The Prisoner (1967) rewatch
- Thread starter Captrek
- Start date
September's here, so let's get this thing started.
EPISODE: Arrival
Directed by Don Chaffey
Written by George Markstein and David Tomblin
SUMMARY
We see our unnamed protagonist — I'll call him P, since he doesn't like being called Number Six — drive across London and angrily resign from his job. He drives home, starts to pack a briefcase, and is knocked out by someone pumping gas into the room. When he wakes, he looks out the window, and instead of seeing the London street on which he lives, he sees a place we will come to know as The Village.
P goes outside and begins to explore The Village. It is a colorful, exotic place with an eclectic mix of architectures. It's early morning, and there isn't a lot of activity on the streets yet. Climbing a bell tower he gets a view of The Village, and sees a waitress setting up an outdoor cafe to open. He goes toe cafe and speaks to the waitress, who tells him this village is called The Village and directs him to a public phone box.
P goes to the phone box and finds a cordless phone (in 1967). The operator tells him that only local phone calls can be made, and he needs a number in order to make a call. He continues to explore and finds an information kiosk, and attracts the attention of a young woman driving a golf cart.
The driver asks P, "Where to, sir? Ou desirez-vous aller?" This is a taxi. "Only the local service," she explains. She says she spoke to him in French because "French is international," and also thought he might be a Pole or a Czech. The Village is "very cosmopolitan." She takes him on a driving tour and drops him off near the general store. She tells him the fare is two credit units. When he doesn't know what she's talking about, she gives him the ride on credit.
P enters the store. The shopkeeper is speaking to a customer in a foreign language, but switches to English after P comes in. P asks for a map of the area, and the shopkeeper shows him a black-and-white map of The Village, where everything is labeled generically. The village is labeled only "the village," the mountains as "the mountains," the sea as "the sea," etc. P asks for "a larger map," and the shopkeeper shows him another version of the same map, printed larger and in color. P explains that he meant a map of a larger area, and the shopkeeper tells him that no such maps are available.
P returns to his "home," spotting a maid just as she finishes cleaning up the place and leaves. On entering he finds a note welcoming him to "your home from home," and the phone rings. A man on the other end identifies himself as Number Two and invites P for breakfast in the Green Dome. ...
After showing off that he can predict P's breakfast order (which P doesn't eat), #2 begins to explain. P will be known as #6 in The Village. He has very valuable information, and #2 works for people who want to know why P resigned. Although they have a statement from P indicating that "it was a matter of principle," they want to "double check." P says that he will not answer any questions, or stay in this place. #2 tells him there is no way out.
#2 shows P surveillance photos of P from throughout his life. #2 describes what was happening when some of the photos were taken, even narrating P's inner monologue at one point. "One likes to know everything," he explains. P insists he won't cooperate, but #2 says it's just a matter of time.
#2 then takes P on a tour of The Village, showing off such places as the town hall, theater, social club, citizen's advice bureau, and senior center. He also introduces one of The Village's more surreal features: Rover, a large white balloon that enforces security by smothering runners into unconsciousness.
They go to the labour exchange, where a worker asks P questions about himself while playing with toys on his desk. P knocks the toys off the desk and storms out. #2 offers the worker a file with answers to the questions about P, and remarks that this new prisoner will be a challenge. ...
Returning to his cottage, P finds a maid cleaning. She says she was sent by the labour exchange. He yells at her to leave. He finds a personal log already filled out. ("Arrived today. Made very welcome.") He paces angrily while a cordless speaker plays soft music. He smashes the speaker, but the music continues to play. The public address summons electrical workers to #6's cottage for "adjustment."
Just then the maid returns for something she forgot. He asks her questions about The Village, like who runs it, but she pleads ignorance. She explains that around here, "It's wiser not to ask questions... A still tongue makes a happy life." She finally breaks down crying and pleads with P for information, saying she was promised her freedom in exchange for his confidence. He sends her away with no answers. In the Control Room, #2 and the Supervisor are watching and comment that P must be handled differently because he is very important.
P attempts to run from The Village. He is chased by two men in a golf cart. He fights them and takes the cart. Rover chases him down and knocks him out. He wakes up in the hospital, and in the next bed is a man he recognizes as Cobb. His questioning of Cobb in interrupted by the arrival of a doctor who takes P to run some tests. P gets a clean bill of health. Then an alarm sounds. Cobb has jumped from a window to his death. ...
Later, P checks out of the hospital. He is given an employment card, ID card, health and welfare card, and credit card, all bearing the number 6. He goes to #2's office to confront him, only to find another man in the office. The man explains that he is "the new #2." It's an office that turns over quickly.
P confronts the new #2 about Cobb, and The Village in general. #2 defends the work they do as necessary, and questions P about his resignation. He assures P that he (or a subsequent #2) will eventually get the answers they're looking for, and P might as well cooperate. He also tells P that, in The Village, he will be known as Number Six. P responds with one of the series' signature lines: "I am not a number."
At Cobb's funeral, the cheerful Radetzky March is played. (This music is played a lot in The Village.) The attendees wear the same colorful outfits the Villagers usually do. But they do carry black umbrellas instead of the usual colors.
Watching from a distance, P sees a lone woman (#9) grieving. He tells her Cobb was a friend, and she says she'd only known him a short time. At a concert later, she tells him that she and Cobb were planning an escape with an "electropass" that gives access to a helicopter. She tells P she well gets him the electropass. Later, the woman is in #2's office. He tells her, "pity about Cobb," and gives her information on her new assignment: #6.
