succeeds...

There are endless other possibilities, up to and including that the whole thing happens in the mind of McGoohan (Patrick McGoohan, the actor and star of Danger Man) while driving his car to his resignation. It's ambiguous; there is no definitely right answer. And there never will be.

The episode continues: McGoohan and the Butler release McKern and Number 48, then the four of them overpower guards to take possession of their machine guns. McGoohan then activates the rocket.

As the rocket counts down the four make their escape in a running gun battle with the soldiers as All You Need is Love plays over the scene.

It had to come to this in the end - he can't just leave the Village, it has to be destroyed or the threat it poses will always be there. And that would mean he'll never really be free as long as it exists. Just like McKern said in Once Upon A Time: "'til death do us part."

The Village is evacuated by helicopter, but the four make their escape using the detachable vehicle - a truck - from the Embryo Room. The Butler drives it down a long tunnel, smashing through the gates at the end, to freedom.

The rocket takes off, and Rover is seemingly destroyed in the blast.

Where was the Village? Well wherever it was, we next see the truck on the A20 road, 27 miles from London. They drop off the young man who was Number 48 and he begins hitch-hiking.

I believe they're free - the music, celebrating, triumphant, joyful, suggests this. I find myself humming this to myself for days, sometimes weeks, after every time I watch Fall Out.

They continue into London and then abandon the truck. The former Number 2 leaves them to go on to the Houses of Parliament, while McGoohan and the Butler have an encounter with a policeman. But whatever McGoohan says to him (we don't hear), they don't get arrested.

They get on a bus and are then at McGoohan's house. His Lotus, KAR120C, is parked outside and McGoohan gets inside and drives off, while the Butler goes into the house. The door opens automatically for him, and there is a noise like the opening of a door in the Village.

What does this mean? A final note of ambiguity as the episode, and the series, draws to a close. McGoohan drives his car down the road - the very shot that began The Prisoner is used to end it.

The Prisoner Challenge: Once Upon A Time

Leo McKern returns as Number 2.

This Number 2, last seen in the second episode The Chimes of Big Ben, has been brought back to the Village for the second-to-last episode, and he's not happy about it.

It seems from his single-mindedness that he has been brought back for one purpose only - to break Number 6 - and to achieve this he demands to use a method called "Degree Absolute." Although, as always, we don't hear the voice of his superior (Number 1?), it is clear that he is unwilling, but eventually acquiesces, granting Number 2 one week to try his plan.

Number 6 is hypnotised and regressed back to his childhood. Number 2 and the Butler take him to a sealed room below Number 2's house. And for the great majority of this episode it is only these three - Number 6, Number 2 and his Butler - that appear.

A strong, constant light seems to keep Number 6 hypnotised, following him around the room as the age of childhood plays out, the sealed room full of schoolroom and playground objects.

If you know this episode then I'm sure you'll know from this point on it's all in the dialogue between Number 2 and Number 6 (the Butler silent as ever). Every time I watch different lines, interpretations and meanings stand out for me: what follows is just for this time. And if you don't know this episode...

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound."

Number 2 takes Number 6 through his childhood to the point of his graduation, all the time taking the roles of father, teacher or mentor, and then asks why he resigned. But Number 6 can't - or won't - answer, and becomes violent with Number 2 until the Butler clubs him unconscious.

"I'm beginning to like him," says Number 2 when this happens.

Number 2 takes Number 6 through his days of boxing training to the point of him being "the champ" and then asks him why he resigned. Again violence is the response.

Next it is fencing. And by this point the intensity of the two actors - McGoohan and McKern - is incredible. Number 6 disarms Number 2, and McKern taunts McGoohan and dares him to kill, but McGoohan refuses. Just look at their faces in this scene:

McKern, in particular, was supposed to have been brought to the brink of either a nervous breakdown or a heart attack (accounts differ, according to Wikipedia). I can believe it of either. Just look at the difference between here:

and here:

But even if not true and it's pure acting; what acting!

Next Number 2 takes Number 6 back to a scene that could have been his recruitment into the secret service - as a cocky young man convinced the job he has applied for is a cover for the sort of work he really wants; that he thinks he's really qualified for.

This is followed by a scene that shows another side of Number 6 we have not previously seen - up in court for a driving offence, he tries to use his position to get off the charge, but the judge - Number 2 of course - isn't having it.

Amongst all of this rapid and intense wordplay is some kind of safeguard built into Number 6's hypnosis - he can't say or recognise the number "six" - and Number 2 tests this every so often to check the conditioning remains in place.

Number 6 is put behind bars. Number 2 again asks him why he resigned and this time seems to get an answer: "Peace... Peace of mind."

Then he begins to turn the tables on Number 2 until McKern says "I'll kill you!"

To this McGoohan gives the best response to that threat I can imagine:

"I'll die."

Number 6 gets a knife and hands it to Number 2, making it easy for him to carry out his threat. He lies on the floor to make himself helpless. But this time it is Number 2 that cannot kill; the reverse of the fencing scene.

