From: jim@unkaphaed.UUCP (Jim Dedman)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.prisoner
Subject: Episode Summaries
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 23:05:13 GMT
Organization: Unka Phaed's UUCP Thingy

THE PRISONER

Who are You?

The New Number Two.

Who is Number One?

You are Number Six.

I am not a number, I am a free man!

Hahahahahahahahhah.........


The Prisoner Reports - Episode Summaries
----------------------------------------
Taken from 'Starlog's Science Fiction Video Magazine'

The Prisoner #1:  Arrival
  
This first episode of the seventeen part British television series is not
as powerful or ingenious as most subsequent installments, but considering that
"The Prisoner" is one of the most literate and intriguing television series 
ever produced, it's still head and shoulders above many feature films.  
  Patrick McGoohan plays Number Six, a British intelligence agent who, upon
quitting his service, is spirited away to a strange place known only as The
Village, where no one knows who is a prisoner and who is not.
  Number Six loses this, his first test of wills with the interchangeable 
Number Two (here played by Guy Doleman and George Baker), as he painfully 
discovers that the superficially benevolent Village masks hundreds of
sinister questions and no answers.  All of the key questions are raised in 
this episode.  Who runs the Village?  Who is the unseen Number One?  Why is
Number Six a prisoner?  Why did he resign?  The answers lie seventeen episodes
away, but it's an incredible journey, part '1984', part James Bond, part Alice
in Wonderland, with just enough science fiction trappings to be provocative 
without overwhelming what McGoohan, who not only starred, but also produced,
and often wrote and directed, intended as an inquiry into the struggle of 
being an idividual in modern society.

The Prisoner #2:  The Chimes of Big Ben

When an Estonian woman prisoner known only as Nadia (Nadia Gray) is brought
to the Village for interrogation, her plight - like the Prisoner, she has
resigned from secret work - convinces Number Six that they share a common
cause.  Number Six bargains with the current Number Two (the Falstaffian
Leo McKern in his first outing in the role) to ease up on her.
  Entering an art contest to show that he is blending in with Village life,
Number Six is really plotting escape for Nadia and himself.  But can he really
trust her?  More importantly, can Number Six really go home again?
  This episode exists in a variant version which is also availible on video
under the title, "The Alternate Chimes of Big Ben."  The approximately 25
differences - including alternate and added scenes, and an entirely different
opening sequence and score - are intriguing but minor, and will be only of
interest to Prisoner fiends on their sixth rewatching of the series.

The Prisoner #3:  A. B. and C.

The mystery of Number's resignation drives this compelling, atmospheric and
clever "Prisoner" entry.  Unable to break his conscious will, the new 
Number Two attempts to make Number Six betray himself through a combination
of drugs and a machine that will display dream images on a video screen.
  Number Two forces Number Six to relive the last meetings with three
important people who might have influenced his decision - identified only as
A, B, and C - to see if their dream images can trick Number Six into answering
the series' most nagging question.  This is worth renting for Colin Gordon's
desperate portrayal of Number Two and the shock ending.

The Prisoner #4:  Free for All

One of the top "Prisoner" episodes and one of the few written by star Patrick
McGoohan (Under the pseudonym Paddy Fitz) begins with a bizarre proposition:
Number Two is up for re-election, and the incumbent wants Number Six to run
against him.  This is a savage satire on the nature of modern politics and the
media, as well as an enthralling sequence of turnabouts as the Villagers
brainwash Number Six, not to break him, but to compell him to join them.
  The Prisoner is carried along through a Kafka-like campaign to an edge of 
the seat ending where ultimate power, and freedom, seem within his grasp.
The video contains a violent and puzzling scene near the end, where the 
Prisoner is attacked while cult-like worshippers off the electronic watchdog
Rover, look on, that was suppressed in Great Britain and in some U.S. airings.