When she meets him to give him the electropass, he tells her he saw her report to #2. She admits she was assigned to Cobb, and to #6, but insists that she hasn't betrayed either of them. She refuses to accompany him on the escape, saying she never intended to without Cobb.
P uses the electropass to get past Rover and begins to fly the helicopter away from The Village, but #2 is watching from the Control Room. At a signal from him, a tech takes over the helicopter remotely and flies it back to The Village. Also watching with #2: Cobb, alive and well and working with #2. Cobb tells #2 "Don't be too hard on the girl," and that he will find #6 to be "a tough nut to crack."
DISCUSSION
The pilot episode introduces the series, setting, characters, etc.
What kind of series is The Prisoner? On one level it's a spy drama/mystery, an unofficial sequel to Danger Man. It's a mystery who runs The Village, and why P resigned. It's also an eerie sci-fi reminiscent of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, presenting social commentary and allegory.
The Village is a superficially pleasant and comfortable place. P is not kept in a little cell, but has a cottage with the creature comforts of home and all the amenities of The Village. But freedom or individuality are quite limited here. The people are kept in line and have such sayings as "Questions are a burden" and "A still tongue makes a happy life." P is outraged by the way people are kept here: "You imprison people, steal their minds, destroy them!" #2 counters that they are happy: "They wouldn't leave for the world." Kind of Stepford Wives-ish, I guess.
The stifling nature of The Village is inspired by the 60's counterculture. "Questions are a burden" and "A still tongue makes a happy life" are a dig at governments and other powerful institutions that expect people to trust them, not ask too many questions or complain too much. The counterculture delighted in questioning and speaking truth to power, and would see P as one of them. But though they may be rooted in the 60's, these issues are timeless, and the ubiquitous surveillance of The Village is even more relevant in the 21st Century.
The show also has elements that are just plain weird. In the hospital, we see "group therapy," which is a bunch of people sitting, still and blindfolded, in a room bathed with purple light. A form of individual therapy has a main singing gibberish while a blob of water hovers in front of him. What is to be made of this? Does it have any meaning, or is it just random weirdness?
What kind of man is P? Angry. Supremely confident and strong-willed. And rather cold-blooded.
When he sees his friend Cobb in the hospital, he doesn't inquire about Cobb's welfare or make small talk. He does grab Cobb by the lapels, shake him, and yell at him, demanding information about the Village. Cobb (apparently) commits suicide shortly thereafter, and if P has any regrets about the tone of their last interaction, he doesn't show it. He doesn't attend the funeral. Watching the procession from a distance, he spots a lone woman grieving. He grabs her and interrogates her roughly.
He needs information, but does he have to be so mean about it? Surely a spy would be well trained in subtler methods of eliciting information. His verbal abuse of the maid hardly seems worth mentioning by comparison. Or the fact that he never thanks the waitress, taxi driver, doctor, #9, or anyone else who helps him (or tries to).
#9 may be one of the most tragic characters in the series. It appears she was in love with Cobb, and distraught by his suicide. But it turns out he was just using and manipulating her. Then she tries to help P, only to come off looking like she was just using him under #2's direction. The actress, Virginia Maskell, killed herself three months after Arrival premiered. One can imagine her character having a similar fate.
Or maybe it's all an act. Hard to know in this place.
The Admiral seems very happily adjusted to life in The Village. With his last line to #9, "We're all pawns, m'dear," he suggests he's aware he's being used and manipulated by the powers behind The Village, he's totally OK with it, and he thinks #9 needs to learn to be OK with it too. He's the kind of guy TPTB would probably like to see P adopt as a role model. Fat chance.
No other character makes much of an impression, as everybody seems defined by their function. The butler (who appears in 14 episodes) and Peter Swanwick's Supervisor (who appears in seven episodes) are the most-seen characters in the series other than P, but they seem more like part of the machinery of The Village than fully realized human individuals. The two #2s in this episode are just stoic bureaucrats doing a job; if they come across a little nasty, it's because they're tasked with impressing upon P the severity of his situation, and because they work for the mysterious, but presumably wicked, powers behind The Village. Similarly, the labor exchange manager, the doctor, the waitress, the taxi driver, the shopkeeper, the maid, the electrician, and everybody else P interacts with is just a functionary doing a job. (The maid is also notable for being a terrible actress. One of the more laughable lines in the series is when the Supervisor says of her, "She was most convincing.") Even Cobb, it turns out, was just playing a scripted role.
NEXT EPISODE: Dance of the Dead
EPISODE: Arrival
Directed by Don Chaffey
Written by George Markstein and David Tomblin
SUMMARY
We see our unnamed protagonist — I'll call him P, since he doesn't like being called Number Six — drive across London and angrily resign from his job. He drives home, starts to pack a briefcase, and is knocked out by someone pumping gas into the room. When he wakes, he looks out the window, and instead of seeing the London street on which he lives, he sees a place we will come to know as The Village.
P is how the protagonist was denoted in the scripts, I presume for "Prisoner," or perhaps "Patrick." Possibly "Protagonist"? Pretty sure it's not "Peter Smith."
P goes outside and begins to explore The Village. It is a colorful, exotic place with an eclectic mix of architectures. It's early morning, and there isn't a lot of activity on the streets yet. Climbing a bell tower he gets a view of The Village, and sees a waitress setting up an outdoor cafe to open. He goes toe cafe and speaks to the waitress, who tells him this village is called The Village and directs him to a public phone box.
P goes to the phone box and finds a cordless phone (in 1967). The operator tells him that only local phone calls can be made, and he needs a number in order to make a call. He continues to explore and finds an information kiosk, and attracts the attention of a young woman driving a golf cart.