Number 2 moves on to the next stage in Number 6's life - the war. We see scenes of Number 6 as a crewman of a plane dropping bombs on (presumably) Germany, until forced to bail out. He is then a prisoner of a German-shouting McKern in the place of those who captured him.

Both the times that Number 6 comes back to being himself are when he is behind bars - a prisoner, just as he is in the Village. But this time Number 6 has broken through his conditioning, and Number 2 realises it when McGoohan says the number six.

Number 6, now aware of his surroundings, has recognised the plan Number 2 is using as Degree Absolute, and he knows the risks being taken by Number 2 - in this 'doctor/patient' relationship, sometimes they can switch places.

"Why don't you resign?" he asks.

The light now follows Number 2 around, not Number 6, as he shows Number 6 around "the Embryo Room."

"Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

There are only five minutes until Number 2's week is up. Number 6 locks Number 2 behind the bars of the detachable living area. The Butler does nothing to interfere, indeed by taking the key from Number 6 he appears to have swapped sides along with the light.

"He thinks you're the boss now."

"I am."

As the clock counts down the final minutes the tables have turned completely and it is Number 2 that is broken by Number 6. The intensity of their duel - for the actors as well as their characters - reaches its climax as McGoohan counts down the last minute second by second.

In the final moments the desperate Number 2 almost succeeds by asking - with humility - why Number 6 resigned, instead of demanding the answer from a position of authority, but it is too late. "Six," he gasps, with six seconds left on the clock.

"Die, Six, die!" shouts McGoohan at this point, and presumably he doesn't mean himself.

And at zero, Number 2 (or is it Number 6 now?) dies.

The Supervisor stands at the open door. "Congratulations," he says. "What do you desire?"

"Number 1."

"I'll take you."

Is this it?

Next: Fall Out

Reinforcements for Longcat!

I has new friends to help me not get my long stolen by Longstealer.

They are the Rainbow Warriors!

Their leader is Geofroi.

The Prisoner Challenge: The Girl Who Was Death

This was the first episode of The Prisoner I ever saw, on Sky TV a good number of years before I saw any of the rest of the series. It's not representative of The Prisoner in any way, being - in its own way - just as much of a format-breaker as Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling or Living in Harmony.

None of these three episodes feature much of the Village, the setting of the great majority of the series, though I would say this episode lies between those two in how successfully it retains the important themes of the series while stepping outside the setting.

Superficially the story of The Girl Who Was Death resembles a spy thriller (such as Danger Man), but turned up to 11 with pulp adventure elements ranging from bombs disguised as cricket balls to ridiculously elaborate slow-moving deathtraps, and downright silly elements such as the recorded (Mission: Impossible-esque) briefing answering back to the listener's comments.

Justine Lord as Sonia Schnipps, a.k.a.The Girl Who Was Death

Once 'Number 6' (what else can I call McGoohan's character?) is on the girl in white's trail, the escapes maintain a consistent level of absurdity only matched by the most outrageous of James Bond's. And yet, for all the comedic moments, there is a dramatic tension about them - I want Number 6 to escape and catch the girl to unravel the mystery.

The escapes go from an exploding cricket ball to being poisoned in the pub - while Number 6 simply evades the former, his solution to escape the latter is ingenious. He is then locked in a turkish bath (while fully dressed in a Sherlock Holmes kit) and goes on to box with the 'Killer' for the clue leading him to the 'Tunnel of Love' (where she first confesses her love for him... as an opponent).

She leads him a merry dance across fairground rides (where there is a cameo by Alexis Kanner as the irate photographer) and then on to a car chase where she taunts him:

"You'll make a beautiful corpse. I'm going to do you the honour of letting you die... superbly."

She's mad. But her madness is seemingly contagious - she bamboozles him with a special effect, turning the projected backgrounds of the car chase scene around.

Fourth wall? What fourth wall?

"You may not see my face, but you may know my name. My name is Death."

She leads him to the isolated street she has set up, and continues to taunt him as he continues to hunt for her.

"You are a born survivor. I am a born killer. We were made for each other."

He survives a hail of bullets from a machine gun and falling through a trapdoor above a pit full of spikes. "Incidentally, they're electrified."

He gets out into a room mined to explode in 90 seconds (she's good enough to warn him of this). He climbs along a pipe to avoid touching the floor. The pipe sizzles. "That's the hotline. Or had you noticed?"

He swings into a room full of poisoned candles that explode if they're blown out. Shut in by steel doors, he begins to choke. But his solution is as ingenious as this trap is ludicrous. He sets up enough of the candles by a door to blast his way through when they're extinguished.

Wearing a spiked German WW1 helmet - white, like all her clothing - she chucks grenades at him while shouting "Whee!"

He tries to get out by driving a digger, but the grenades disable it and she finishes it off with an anti-tank missile. "Bye bye lover."

Thinking him dead she departs by helicopter. But guess who is clinging to the underside?

This episode has so far carried off its absurd plot with immense charm, and I love the music that accompanies it and lends the whole thing a surreal atmosphere. But after this point the best part of the episode is over and the ending is something of a rushed disappointment by comparison.

