The Prisoner
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I've just finished watching The Prisoner and I like to think I'm quite clever when it comes to figuring out what's going on - but this one has left me with loads of question marks.
Does anyone have any thoughts on:-
Where / what exactly is The Village?
How did the inhabitants of The Village get there?
Does anyone have any thoughts on:-
Where / what exactly is The Village?
How did the inhabitants of The Village get there?
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The 60's original or the god-awful remake?
I am not a number I am a real man!!!!
That sounds about right.
Yeeeeeeees (say in Jeremy Paxman voice) :rolleyes:
I'd like to have seen David Mitchell have a go, too.
I'll be honest with you, that's the first time, in nearly 3 decades of Prisoner geek-ness, that I've ever heard that interpretation.
I've always read it as No.6 being offered the keys to the kingdom, which may have been genuine, but, as you could see when he tried to make his speech, he had no real power, and they weren't interested in what he had to say. 'The Village' would have continued in much the same way. The message to me is that we are part of the system and we are powerless to change it, but occasionally we are given the illusion that we can.
This is the bit I'm struggling with the most.
In the last episode was the trial of Leo McKern, Alex Kanner, and Patrick McGoohan to be No1. When they decided to escape and went to the where the missile was McGoohan found No1 with the gorilla's head with his own face underneath. Then we learnt the village was only some miles from London. People look for far too much meaning in what was an adventure series typical of ITC. Danger Man "Colony Three" and Man in a Suitcase "Brainwash" did it just as well.
Because they're all hooked up to computers like a giant network. There's a scene in the final episode where they're in the tower and you can see all the computer displays showing everybody's version of the village.
I found that it was a bit like the matrix in that respect.
Me too - and I've been a fan of the show since it was first on.
McGoohan himself admits on a documentary that HIS view of the show is that its allegorical - that is that nothing is real.
Unfortunately McGoohan never made most of his writers and directors privy to his ideas - not even his co-creator- so it's not surprising that many episodes can be viewed at face value as regular stories but those with writing , directing or both - often under pseudonyms - from McGoohan fit into his idea that The Village is an allegorical representation of society.
It's quite clever but sadly that idea does not work for many of the stories
This indicates you have missed the premise of the show entirely.
The fact that No.6 parachutes out of a plane over Morocco to land in The Village in Many Happy Returns shows it was NOT a few miles from London.....not in the action adventure style viewpoint at least.
You cannot view the final episode as a straight adventure as it makes no sense whatsoever.
Thats the only answer to that question i have understood in 30 yrs. Thank you
It reminded me a lot of The Matrix. But I guess I was a bit sleepy during the final scenes so I have to admit, what was on the computer moniters went completely over my head.
So how about this. When 1112 (the son) apparently kills his dreaming mother, how come she didn't die in real life, and also, how come the world that existed in her head didn't instantly disappear? That's what I was expecting to happen the moment he killed her, and up until that point, I thought I had it. Apparently not though.
The problem is our yank cousins really don't like allegory's and metaphors and when adapting something like the Prisoner it was inevitable they'd dumb it down into just some the usual Sci Fi nonsense totally removing all meaning from the show.
The ending of the original version of the Prisoner made no sense and perfect sense. The ending of the new one tried to make sense and ended up being nonsense.
Its a bit like the US remake of Life on Mars. Didn't they end that with them all literally been on a space ship going to Mars and it was all just a dream. Hmmmm all a bit like when Bobby came back from the dead in Dallas really....
Good Lord. You learn something new every day.
I gave up halfway through the new one. I was quite enjoying it, but Mrs Chuff was not keen to proceed any further. It was all a bit too "conspiracy theory / cover-up" ish for my liking, but everything on TV is about conspiracy theories and cover-ups these days, so I wasn't overly irked.
The original was going perfectly well for the first half of its run ... and then they just started making it up as they went along. The final episode is the TV equivalent of being slapped round the face with a wet haddock for 45mins, while someone giggles at you. Irksome in the extreme.
the original was meant to be 7 episodes written by regular writers but the americans wanted more then changed their minds when seeing what was being produced. Episode 16 was originaly episode 6 and already filmed before extending the series hence the Leo McKern shaving scene because he had shaved off his beard after filming episode 16/6 that occured in episode 17.
McGoohan has often said that he only ever wanted 7 episodes , but there is no way that Grade would have put up the funds for a show that was not going to sell in the US and a 7 part series would not sell.
The initial batch was 13 with an eye to go on to a second batch of 13 but McGoohan admitted to Grade that he could not continue with the show as it was exhausting him , which is not surprising seeing as he started interfering in other episodes , arguing onset with directors and firing them in front of the cast and crew and scrapping episodes he didn't like.
Grade allowed him to end with 4 additional episodes but The Girl Who Was Death , Living In Harmony and Do Not Forsake are filler that has little connection to the rest of the series and all 3 can easily go unmissed when viewing the series.
Fall Out concluded McGoohans ideas for the series but unfortunately most of the other episodes were made without the knowledge that the series was intended to be an allegory as McGoohan did not pass this info onto any other writers or directors , instead just simply giving them pointers