The driver asks P, "Where to, sir? Ou desirez-vous aller?" This is a taxi. "Only the local service," she explains. She says she spoke to him in French because "French is international," and also thought he might be a Pole or a Czech. The Village is "very cosmopolitan." She takes him on a driving tour and drops him off near the general store. She tells him the fare is two credit units. When he doesn't know what she's talking about, she gives him the ride on credit.
P enters the store. The shopkeeper is speaking to a customer in a foreign language, but switches to English after P comes in. P asks for a map of the area, and the shopkeeper shows him a black-and-white map of The Village, where everything is labeled generically. The village is labeled only "the village," the mountains as "the mountains," the sea as "the sea," etc. P asks for "a larger map," and the shopkeeper shows him another version of the same map, printed larger and in color. P explains that he meant a map of a larger area, and the shopkeeper tells him that no such maps are available.
P returns to his "home," spotting a maid just as she finishes cleaning up the place and leaves. On entering he finds a note welcoming him to "your home from home," and the phone rings. A man on the other end identifies himself as Number Two and invites P for breakfast in the Green Dome. ...
After showing off that he can predict P's breakfast order (which P doesn't eat), #2 begins to explain. P will be known as #6 in The Village. He has very valuable information, and #2 works for people who want to know why P resigned. Although they have a statement from P indicating that "it was a matter of principle," they want to "double check." P says that he will not answer any questions, or stay in this place. #2 tells him there is no way out.
#2 shows P surveillance photos of P from throughout his life. #2 describes what was happening when some of the photos were taken, even narrating P's inner monologue at one point. "One likes to know everything," he explains. P insists he won't cooperate, but #2 says it's just a matter of time.
#2 then takes P on a tour of The Village, showing off such places as the town hall, theater, social club, citizen's advice bureau, and senior center. He also introduces one of The Village's more surreal features: Rover, a large white balloon that enforces security by smothering runners into unconsciousness.
They go to the labour exchange, where a worker asks P questions about himself while playing with toys on his desk. P knocks the toys off the desk and storms out. #2 offers the worker a file with answers to the questions about P, and remarks that this new prisoner will be a challenge. ...
Returning to his cottage, P finds a maid cleaning. She says she was sent by the labour exchange. He yells at her to leave. He finds a personal log already filled out. ("Arrived today. Made very welcome.") He paces angrily while a cordless speaker plays soft music. He smashes the speaker, but the music continues to play. The public address summons electrical workers to #6's cottage for "adjustment."
Just then the maid returns for something she forgot. He asks her questions about The Village, like who runs it, but she pleads ignorance. She explains that around here, "It's wiser not to ask questions... A still tongue makes a happy life." She finally breaks down crying and pleads with P for information, saying she was promised her freedom in exchange for his confidence. He sends her away with no answers. In the Control Room, #2 and the Supervisor are watching and comment that P must be handled differently because he is very important.
P attempts to run from The Village. He is chased by two men in a golf cart. He fights them and takes the cart. Rover chases him down and knocks him out. He wakes up in the hospital, and in the next bed is a man he recognizes as Cobb. His questioning of Cobb in interrupted by the arrival of a doctor who takes P to run some tests. P gets a clean bill of health. Then an alarm sounds. Cobb has jumped from a window to his death. ...
Later, P checks out of the hospital. He is given an employment card, ID card, health and welfare card, and credit card, all bearing the number 6. He goes to #2's office to confront him, only to find another man in the office. The man explains that he is "the new #2." It's an office that turns over quickly.
P confronts the new #2 about Cobb, and The Village in general. #2 defends the work they do as necessary, and questions P about his resignation. He assures P that he (or a subsequent #2) will eventually get the answers they're looking for, and P might as well cooperate. He also tells P that, in The Village, he will be known as Number Six. P responds with one of the series' signature lines: "I am not a number."
At Cobb's funeral, the cheerful Radetzky March is played. (This music is played a lot in The Village.) The attendees wear the same colorful outfits the Villagers usually do. But they do carry black umbrellas instead of the usual colors.
Watching from a distance, P sees a lone woman (#9) grieving. He tells her Cobb was a friend, and she says she'd only known him a short time. At a concert later, she tells him that she and Cobb were planning an escape with an "electropass" that gives access to a helicopter. She tells P she well gets him the electropass. Later, the woman is in #2's office. He tells her, "pity about Cobb," and gives her information on her new assignment: #6.
When she meets him to give him the electropass, he tells her he saw her report to #2. She admits she was assigned to Cobb, and to #6, but insists that she hasn't betrayed either of them. She refuses to accompany him on the escape, saying she never intended to without Cobb.
P uses the electropass to get past Rover and begins to fly the helicopter away from The Village, but #2 is watching from the Control Room. At a signal from him, a tech takes over the helicopter remotely and flies it back to The Village. Also watching with #2: Cobb, alive and well and working with #2. Cobb tells #2 "Don't be too hard on the girl," and that he will find #6 to be "a tough nut to crack."
DISCUSSION
The pilot episode introduces the series, setting, characters, etc.
What kind of series is The Prisoner? On one level it's a spy drama/mystery, an unofficial sequel to Danger Man. It's a mystery who runs The Village, and why P resigned. It's also an eerie sci-fi reminiscent of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, presenting social commentary and allegory.