Number 6 is brought to the villain's lair, inside a lighthouse where a man with a literal Napoleon Complex (Professor Schnipps, played by Kenneth Griffith) plots a plot lifted from Moonraker (the book, not the film) - to destroy London with a big rocket. And aside from his mad daughter he is assisted by a parade of Irish, Scottish and Welsh stereotypes who bumble about until they kill themselves with guns Number 6 had rigged to backfire.

Despite the girl managing to capture Number 6 to tie him up inside the rocket for one final deathtrap, father and daughter are also bunglers, displaying so little competence in these scenes that I have to wonder how their plan ever got this far? It's maybe best not to think too hard about it, this is supposed to be a comedy episode.

They get blown up with backfiring grenades, taking the whole lighthouse ("it's only a model") with them. Then the scene fades to Number 6 in the Village - he's been telling a story to three children (and their un-PC toys).

"Goodnight children... everywhere."

Although I find the ending - or what is basically the last 'act' of the episode - to be anticlimactic, there is much to recommend about the sequence of escapes that make up the middle of the story and the overall theme.

On the one hand this is an episode that doesn't take itself too seriously, e.g. the fourth-wall-breaking car chase scene, but by presenting the overall comedic plot as part of a story told by Number 6 it allows it to be part of The Prisoner continuity - just as the VR in Living in Harmony allowed the Wild West setting to exist within the Village setting.

While Number 2 and his assistant (who bear a resemblance to Schnipps and his daughter) fail to learn anything about Number 6 from the story he tells, I think it is possible to interpret the story within the context of the series, coming as it does between Living in Harmony and the final two (linked) episodes.

In Living in Harmony we see what the Village has in store for Number 6 - the fate of the Sheriff is a possible fate for Number 6 if he continues to resist them. As the Judge says, "Nobody walks out on me. I'm not letting you join some other outfit. I'll kill you first."

The story he tells in The Girl Who Was Death is Number 6's answer to this: Bring it.

Just as his character does in the story, he intends to survive anything and everything they can throw at him and win through in the end. He remains as defiant as he was in Arrival when he said "I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered."

So what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

Next: Once Upon A Time

I has a fez

I am Fezcat!

The Prisoner Challenge: Living in Harmony

One of the strongest episodes of the series, Living in Harmony stands apart from the rest of the series in more ways than one, firstly by managing to tell the whole story of The Prisoner in a single episode, and secondly by being set - for the most part - in a different time and place; the American 'Wild West' instead of the Cold War Village.

There are not even any of the usual Prisoner titles. It begins with a sheriff (McGoohan) resigning by handing in his badge and gun to a Marshal, a direct parallel to the resignation scene shown as part of the usual title sequence.

Ambushed by a group of men, knocked out and taken away slung over a horse, 'Living in Harmony' appears on screen as the only title. "Harmony" is the name of the town (village?) that the former sheriff is taken to.

"Welcome to Harmony, stranger," is the first dialogue of the episode.

The music stops when he enters the saloon. Now I'm no expert on westerns, but I know this for one of the clichés of that genre, and it is already clear by this point that this is being played as an all-out western, to be taken as such just as much as it is an episode of The Prisoner.

Valerie French as Kathy

David Bauer as the Judge

Alexis Kanner as the Kid

There he meets Kathy, the friendly barmaid, the corrupt Judge that runs Harmony from his table in the saloon, and the creepy Kid, one of the Judge's henchmen and the best gunfighter in the town. The Judge is quick to offer the former sheriff a position in Harmony.

"I'm not for hire."

"You turned in your badge..."

"And my gun."

"What were your reasons?"

"My reasons."

"You've already taken a job?" the Judge assumes. "Who with?"

"'With whom?'" The question is evaded, not denied.

"Look, I'm offering you a job. Harmony's a good town."

He refuses but, just as with the Village, leaving Harmony isn't easy. When the townsfolk turn ugly he's taken into "protective custody" by the Judge, locked up, and another man is lynched in his place.

It's an ugly, menacing scene that reminds me of the closing moments of Dance of the Dead when the screaming mob of villagers pursue Number 6.

A first abortive escape attempt with the assistance of Kathy - sister of the lynched man - parallels the ending of Arrival. But when he is brought back to Harmony the Judge puts Kathy on trial for helping him escape, and she is found guilty by this crooked court. The price for releasing her is the former sheriff has to work for the Judge.

He doesn't give in straight away, but the Judge applies more pressure by putting the Kid in charge of the jail, with the unspoken threat that Kathy isn't safe from his unwelcome attentions.

Reluctantly he takes up the post of sheriff once more, but at the same time refuses to touch the gun the Judge offers him:

"I agreed to wear the badge but not the gun."

"It's a start," admits the Judge. "You'll find this a rough town without a gun."

But even when the Judge sends his men to beat up the new sheriff, he still refuses to carry a gun to protect himself.

Meanwhile the Kid is showing signs of becoming ever more unhinged and obsessed, killing a saloon patron for being over-friendly with Kathy, the object of the Kid's obsession.

When the Judge has a man killed for talking to the sheriff, it doesn't provoke the sheriff in the way the judge hoped - instead of pushing him into taking up the gun, he plans an escape with Kathy. But while he sets things up by taking out the Judge's lookouts on the edge of town, the Kid murders Kathy in a jealous rage.