The Prisoner #5:  Schizoid Man

In a diabolically clever scheme, Number Two attempts to crack Number Six by
striking his strong sense of identitiy through use of an identical double.
The twist in this magnificent episode is that after programming the 'real'
Number Six with a variety of behavior and memory altering procedures to make
him think that he is his own double, they enlist him in a complicate scheme
to break the 'false' Number Six - who everyone pretends is the real one!
  Clever use of incident and pacing make what could have been one of the most
confusing "Prisoner" episodes one of the most striking.  In many ways, this 
entry, which was directed by Patrick McGoohan, may be the quintessential
"Prisoner" installment, as it combines ingenious plotting, psychological 
manipulation, and the suspenseful storytelling that are the series' hallmarks.

The Prisoner #6:  The General

Average episode of this series which finds Number Six, struggline to unmask
the sinister being known only as the General, who is the architect of 
Speedlearn, a process by which subliminal impulses are trasmitted over
television.  The result is the viewer can be indoctrinated with vast amounts
of knowledge - actually disconnected trivia - in a matter of seconds.
  Beneath this fascinating mystery story is a pointed satire on television.
Colin Gordon is back as the most nervous Number Two to ever govern the 
Village.

The Prisoner #7:  Many Happy Returns

A typically excellent score helps propel this unusual entry - there is 
virtually no dialouge for the shows first half - as Number Six awakens one
morning to find the Village utterly deserted.  Building a raft, he escapes to
sea, where, after a series of perilous encounters, he returns to his London 
flat only to find it inhabited by a strange woman who now owns his car - and
no trace of his earlier existence to be found anywhere. 
  As Number Six goes to confront his former superiors in the British 
Intelligence with hard proof of the Village's existence, he knows he may be in
fact dealing with the very people responsible for his abduction.

The Prisoner #8:  Dance of the Dead

Surreal and ultimately confusing, this middle entry in the series was actually
one of the first written, which may explain its frenzied pace and deliberate
sense of disorientation.  It's carnival time in the Village, and Number Two
(Played by Mary Morris) is anxious for Number Six to join in the fun.
  But the Prisoner is more concerned about a dead body he finds on the beach
and his discovery that a former colleague named Dutton is also in the Village
and he has been broken.

The Prisoner #9:  Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

The necessity of having to film an episode without star Patrick McGoohan -
he was starring in the film "Ice Station Zebra" - results in one of the 
strongest and most poignant of "Prisoner" stories.  Number Six's mind is 
purged of all memories of the Village, transferred into the body of a man
known only as the Colonel (Nigel Stock), and then he is returned to his 
London flat.
  It's all part of an elaborate scheme to trick Number Six into locating
the missing Dr. Seltzman (Hudo Schuster), the inventor of the mind-switching
process, and the only one who can restore the Prisoner's mind to his rightful
body.  The combination of McGoohan's voiceover interior monologue and Stock's
affecting yet uncanny performance is remarkably effective in convincing the
viewer that Number Six's mind truly does inhabit this unfamiliar body.

The Prisoner #10:  It's Your Funeral

Number Six discovers an assasination plot being mounted by one of the 
Villagers against the current Number Two and sets out to warn him.  But the
existence of "jammers" - Villagers who make false statements about anti-
establishment plots to confuse the all-pervasive electronic monitoring 
that is inextricable from Village life - makes Number Two doubt the Prisoner's
tip.  
  In this role reversal episode, Number Six is forced to try to uphold the
Village's status quo because he fears wholesale reprisals against all 
Villagers if the assasination comes off - unaware that this is exactly what
Number Two wants!

The Prisoner #11:  Checkmate

A life-size game of chess, in which real people are the pieces, leads Number
Six to a number of fellow Villagers he feels he can trust.  Banding together,
they plan an escape attempt that includes taking Number Two as a prisoner,
and hinges on being able to determine with absolute certainty who among the
Villagers is only pretending to be a prisoner.
  One of the most ironic "Prisoner" episodes, and considered by many one of
the best.

The Prisoner #12:  Living in Harmony

Patrick McGoohan's long-held desire to star in a Western led to this offbeat
installment that was never aired in the U.S. during The Prisoner's original
network run - perhaps due to the unavoidable viewer confusion caused by the
substitution of the standard "Prisoner" opening sequence with a teaser in 
which Number Six, dressed in cowboy garb, and astride on a horse, turns in his
sheriff's badge and rides toward the hostile and suspicious Western town 
dubbed Harmony.
  There's nothing in the first three acts - no familiar characters or theme 
music or even the series' title - to reassure the viewer that this is indeed
a "Prisoner" episode.  But as the corrupt town Judge (David Bauer) tries to
force Number Six to take up his badge and gun again, it becomes clear that
Number Six is fighting for his prized individuality on yet another psycho-
logical frontier.