The Village is a superficially pleasant and comfortable place. P is not kept in a little cell, but has a cottage with the creature comforts of home and all the amenities of The Village. But freedom or individuality are quite limited here. The people are kept in line and have such sayings as "Questions are a burden" and "A still tongue makes a happy life." P is outraged by the way people are kept here: "You imprison people, steal their minds, destroy them!" #2 counters that they are happy: "They wouldn't leave for the world." Kind of Stepford Wives-ish, I guess.
The stifling nature of The Village is inspired by the 60's counterculture. "Questions are a burden" and "A still tongue makes a happy life" are a dig at governments and other powerful institutions that expect people to trust them, not ask too many questions or complain too much. The counterculture delighted in questioning and speaking truth to power, and would see P as one of them. But though they may be rooted in the 60's, these issues are timeless, and the ubiquitous surveillance of The Village is even more relevant in the 21st Century.
The show also has elements that are just plain weird. In the hospital, we see "group therapy," which is a bunch of people sitting, still and blindfolded, in a room bathed with purple light. A form of individual therapy has a main singing gibberish while a blob of water hovers in front of him. What is to be made of this? Does it have any meaning, or is it just random weirdness?
What kind of man is P? Angry. Supremely confident and strong-willed. And rather cold-blooded.
When he sees his friend Cobb in the hospital, he doesn't inquire about Cobb's welfare or make small talk. He does grab Cobb by the lapels, shake him, and yell at him, demanding information about the Village. Cobb (apparently) commits suicide shortly thereafter, and if P has any regrets about the tone of their last interaction, he doesn't show it. He doesn't attend the funeral. Watching the procession from a distance, he spots a lone woman grieving. He grabs her and interrogates her roughly.
He needs information, but does he have to be so mean about it? Surely a spy would be well trained in subtler methods of eliciting information. His verbal abuse of the maid hardly seems worth mentioning by comparison. Or the fact that he never thanks the waitress, taxi driver, doctor, #9, or anyone else who helps him (or tries to).
#9 may be one of the most tragic characters in the series. It appears she was in love with Cobb, and distraught by his suicide. But it turns out he was just using and manipulating her. Then she tries to help P, only to come off looking like she was just using him under #2's direction. The actress, Virginia Maskell, killed herself three months after Arrival premiered. One can imagine her character having a similar fate.
Or maybe it's all an act. Hard to know in this place.
The Admiral seems very happily adjusted to life in The Village. With his last line to #9, "We're all pawns, m'dear," he suggests he's aware he's being used and manipulated by the powers behind The Village, he's totally OK with it, and he thinks #9 needs to learn to be OK with it too. He's the kind of guy TPTB would probably like to see P adopt as a role model. Fat chance.
No other character makes much of an impression, as everybody seems defined by their function. The butler (who appears in 14 episodes) and Peter Swanwick's Supervisor (who appears in seven episodes) are the most-seen characters in the series other than P, but they seem more like part of the machinery of The Village than fully realized human individuals. The two #2s in this episode are just stoic bureaucrats doing a job; if they come across a little nasty, it's because they're tasked with impressing upon P the severity of his situation, and because they work for the mysterious, but presumably wicked, powers behind The Village. Similarly, the labor exchange manager, the doctor, the waitress, the taxi driver, the shopkeeper, the maid, the electrician, and everybody else P interacts with is just a functionary doing a job. (The maid is also notable for being a terrible actress. One of the more laughable lines in the series is when the Supervisor says of her, "She was most convincing.") Even Cobb, it turns out, was just playing a scripted role.
NEXT EPISODE: Dance of the Dead
years ago I watched End Of Evangelion and the final episode of The Prisoner on the same weekend.
Still not sure which was the bigger WTF???
EPISODE: Dance of the Dead
Directed by Don Chaffey
Written by Anthony Skene
ACT I
Nighttime in The Village. P sleeps. Technicians in white lab coats enter his cottage. They take note of P's empty tea cup, suggesting that he has been drugged. The scene is watched by two men in the Control Room: the bespectacled doctor #40, and the bald supervisor #48 (not Peter Swanwick, a different bald supervisor). 48 expresses skepticism about the operation, but 40 brushes it off.
P sits up in bed and answers a phone call from former colleague Dutton, who is in the Control Room, also apparently drugged, and taking instructions from 40. Dutton asks P about top secret information. P objects to the questions and becomes agitated when Dutton persists.
The new #2 (Mary Morris) arrives at the Control Room and orders a stop to the operation. She says it would never have worked, and P is different and requires a different approach: "I don't want him broken. He must be won over. It may seem a long process to your practical mind, but this man has a future with us."
P wakes the following morning, with no apparent memory of the experience. He speaks with 2, who is watching him on the wall screen in her office and herself visible on his TV. His new maid #54 arrives in a Victorian dress. He rebuffs her attempts at small talk. As she leaves, a delivery man brings P an invitation to the upcoming Village Carnival. When he asks for a signature, P doesn't sign, and wordlessly closes the door.
Later that morning, in the Village's central plaza, the band plays festive music. P watches people and pets a black cat. 2 arrives and talks to him about the Carnival. She suggests he get a date. Ignoring the women 2 suggests, P focuses his attention on #240, whom he sees watching them, and whom 2 calls "quite unsuitable."
P approaches 240. She deflects his questions with "Questions are a burden" and departs. He follows her at a distance until an electric force field stops him from following her into a building. A gardener explains to him, "It's fussy about who it lets in. This is the Town Hall."
ACT II
240 watches P from the Control Room. She is his Observer. He returns to his cottage. He finds the cat outside his door and feeds it inside. 54 tells him that pets are prohibited by the rules, to which he retorts, "Rules to which I am not subject." A florist places flowers outside P's window despite P's objections, explaining that "Everybody has flowers for Carnival tomorrow."