When Kathy fails to make their rendezvous, the sheriff returns to town and sees the Kid leaving the scene of the crime. Finding Kathy's body, finally he is pushed into taking up the gun the Judge provided for him.

In a shootout the Kid is finally out-drawn. The sheriff goes into the saloon and the Judge congratulates him. But Kathy's death means the Judge has nothing holding the sheriff to him, and he informs the Judge he has quit. This provokes a revealing response from the Judge:

"Nobody walks out on me. I'm not letting you join some other outfit. I'll kill you first."

The former sheriff out-shoots three of the Judge's men before he is shot by the Judge himself. Clutching his head, he collapses to the ground. It seems as though the Judge has carried out his threat to kill the man rather than let him leave Harmony.

But this is not the end of the episode. Number 6, his hands to his head, wakes up. He is in the saloon, lying where the sheriff collapsed, being confronted by a cardboard cut-out of the Judge. He runs around the abandoned town of Harmony until he hears familiar Village music and soon finds himself back in familiar surroundings.

In Number 2's house he sees the Judge (Number 2), the Kid (Number 8) and Kathy (Number 22), alive and well. When he departs these three begin their recriminations about the failure of their latest project. But while Number 2 and Number 8 argue, Number 22 is simply upset.

She leaves and makes her way to the Harmony set, the scene of 'her' murder. But Number 8 is there waiting for her. Calling her "Kathy," he strangles her. Number 6, who is looking around the Harmony set, hears her scream and comes running. He punches out Number 8, but Number 22 dies in his arms saying only "I wish it had been real."

Number 2 arrives on the scene and Number 8, calling him "Judge," kills himself in front of Number 2. Number 6 walks out of the room, leaving Number 2 there with two bodies, and the saloon doors swing closed behind him.

This is just a brilliant episode - an exceptional story played straight with four outstanding performances at the centre. It works as both a western (up to the point at which the sheriff is killed) and as part of The Prisoner series once the 'Virtual Reality' aspect is revealed.

The execution of the Virtual Reality, with cardboard cut-outs and strange electronic headsets contrasting with a very realistic set to stage it within, looks quite dated now, but I can't help but think that this must have been very ahead of its time in 1967, with VR being at about the level of the mindswapping of Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling in terms of sci-fi concepts.

It is the performance of the actors that sells its plausibility to me - however the VR looks, the idea that they could get so caught up in their roles that it results in two deaths is conveyed very believably. Alexis Kanner in particular I would single out - as the Kid he was creepy and menacing and had no lines, but when he speaks as Number 8 just the way he says "Kathy" conveys everything it needs to about his fucked up mind.

I am given to understand, though it is difficult for me to appreciate in 2010, that this episode hit so close to home in the USA that it was banned at the time of The Prisoner's first showing there, due to the Vietnam war and the political situation of the time and the strong anti-war message of this story.

I would say that Living in Harmony has the same message as the rest of The Prisoner, but it is not difficult to see why this one episode would be singled out - more than any other by far, it speaks the language that Americans would be familiar with, westerns being far more a part of their culture than in the UK. And so it would hit much closer to home than episodes set in and around a welsh village...

For me the cleverest part of the episode is the way the western story parallels the overall story of The Prisoner, from his resignation to his death - a point still to come for Number 6 but a possible future nonetheless. The fate of the sheriff is surely the fate that awaits Number 6 if he resists the Village indefinitely.

One of my two favourite episodes, second only to one...

Next: The Girl Who Was Death

The Prisoner Challenge: Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

This is a potentially interesting story that seems to promise to reveal what Number 6 was doing before he resigned, giving an insight into his character by having him played by another actor for the great majority of the episode.

But the introduction of Janet - Number 6's fiancée - to the series goes so contrary to everything established previously about Number 6's character that this, combined with the absence of McGoohan, does not feel like The Prisoner we know.

Nigel Stock does an admirable job in Number 6's place but he is working against the material and he is constantly in the shadow of McGoohan's portrayal. He gets a couple of strong scenes, first of which is the scene where he confronts Sir Charles Portland, who seems to be Number 6's former boss and father of his fiancée (never mind that he, like Janet, has never been referred to before in the series).

Sir Charles counters every attempt by Number-6-in-the-Colonel's-body to convince that he really is Number 6 with the argument that any information he provides to establish his identity could have been extracted from the 'real' Number 6 and learned by him.

Sir Charles's skepticism is contrasted with Janet's faith in Number-6-in-the-Colonel's-body, in a moving scene where he is forced to rely on her trust in him even though he looks different. This pays off for him.

As a one-off spy/sci-fi drama this could have been decent, looking at the question of identity and how something like Seltzman's machine would affect it, and the role of trust in such a scenario, but to me it doesn't fit The Prisoner.

The nadir of the episode, production-wise, must be the ridiculously bad wig on Nigel Stock's stunt-double during the fight scene before he and Seltzman get taken to the Village. I don't normally notice things like this but this was a particularly obvious example.