The Prisoner #13:  A Change of Mind

Number Six finds that he is under investigation by a Village committee over his
continual anti-social behavior.  He's called before a series of mock hearings.
The new Number Two (played with soothing unconciousness by John Sharpe) warns
Number Six of the severe consequences of being declared "unmutual".
  At first refusing to take the matter seriously, Number Six finds himself
ostracized by his fellow Villagers and then is carried by a mob to a hospital
where he will be lobotomized to conform to Village standars of social 
behavior.  A strong episode with much to say.

The Prisoner #14:  Hammer into Anvil

When the most sadistic of all his opponent Number Two's (Patrick Cargill) 
drives a woman prisoner to suicide, Number Six vows to avenge her death.
What follows is a savage psychological war in which Number Six exploits the
very paranoid nature of the Village's social structure in a risky attempt to
break Number Two, whose obviously disturbed personality could explode with
lethal consequences for the Prisoner.
  On this thin plot thread hangs one of the most highly charged and satisfying
confrontations in the series.

The Prisoner #15:  The Girl Who Was Death

Like the offbeat "Living in Harmony", this is an atypical "Prisoner" episode
and the only one which could truly be considered expendable.  In fact, it's a
revamped script for "Secret Agent" (the Patrick McGoohan spy series which many
consider to be the prequel to "The Prisoner") camped up with so much broad 
humor that it seems more like an "Avengers" episode gone amok.
  McGoohan's character, who might or might not be Secret Agent's John Drake,
is led on a merry chase of violent death traps and ingenios escapes by a 
woman who claims to be Death.  It all culminates in a comic-opera 
confrontation with a Napoleaonic mad scientist intent upon destroying London,
and a fillip of an ending that established this as a true "Prisoner" episode
only at the last possible moment.  Fun, but save this one until you've seen
all but the final two episodes.

The Prisoner #16:  Once Upon a Time

Leo McKern returns as Number Two, but gone is his affable good humor.  He is
under pressure by the mysterious Number One to finally break Number Six and
learn his true reason for resigning in this, the penultimate "Prisoner"
episode.
  Once again, Number Six is brainwashed, but this time it's in preparation
for a one-on-one sealed room psychological duel known as Degree Aboslute,
in which The Prisoner is regressed to childhood and forced to relive his
entire life.  Only one man, Number Six or Number Two, will survive and go
on to face the ultimate unknown of the series, Number One.  A warning:  Don't
rent this episode (which was written and directed by Patrick McGoohan) without
the final episode, "Fall Out", for which "Once Upon a Time" serves as the 
setup.

The Prisoner #17:  Fall Out

When this eerie and exhausting final episode was aired in Great Britain, near
riots broke out and star Patrick McGoohan had to go into hiding to keep from
being lynched.  Despite the often frustrating resolution, this is the 
_definitive_ conclusion to Number Six's struggle.  It's a must see episode 
about which Patrick McGoohan, who again wrote and directed, once remarked,
"If there are any answers to 'The Prisoner' they are in the final episode."
  It's not quite as vague and uncertain as all that - we do finally get to 
see who Number One really is - but what the individual viewer makes of all
this allegorical epiphany is largely up to him.
  Don't see this without seeing the previous episode, "Once Upon A Time",
and don't expect either story to make sense until you've sampled at least
four or five regular "Prisoner" episodes.  Even so, you might want to watch
this once twice to soak up every level of meaning, and then go back and watch
the series all over again.  "The Prisoner" is one of those rare TV series
which not only holds up under multiple viewing, but demands it.

Notes:

  All "Prisoner" episodes are approximately 54 minutes in length and are 
availible from MPI Video.  They date from 1967.
--
jim@unkaphaed.UUCP (Jim Dedman)
Unka Phaed's UUCP Thingy, (713) 943-2728
1200/2400/9600/14400 v.32bis/v.42bis