At night an elderly maid, #31, serves P his tea in his cottage. He expresses his suspicion that it's drugged and doesn't drink it. 240 watches from the Control Room.
In a hallway in Town Hall, 40 meets with 2. She tells him she'll forgive the incident with 6, marking it down to enthusiasm. He asks her to get him a directive about Dutton, who is being "rather difficult."
P paces around his cottage. He tries the front door and finds it locked. Instead of going to bed at bedtime (signaled by 240 turning off his lights from the Control Room, and a machine with a pulsating light and 2's voice in soothing tones telling him to sleep), he goes out the window. 240 reports this to 2, who remarks that it's "an opportunity to test our efficiency." The cat, who was earlier present in P's cottage, is in 2's office as she receives the report.
Rover paces P as he runs along the beach and eventually drops from exhaustion. He finds a comfortable spot to go to sleep. 2, watching from her office, tells the cat, "He'll eventually go back to his room. It's the only place he can ever go."
In the morning, P wakes on the beach. He sees a dead man on the beach, apparently washed ashore during the night. On the body P finds the man's wallet, and a transistor radio in a zippered leather pouch. The radio still works, but receives only static.
ACT III
In the plaza, the Town Crier decrees proclaims the Carnival will be that night. "There will be music, dancing, happiness... by order." The band plays festive music. The crowd, obediently waving their colored flags, looks thoroughly unimpressed. P watches the scene from a distance then returns to his cottage, where he finds 54 cleaning.
She tells him she has a new dress for Carnival. She also tells him the cat is gone and she had nothing to do with it. She tells him that Carnival will be a lot of fun and that his costume, which is chosen for him, has been delivered. He opens the package. "I thought it would be something exotic," P remarks, but it's actually "My own suit, specially delivered for the occasion."
Later, P tries the radio again, still receiving only static, as 40 and 2 watch from 2's office. As 40 expresses consternation over P's breaking of the rules, 2 urges patience, saying, "He's an individual, and they're always trying." 2 asks 40 about progress with Dutton, and he tells her they have gotten only limited information and may have to be more "extreme." She gives him permission to experiment because Dutton is "expendable."
P goes to a tower and tries the radio. He hears three transmissions: one garbled and unintelligible (does not sound like English), one a cryptic message about freedom, and a typing tutorial. 2 and 240 arrive and 2 asks P where he got the radio. He plays some of the typing lesson, which she remarks is "hardly useful." 2 encourages P to learn to be happy in the Village and to cooperate, then confiscates the radio and departs.
P and 240 stay and argue. She speaks of her duty and the rules, and scolds him for his lack of respect for the same. He speaks of his right to have "different values" and not be "a goldfish in a bowl." When he asks her questions, she becomes angry and leaves.
P steals a life ring and rope from the Stone Boat. (In fairness, it's unlikely to need them any time soon.) He returns to a cave where he has stashed the body he found the previous night. He writes a note, puts it in the man's wallet, and sends the body adrift with the life ring.
Back at the cave he finds Dutton. They talk. Dutton tells P that he has told the Village authorities everything he knows, but they believe he knows more. They have given him a little time to provide more information, and if he doesn't, "Roland Walter Dutton will cease to exist."
ACT IV
As the sun sets, P stands on the beach in his suit, looking for the outside world. 2 shows up, in costume as Peter Pan, and speaks with him. She scolds him for his hostility and tells him to give up thoughts of the outside world: "This is your world. I am your world." They go to the Carnival in the Town Hall.
240 is at the Carnival dressed as Little Bo Beep. 2 suggests 240 and P dance. They go out on the dance floor and 240 dances, while P stands with his arms folded and asks questions, which angers 240, as always.
P departs and starts exploring the Town Hall. He finds and dons a white lab coat. A badge indicates it belongs to #116. He encounters #30, wearing a similar coat, who tells him she has an urgent message for 2: a termination order. P offers to deliver the message, which she hands to him. After 30 departs, P looks at the message, which names Roland Walter Dutton.
P continues exploring and finds, in a long drawer, the body he had sent adrift. 2 and the cat arrive. 2 says of the cat, "She works here too. She's very efficient, almost ruthless." P wryly responds, "Never trust a woman, even the four-legged variety." 2 tells P that the note, and the body, will be "amended" to create the impression for the outside world that it is P who has died in an accident at sea.
2 and P return to the Carnival, where a trial begins. P stands accused. There are three judges: 40, dressed as Napoleon; the Town Crier, dressed as Caesar; and a woman dressed as Queen Elizabeth. 240 will prosecute and 2 will defend. P's alleged crime: possession of the radio, which is a violation of the rules.
240 offers the case against P, stressing the importance of the rules. Without the rules, she says, we would exist in anarchy. P interjects, "Hear, hear!" 240 says the courts must offer the strongest possible sentence. 2 pleads for clemency, citing P's newness and folly. P asks to call a character witness: Dutton, "who is scheduled to die, and therefore better suited than I to say the things that need to be said." Dutton is brought forward but it appears his mind his gone and he is unable to offer any testimony. The judges find P guilty and pronounce the sentence: death.
P runs from the ballroom, and the partygoers all give chase. He finds a hidden passage and escapes his pursuers. He comes to an office with a teletype machine, and destroys it by tearing out the inner mechanics. Suddenly, 2 is present. She tells P they're not actually going to kill him: "You're already dead, locked up in that long box at the end of the hall."