On the positive side there are a couple of amusing in-jokes, such as Sir Charles asking to see slide "number 6" during the pre-titles sequence, or the man in Austria greeting Number-6-in-the-Colonel's-body with "Oh, welcome to the village sir."

The twist at the end - the three-card-trick performed by Seltzman with three minds - is clever, but again I have to come back to the fact that in the context of The Prisoner, as established by previous episodes (as far back as Arrival), Seltzman-in-the-Colonel's-body is hardly going to remain free for long.

This brings to an end a run of weaker episodes. I think The Prisoner was perhaps losing its way somewhat by this point, even if a lot of the flaws with Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling can be put down to the lack of McGoohan both in front of and behind the camera - I can't imagine him approving of the inclusion of a fiancée for Number 6, even if the only time they kiss it's another man doing the kissing.

Next: Living in Harmony

Dear Ceiling Cat

For Caturday I would like a Forever Active Mobility Vehicle.

I don't mind about getting two for the price of one, or about free insurance or 3 year warranty, but can the free home demonstration please be done by Paul Darrow?

Yours sincerely,

Big Gay Longcat

The Prisoner Challenge: A Change of Mind

This episode has a lot of potential but I think the whole is less than the sum of its parts because the main plot is the weak link - Number 6 foils the plan of John Sharp's Number 2 and turns it against him far too easily.

It begins well, with scenes showing us the tools and techniques the Village uses to enforce conformity among the villagers. The supposedly impartial committee, which is of course controlled by Number 2 from behind the scenes however much he publicly denies it, declares Number 6 "unmutual" (a fabulous term and the most memorable part of the episode) and he is ostracised by the villagers.

It goes wrong when we see the next step beyond being declared unmutual - "instant social conversion," an operation to remove aggression from a person rendering them permanently incapable of rebellion.

But Number 6 is too valuable to the Village for something permanent like this to be done to him, so the operation is faked using drugs with the intention that Number 6 will think he has been 'converted.'

But he sees through this really easily, and swaps his drugged tea with Number 86's. While she is drugged and suggestible Number 6 hypnotises her into turning the tables on Number 2 and declaring him to be unmutual at a public meeting.

I think it may be the case that the writer knew what he wanted to achieve, he just didn't quite have the skill to pull it off. Number 2 being hoist by his own petard allows Number 6 to win against him with a sense of poetic justice, but the execution of this plot element is just not up to the high standard I would expect of The Prisoner as a whole.

The real strength of this episode are in its themes - the pressure to conform in society and the subversion of otherwise benevolent groups by corrupt elements, both of which are as relevant today as they must have been in 1967.

The stand-out scenes for me are when Number 6 defies the committee and the 'social group' they send him to, for which he suffers the consequence of being declared unmutual. And, of course, that chilling word itself...

Next: Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

The Snows of Terror

I watched lots of Doctor Who last night, all early stories with William Hartnell as the Doctor, and Susan and Ian and Barbara with him. Duncan was having another 'Doctor Who Night.'

First we watched An Unearthly Child, when the Doctor met Ian and Barbara for the first time. They didn't like each other at first but they became friends after escaping from cavemannys and Ian was very clever at making fire. Cats don't know how to make fire - that's what mannys are for!

Second was The Aztecs, which had a great baddy in it, he was like Richard III from Shakespeare with his plotting. Barbara wanted him to lose his job as High Priest of Sacrifice but he just wanted to keep it and the mannys he sacrificed liked being sacrificed anyway. He won in the end but the Doctor and the rest got away in the TARDIS.

Last was the one I had been looking forward to - Keys of Marinus by Terry Nation! It was a great story full of exciting bits and a baddy called Tarron (which sounds like Tarrant!) who wasn't a baddy in the end. They had teleport bracelets like in Blakes 7 and all the mannys who were watching with me were shouting at the mannys in the TV for them to escape the danger by using them but they couldn't hear because they were in the TV.

I will do a full review of Keys of Marinus some time. I called this post The Snows of Terror because that is the name of one of the episodes of Keys of Marinus, but also because during the night it was snowing a lot outside our home and there was lightning and thunder and it was very scary for us cats.

Don't worry, we are alright now since Scary Cat went "rar" and scared the lightning away.

Nom

"Thus it was that Men called King Felagund, whom they first met of all the Eldar, Nom, that is Wisdom, in the language of that people, and after him they named his folk Nomin, the Wise."

-- Quenta Silmarillion

I has another game

I has a game

The Prisoner Challenge: It's Your Funeral

"I won't go for it! Whatever it is. So you may as well stop trying."

"We never stop, Number 6."

In his red dressing gown and glasses, looking more than a little like a Gerry Anderson puppet, this is a fabulous entrance for Derren Nesbitt as Number 2. Or should I say Acting Number 2?

I find this episode combines a slow and padded first half with a complex and interesting second half. And when I say "padded" I really mean it - this is the second (and thankfully last) appearance of 'Kosho' in the series.

The plot begins with Number 6 learning about the 'Jammers' - a group of villagers who have made so much of a nuisance of themselves by wasting the Village guardians' time with false reports or escape attempts that they are no longer believed or even closely monitored.

While Number 6 plays Kosho, Acting Number 2's agent sabotages his watch so Number 6 will visit the Village clockmaker's shop and so get drawn in to Acting Number 2's plan. Number 6 sees the clockmaker is constructing a bomb, and joins his daughter (the clockmaker's, not Number 6's) in trying to dissuade the clockmaker from using it to assassinate Number 2.

When the old man remains adamant Number 6 goes straight to Acting Number 2, who claims not to believe Number 6 because the clockmaker is a known Jammer - though really he is filming the entire scene for use later in his plan.

Number 6, oblivious to the part he is playing so well in Acting Number 2's plan, gathers more evidence - finding out that the bomb will be hidden in Number 2's 'seal of office' - and then returns to Number 2's house, where he finds a new Number 2 (the first time this has happened mid-episode since Arrival).

Andre van Gyseghem plays the other Number 2 in this story, an older man who contrasts nicely with Derren Nesbitt's younger version impatiently waiting in the wings for the old man to make way for him.

It turns out that this old Number 2 has not taken over from Acting Number 2 in the way Number 2's have changed before - in a way not seen before and not seen again in the series, he is Number 2 and Acting Number 2 was only temporarily occupying the position while the old Number 2 was away from the Village.

It is not made clear to the viewer (perhaps deliberately so) if this arrangement is a common occurrence in the Village or what this means for other Number 2's we have seen in other episodes - perhaps they were all Acting Number 2s just filling in for this Number 2?

Whatever the arrangement, Number 6 seems to accept it at face value. The old Number 2 has seen all of the films prepared by Acting Number 2 of Number 6 warning Acting Number 2 (and two other Acting Number 2s whom we have not seen before edited together with film of Number 6).

Number 6 has been set up to look like a Jammer. Difficult as it is to believe that the Village would ever discount one of Number 6's escape attempts as a hoax, he has been successfully framed as a man who cries 'wolf' by warning each Number 2 about fictitious assassination attempts.

But this Number 2 is still suspicious enough to gather his own information and, by the time Number 6 next visits him, has come to terms with the truth:

"Tomorrow, after I've handed over office, I'm to be assassinated."

"For 'assassinated' substitute 'executed'."

"Since it's arranged by my own people you mean?"

"You don't mind?"

"Well of course I mind. It's just that... well, I never thought it would happen to me."

With this self-pity and seeming sympathy for the innocent people who will be blamed for the murder and punished in reprisals, this Number 2 comes across as sympathetic - the first time a Number 2 has been anything other than Number 6's scheming opponent. Contrast the old Number 2 with the slimy and devious Acting Number 2, who fills this role in It's Your Funeral.

At the ceremony both Number 2s are visibly nervous. The old Number 2 understandably so, as he knows he has a bomb on a chain around his neck. Acting Number 2 is also nervous for his future depends on the success of his plan, as confirmed by his superior (Number 1?) in a 'phone call. As always we hear only Number 2's side of the conversation.

Having taken a long time to really get going, the plot is then resolved very quickly - Number 6 finds the clockmaker and obtains the detonator from him. Acting Number 2's henchman tries to get it from Number 6 but he is too late because old Number 2 has passed the seal of office to his successor. 'Acting' Number 2 no longer, now he is nervous for a whole new set of reasons.

Number 6 passes the detonator to the now-retired Number 2 as his 'passport' and blathers at the new Number 2 - preventing him from taking the seal from around his neck - long enough for the old Number 2 to make his escape by helicopter.

"Be seeing you... won't I?" are Number 6's final words to the new Number 2.

While this may have made a good adventure story in its own right, there's something unsatisfying to me about the way this episode doesn't fit well in the series as a whole.

Andre van Gyseghem's old Number 2 is played as sympathetic and almost benevolent, as far from Mary Morris's Number 2 in Dance of the Dead as I can imagine. Once he appears and Number 6 sees it is him that is due to be assassinated - and not Acting Number 2 - his claims that he is only saving Number 2's life to protect the innocent villagers don't ring true to me.

It seems to me that either the old Number 2 must have done just as much spying, kidnapping, brainwashing, etc. as any other Number 2, or else he was never really Number 2 at all - just part of the real Number 2's plan - but neither of these are supported by any evidence on screen. Certainly Number 6 accepts him as Number 2 - had he seen him before, off-screen, before the Acting Number 2 replaced him?

Then there are the Jammers. Unless we are to believe they don't really exist except as part of Number 2's plan for this story, they don't fit in well with the way the Village seems to work in just about every other episode - surveillance is near-total, any dissension is ruthlessly suppressed, and any hint of an escape attempt is instantly crushed. Why would the Jammers be allowed to exist?

It seems as though the answer to this is that they have been infiltrated by Village agents and are occasionally made use of in plans such as this one - which would be a nice idea if it worked, but again we come back to the question of why then do they feature in this episode and not any others?

While ambiguity is often a strength in The Prisoner, here I think it just serves to make this episode less enjoyable. It is also very unevenly paced, as I have already mentioned, which doesn't help it. Overall: unsatisfying, one of the weaker episodes of The Prisoner.