P tells her, "You'll never win." She responds, "Then how very uncomfortable you, old chap." The teletype machine starts printing again, even with its innards all over the floor.
Patrick McGoohan said that he intended "The Prisoner" to offer up issues for discussion. In this episode, the theme is about the rules: what are they, where do they come from, and should we always obey them. Let's review some of the Village rules, written an unwritten, presented in this episode.
We're not allowed pets. When 54 tells P of this rule, he says he's not subject to the rules. This makes him the Village equivalent of a Freeman on the Land (UK) or Sovereign Citizen (US).
Everyone has flowers for Carnival, whether they want them or not. I notice that that night, the flowers are absent from P's window. This is probably because they wanted to use stock footage, or just didn't pay much attention to the continuity, but I like to imagine that P removed the flowers.
There will be music, dancing, happiness, all at the Carnival, by order. P violates this rule as well. On the dance floor at the Carnival, he doesn't dance; he just stands with his arms folded and yells at his partner. BTW, I suspect that the Villagers all waving their colored flags after the proclamation of this rule are also obeying a rule, since they seem so unenthusiastic about it.
Questions are a burden to others, answers a prison for oneself. 240 frequently cites this in response to P's questions. 54 also ignores P's questions when he asks her where the supplies come from.
No names are used here. One of the judges says this when P calls Dutton by name. Oddly, Dutton is consistently referred to by name. 2 and 40 refer to Dutton by name whenever they discuss him. His termination order also identifies him by name. He wears badge #42, but nobody ever uses that number. (Yes, the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is, "What is Roland Walter Dutton's number?")
No radios or other unapproved possessions. This is the violation for which P is tried and sentenced.
Wear your number. Although P is never scolded or disciplined for violating this rule, it does seem to exist; everyone else always wears their number (except when in costume for Carnival).
Sign for your delivery. This one is petty, but P refuses to sign for the delivery of his invitation.
No damaging Number Six. This is a rule about how others treat P, rather than a rule for P to obey (though 2 does tell P not to jump from the tower).
One rule that turns out not to exist is the assumed rule against being out at night. P is surprised when 54 says there's no such rule and people are not locked in at night; his door had in fact been locked the previous night.
Where do the rules come from? 2 says, "We're democratic in some ways." 240 describes the rules as, "Of the people, by the people, for the people." P suspects they come from No. 1, "the man behind the door." Their attitudes toward the rules may be related to their perceptions of the origins of the rules; rules of "the people" would naturally be due more respect than rules from a mysterious "man behind the door."
P breaks just about every rule there is, and is proud of this. He scoffs at the rules and calls for anarchy. When 2 says P will eventually develop respect for the rules, P says, "That day you will never see." 240, by contrast, fears anarchy and speaks of commitment to duty.
In my notes on "Arrival," I said I was struck by P's lack of empathy. That is on display again in this episode.
Alas, poor Dutton! When P hears of Dutton's impending termination, there's no "Gee, Rollie, that's a bummer." No attempt to intervene and save Dutton. No offer to help make Dutton's last days more comfortable. P's only reaction to Dutton's situation is to note — incorrectly, as it turns out — that it makes Dutton useful for P's purposes.
There is also no obvious compassion for the dead man who washed ashore. There is no indication P gives any thought to giving the man a proper burial, and he steals the man's radio. Of course, "Don't steal from the dead" may be one of those unwritten rules P finds arbitrary and oppressive. What difference does it make to a dead man?
On the other hand, this episode gives us the first character to whom P is nice: the cat, whom he is happy to pet, feed, and house, probably because she's the one character he doesn't suspect of working for his captors. (Oops.)
240 is a contrast. When P is sentenced, she is upset. She is the prosecutor who argued for the severest possible sentence, so the judges are giving her a win, but she seems more concerned with what it means for P. She also seems saddened to hear of the death of another of her observation subjects, #34. (Some viewers have speculated that the body P finds is #34's, and may have been planted.)
This episode is noted for misogyny, particularly P's comment, "Never trust a woman, not even the four-legged variety." I assume McGoohan approved the line. Are we meant to agree with it?
The final shot of the episode, the teletype machine printing after P wrecks it, recalls a similar scene in "Arrival," when a speaker continues to play music after being smashed by P. What is the significance of this?
NEXT EPISODE: Checkmate
Directed by Don Chaffey
Written by Anthony Skene
SUMMARY
ACT I
Nighttime in The Village. P sleeps. Technicians in white lab coats enter his cottage. They take note of P's empty tea cup, suggesting that he has been drugged. The scene is watched by two men in the Control Room: the bespectacled doctor #40, and the bald supervisor #48 (not Peter Swanwick, a different bald supervisor). 48 expresses skepticism about the operation, but 40 brushes it off.
P sits up in bed and answers a phone call from former colleague Dutton, who is in the Control Room, also apparently drugged, and taking instructions from 40. Dutton asks P about top secret information. P objects to the questions and becomes agitated when Dutton persists.
The new #2 (Mary Morris) arrives at the Control Room and orders a stop to the operation. She says it would never have worked, and P is different and requires a different approach: "I don't want him broken. He must be won over. It may seem a long process to your practical mind, but this man has a future with us."
P wakes the following morning, with no apparent memory of the experience. He speaks with 2, who is watching him on the wall screen in her office and herself visible on his TV. His new maid #54 arrives in a Victorian dress. He rebuffs her attempts at small talk. As she leaves, a delivery man brings P an invitation to the upcoming Village Carnival. When he asks for a signature, P doesn't sign, and wordlessly closes the door.