Derren Nesbitt's great in it, but frankly I'd rather watch him and McGoohan in the Danger Man episode Sting in the Tail.

Next: A Change of Mind

The Prisoner Challenge: Hammer Into Anvil

Patrick Cargill, who had already been in The Prisoner as Thorpe in Many Happy Returns (playing the same man maybe?) is Number 2, and this is his episode as much as it is McGoohan's, as this is the one where Number 6 destroys Number 2 by using his own weaknesses against him.

It begins with the new Number 2 interrogating Number 73, a woman in hospital after attempting suicide. Number 6 hears her screams from outside the hospital and goes to help. When he enters the room she jumps out of the window to her death - a shocking start to the episode.

Number 6 is brought - kicking and screaming, by three burly henchmen - to Number 2's house where Number 2 threatens to break him. But, once permitted to depart, Number 6 begins a series of actions that will, ultimately, break Number 2.

• In the shop he listens to all the copies of a particular record that they have in stock while checking his watch. Naturally the shopkeeper, a witness to this odd behaviour, reports what he has seen to Number 2 and gives him his first clue that Number 6 is up to something.
• Number 2 and his henchman Number 14 track him down to the stone boat where Number 6 hides a package. Retrieving it, Number 2 finds it is full of blank sheets of paper. Nothing the Village scientists can do will find anything on the sheets.
• He places a message in Spanish ( a quote from Don Quixote) in the personal column of the Tally Ho to further confuse Number 2 as to his purpose.
• He telephones the director of psychiatry at the hospital and asks for his report on Number 2. Number 2 has been listening in on the call and brings the doctor in to ask him what it was about. The poor doctor denies preparing a report on Number 2 - well, he would - and this only makes Number 2 even more suspicious.
• He makes a request of the Village open-air band but doesn't stay to listen to it. We don't see that he's being observed in this by Number 2's agents but by this point it's clear his every action is being watched even more than is usual for the Village. We only see the poor, innocent band leader being aggressively questioned by Number 2 for the 'real' reason Number 6 spoke to him. From this point Number 2 lets his paranoia get the better of him, playing into Number 6's hands.
• The Village radio broadcasts a personal message from Number 113 to Number 6 wishing him a happy birthday. But it's not Number 6's birthday. And there is no Number 113. Number 2 hears the message and it causes him to remove the Supervisor from his position for allowing the message to go out. Number 2 is now convinced there is a conspiracy against him, but who else is in it?
• Number 6 turns up at Number 2's house saying Number 2 sent for him. He didn't. This paralyses Number 2 trying to understand what this means.

Number 14 is still on Number 2's side, and he takes Number 6 on at 'Kosho,' the ridiculous game involving trampolines and a small pool of water. This is a pointless scene that only serves to break up the flow of the episode as Number 2 is overcome by his paranoia and systematically alienates himself from those around him.

• Number 6 buys a cuckoo clock and turns its case into a trap for a pigeon (meanwhile the Village bomb squad is kept busy disposing of the unnecessary clock part. Upon discovering it is only a clock the expert subtly indicates it is the panicking Number 2 that is 'cuckoo'). The pigeon is used to carry a coded message, which the Village intercepts after shooting down* the pigeon. The computer decodes the message for Number 2.
• Number 6 goes to the beach and signals the horizon with a mirror reflecting sunlight in morse code. With no receiver being detected by all the technology at the Village's disposal, and the computer unable to decode "Pat-a-cake pat-a-cake baker's man," Number 2 cannot trust that those around him aren't in on the conspiracy against him.
• The last loyal follower of Number 2 is Number 14, until Number 6 whispers to him at the cafe, making sure the meeting is observed by other villagers so Number 14 reports himself to Number 2 rather than have someone else inform on him. But Number 2 is by now so paranoid that he doesn't believe Number 14's story, and he accuses Number 14 of working with Number 6 and being a traitor.

Number 2 suspects everyone, even the silent butler who he demands get out of his house. But I think the butler knows he'll be here long after this Number 2 is gone from the Green Dome.

Number 14 goes to Number 6's house and fights with him as relaxing music plays in the background (it's not incidental music; Number 6 was listening to it when Number 14 arrived - a nice little touch that gives this scene a touch of surrealism), until Number 14 is defenestrated.

With Number 14 out of the way, Number 6 goes to see Number 2, who is all alone in his house (the butler having packed his bags and left). Number 2 confronts Number 6 with the 'fact' that he is a plant sent by their masters to spy on Number 2.

To this Number 6 suggests that, if true, then Number 2 is either a traitor or a blunderer for interfering with someone sent by their masters. Number 2 is broken completely and he begs Number 6 not to report him. Number 6 says "I don't intend to. You are going to report yourself."

Number 2 calls his superior (Number 1?) on the big red telephone...

I think this is a superb episode, with one of the strongest stories of the series showing Number 6 defeating Number 2, despite all the advantages he possesses as head of the Village, by using intelligence and trickery and not by violence or force (what fight scenes there are in this episode are incidental to the story).

Scenes showing Number 6 undertaking some seemingly random and pointless activity are revealed to have their effects on Number 2, piling up and systematically causing him to suspect and then alienate those around him because he thinks they must be covering up what Number 6 is really doing. He just cannot see what the audience has been in on throughout - that the only purpose of Number 6's actions are to have exactly that effect on him.

Aside from the unnecessary Kosho scene, this is overall a pretty tightly-paced episode. It's very well executed from the initial scenes showing us, the audience, that this Number 2 is a nasty piece of work and Number 6 is justified in breaking him, through all the stages of Number 6's campaign against him to the final scene of Number 2 reporting his own failure to his superiors.

Crucial to the success of this episode is Patrick Cargill's performance as Number 2. He begins as an aggressive, confident new Number 2 who thinks he can succeed where previous Number 2's have failed. But he also has his underlying insecurity that Number 6 is quick to spot and exploit, changing the confidence into paranoia and the aggression is turned against his own side.

Patrick Cargill's performance shows all of this, and each scene we see his breakdown progressing further. His emotional, over-the-top acting contrasts with McGoohan's complete cool throughout, and this combined with Number 2's central importance to the story, makes his Number 2 one of the most memorable to me.

Next: It's Your Funeral

* Don't worry, pigeon-lovers: the pigeon survived. They only used minimum strength on the laser gun so as not to destroy the message.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The 39 Steps (1935 Hitchcock version)

Poor Mr Memory, all he wanted to do was remember things.

Duncan reviews Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles

The Doctor Who novel by Michael Moorcock.

(Warning: Spoilerish)

I feel as though this book was written just for me. The Doctor, my childhood hero, adventures in a universe populated by themes, events and characters straight out of my favourite of my favourite author's novels. How could it fail?

Michael Moorcock, although my favourite author, I still consider to be hit-and-miss and there are books (and whole series of books) of his I can't stand and won't ever read again. So the possibility of him producing a stinker was always there, and I ordered the book with some trepidation. But if I'd never read it then I would never have known for sure.

The "Second Ether" trilogy (Blood, Fabulous Harbours and The War Amongst the Angels) seem to me to be the biggest Moorcock influence on the setting of The Coming of the Terraphiles - a far-future that is built using the infinite budget of the author's imagination. This does not attempt to emulate the TV series Doctor Who, it knows it is a novel and plays accordingly.

The next most obvious influence, to me, is Dancers at the End of Time, set so far in the future that technology is indistinguishable from magic and its wielders are as gods, imagination their only limit ("I'd be dead in a week") and the only thing denied them is knowledge of their own history. The Coming of the Terraphiles is not set quite that far away, but far enough that corporations terraform planets Magarathea-style to their customers specifications, and the titular 'Terraphiles' reenact the games and customs of Earth's past (well, 20th Century Britain's) to the best of their understanding - much to Amy's amusement at how limited this is.

The ambiguous characters - never quite sitting comfortably in the traditional hero, villain, ally or antagonist roles the pulp space-adventure plot seems to call for - also echo, as do a few names, the Jerry Cornelius stories that I have known and loved and failed to fully wrap my head around since I was a teenager borrowing the books from the local library when it ran out of Elrics.

The story can, I think, be broken down into three rough Acts: Act 1 is a space-Edwardian mystery wherein the theft of a hyper-expensive hat is more important than it seems. Act 2 is a race through the sea of space to get to the planet Miggea in time for the most important game of pseudo-space-cricket in history. And the final act is this game itself, played with the fate of the multiverse (of course) at stake.

There is more than a hint of the Adams/Williams era to this story - I could imagine Tom Baker just as easily as Matt Smith playing the Doctor’s part, and it would be a small step from Amy to Romana (Lalla Ward’s, probably) in the Companion role.

Amy is written with a few of her character traits in place - being Scottish myself I wonder if there were a couple of references she makes that would pass a lot of readers by - but with no mention of Rory at all it makes me question how much Moorcock knew about the events of TV season 5 when writing this. Though “quite generically written Companion” is hardly a devastating criticism of a Doctor Who story.

The Doctor is the Doctor. Moorcock could have been writing Doctor Who for years, he fits so well. It makes me want to re-read the Second Ether books and look for all the hidden references to the Doctor that I know aren’t there but which if I look hard enough I’ll find anyway.

How comprehensible would this book be to someone who hasn’t read the Second Ether stories or at least possesses a working knowledge of Moorcock’s Law/Chaos/Balance cosmology, let alone any children reading this (risqué in places but that wouldn’t be my first concern) complex work? I cannot really answer that. I would hope that the explanations provided by the Doctor (to Amy, naturally) would suffice, but my instinct suggests that I’m being optimistic and that there’s a good chance Moorcock’s style would be confusing and perhaps frustrating to those not used to it - he leaves a lot of interpretation to the reader and that is not something you get in just any book.

From my point of view this is a strength, one that makes the best Moorcocks so re-readable as each time you take something new to the book and find something new within it. I look forward to re-reading The Coming of the Terraphiles many times in the future for this reason, and because it’s a bloody good story in the best traditions of Doctor Who.