Later that morning, in the Village's central plaza, the band plays festive music. P watches people and pets a black cat. 2 arrives and talks to him about the Carnival. She suggests he get a date. Ignoring the women 2 suggests, P focuses his attention on #240, whom he sees watching them, and whom 2 calls "quite unsuitable."
P approaches 240. She deflects his questions with "Questions are a burden" and departs. He follows her at a distance until an electric force field stops him from following her into a building. A gardener explains to him, "It's fussy about who it lets in. This is the Town Hall."
ACT II
240 watches P from the Control Room. She is his Observer. He returns to his cottage. He finds the cat outside his door and feeds it inside. 54 tells him that pets are prohibited by the rules, to which he retorts, "Rules to which I am not subject." A florist places flowers outside P's window despite P's objections, explaining that "Everybody has flowers for Carnival tomorrow."
At night an elderly maid, #31, serves P his tea in his cottage. He expresses his suspicion that it's drugged and doesn't drink it. 240 watches from the Control Room.
In a hallway in Town Hall, 40 meets with 2. She tells him she'll forgive the incident with 6, marking it down to enthusiasm. He asks her to get him a directive about Dutton, who is being "rather difficult."
P paces around his cottage. He tries the front door and finds it locked. Instead of going to bed at bedtime (signaled by 240 turning off his lights from the Control Room, and a machine with a pulsating light and 2's voice in soothing tones telling him to sleep), he goes out the window. 240 reports this to 2, who remarks that it's "an opportunity to test our efficiency." The cat, who was earlier present in P's cottage, is in 2's office as she receives the report.
Rover paces P as he runs along the beach and eventually drops from exhaustion. He finds a comfortable spot to go to sleep. 2, watching from her office, tells the cat, "He'll eventually go back to his room. It's the only place he can ever go."
In the morning, P wakes on the beach. He sees a dead man on the beach, apparently washed ashore during the night. On the body P finds the man's wallet, and a transistor radio in a zippered leather pouch. The radio still works, but receives only static.
ACT III
In the plaza, the Town Crier decrees proclaims the Carnival will be that night. "There will be music, dancing, happiness... by order." The band plays festive music. The crowd, obediently waving their colored flags, looks thoroughly unimpressed. P watches the scene from a distance then returns to his cottage, where he finds 54 cleaning.
She tells him she has a new dress for Carnival. She also tells him the cat is gone and she had nothing to do with it. She tells him that Carnival will be a lot of fun and that his costume, which is chosen for him, has been delivered. He opens the package. "I thought it would be something exotic," P remarks, but it's actually "My own suit, specially delivered for the occasion."
Later, P tries the radio again, still receiving only static, as 40 and 2 watch from 2's office. As 40 expresses consternation over P's breaking of the rules, 2 urges patience, saying, "He's an individual, and they're always trying." 2 asks 40 about progress with Dutton, and he tells her they have gotten only limited information and may have to be more "extreme." She gives him permission to experiment because Dutton is "expendable."
P goes to a tower and tries the radio. He hears three transmissions: one garbled and unintelligible (does not sound like English), one a cryptic message about freedom, and a typing tutorial. 2 and 240 arrive and 2 asks P where he got the radio. He plays some of the typing lesson, which she remarks is "hardly useful." 2 encourages P to learn to be happy in the Village and to cooperate, then confiscates the radio and departs.
P and 240 stay and argue. She speaks of her duty and the rules, and scolds him for his lack of respect for the same. He speaks of his right to have "different values" and not be "a goldfish in a bowl." When he asks her questions, she becomes angry and leaves.
P steals a life ring and rope from the Stone Boat. (In fairness, it's unlikely to need them any time soon.) He returns to a cave where he has stashed the body he found the previous night. He writes a note, puts it in the man's wallet, and sends the body adrift with the life ring.
Back at the cave he finds Dutton. They talk. Dutton tells P that he has told the Village authorities everything he knows, but they believe he knows more. They have given him a little time to provide more information, and if he doesn't, "Roland Walter Dutton will cease to exist."
ACT IV
As the sun sets, P stands on the beach in his suit, looking for the outside world. 2 shows up, in costume as Peter Pan, and speaks with him. She scolds him for his hostility and tells him to give up thoughts of the outside world: "This is your world. I am your world." They go to the Carnival in the Town Hall.
240 is at the Carnival dressed as Little Bo Beep. 2 suggests 240 and P dance. They go out on the dance floor and 240 dances, while P stands with his arms folded and asks questions, which angers 240, as always.
P departs and starts exploring the Town Hall. He finds and dons a white lab coat. A badge indicates it belongs to #116. He encounters #30, wearing a similar coat, who tells him she has an urgent message for 2: a termination order. P offers to deliver the message, which she hands to him. After 30 departs, P looks at the message, which names Roland Walter Dutton.
P continues exploring and finds, in a long drawer, the body he had sent adrift. 2 and the cat arrive. 2 says of the cat, "She works here too. She's very efficient, almost ruthless." P wryly responds, "Never trust a woman, even the four-legged variety." 2 tells P that the note, and the body, will be "amended" to create the impression for the outside world that it is P who has died in an accident at sea.
2 and P return to the Carnival, where a trial begins. P stands accused. There are three judges: 40, dressed as Napoleon; the Town Crier, dressed as Caesar; and a woman dressed as Queen Elizabeth. 240 will prosecute and 2 will defend. P's alleged crime: possession of the radio, which is a violation of the rules.
240 offers the case against P, stressing the importance of the rules. Without the rules, she says, we would exist in anarchy. P interjects, "Hear, hear!" 240 says the courts must offer the strongest possible sentence. 2 pleads for clemency, citing P's newness and folly. P asks to call a character witness: Dutton, "who is scheduled to die, and therefore better suited than I to say the things that need to be said." Dutton is brought forward but it appears his mind his gone and he is unable to offer any testimony. The judges find P guilty and pronounce the sentence: death.
P runs from the ballroom, and the partygoers all give chase. He finds a hidden passage and escapes his pursuers. He comes to an office with a teletype machine, and destroys it by tearing out the inner mechanics. Suddenly, 2 is present. She tells P they're not actually going to kill him: "You're already dead, locked up in that long box at the end of the hall."
P tells her, "You'll never win." She responds, "Then how very uncomfortable you, old chap." The teletype machine starts printing again, even with its innards all over the floor.
DISCUSSION
Patrick McGoohan said that he intended "The Prisoner" to offer up issues for discussion. In this episode, the theme is about the rules: what are they, where do they come from, and should we always obey them. Let's review some of the Village rules, written an unwritten, presented in this episode.
We're not allowed pets. When 54 tells P of this rule, he says he's not subject to the rules. This makes him the Village equivalent of a Freeman on the Land (UK) or Sovereign Citizen (US).
Everyone has flowers for Carnival, whether they want them or not. I notice that that night, the flowers are absent from P's window. This is probably because they wanted to use stock footage, or just didn't pay much attention to the continuity, but I like to imagine that P removed the flowers.
There will be music, dancing, happiness, all at the Carnival, by order. P violates this rule as well. On the dance floor at the Carnival, he doesn't dance; he just stands with his arms folded and yells at his partner. BTW, I suspect that the Villagers all waving their colored flags after the proclamation of this rule are also obeying a rule, since they seem so unenthusiastic about it.
Questions are a burden to others, answers a prison for oneself. 240 frequently cites this in response to P's questions. 54 also ignores P's questions when he asks her where the supplies come from.
No names are used here. One of the judges says this when P calls Dutton by name. Oddly, Dutton is consistently referred to by name. 2 and 40 refer to Dutton by name whenever they discuss him. His termination order also identifies him by name. He wears badge #42, but nobody ever uses that number. (Yes, the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is, "What is Roland Walter Dutton's number?")
No radios or other unapproved possessions. This is the violation for which P is tried and sentenced.
Wear your number. Although P is never scolded or disciplined for violating this rule, it does seem to exist; everyone else always wears their number (except when in costume for Carnival).
Sign for your delivery. This one is petty, but P refuses to sign for the delivery of his invitation.
No damaging Number Six. This is a rule about how others treat P, rather than a rule for P to obey (though 2 does tell P not to jump from the tower).
One rule that turns out not to exist is the assumed rule against being out at night. P is surprised when 54 says there's no such rule and people are not locked in at night; his door had in fact been locked the previous night.
Where do the rules come from? 2 says, "We're democratic in some ways." 240 describes the rules as, "Of the people, by the people, for the people." P suspects they come from No. 1, "the man behind the door." Their attitudes toward the rules may be related to their perceptions of the origins of the rules; rules of "the people" would naturally be due more respect than rules from a mysterious "man behind the door."
P breaks just about every rule there is, and is proud of this. He scoffs at the rules and calls for anarchy. When 2 says P will eventually develop respect for the rules, P says, "That day you will never see." 240, by contrast, fears anarchy and speaks of commitment to duty.
In my notes on "Arrival," I said I was struck by P's lack of empathy. That is on display again in this episode.
Alas, poor Dutton! When P hears of Dutton's impending termination, there's no "Gee, Rollie, that's a bummer." No attempt to intervene and save Dutton. No offer to help make Dutton's last days more comfortable. P's only reaction to Dutton's situation is to note — incorrectly, as it turns out — that it makes Dutton useful for P's purposes.
There is also no obvious compassion for the dead man who washed ashore. There is no indication P gives any thought to giving the man a proper burial, and he steals the man's radio. Of course, "Don't steal from the dead" may be one of those unwritten rules P finds arbitrary and oppressive. What difference does it make to a dead man?
On the other hand, this episode gives us the first character to whom P is nice: the cat, whom he is happy to pet, feed, and house, probably because she's the one character he doesn't suspect of working for his captors. (Oops.)
240 is a contrast. When P is sentenced, she is upset. She is the prosecutor who argued for the severest possible sentence, so the judges are giving her a win, but she seems more concerned with what it means for P. She also seems saddened to hear of the death of another of her observation subjects, #34. (Some viewers have speculated that the body P finds is #34's, and may have been planted.)
This episode is noted for misogyny, particularly P's comment, "Never trust a woman, not even the four-legged variety." I assume McGoohan approved the line. Are we meant to agree with it?
The final shot of the episode, the teletype machine printing after P wrecks it, recalls a similar scene in "Arrival," when a speaker continues to play music after being smashed by P. What is the significance of this?
NEXT EPISODE: Checkmate
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I know it's obviously not the same as watching it, but even skimming the episode descriptions on Wikipedia didn't really do much for me. There are a lot of times where I've done that, and my first thought is "I have to watch this", but in this case all I thought was "meh".
It's not as if "Fall Out" was coherent either.
But, yeah, the revival series was shit, whereas the original is a masterpiece.
I wish they had launched the Rover at the remake. lol
The remake had a giant Rover:
I'd hoped my rewatch posts would generate some discussion of the episodes. Are people even reading them, or is everyone TLDRing them?
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