Arguably the best single episode of the uber-classic "The Prisoner" television series was "A. B. and C." from 1967. In this episode, Number Two and a brilliant, rather sympathetic researcher manipulate Number Six's dreams while viewing them, in an attempt to determine (of course) why he resigned -- with predictably embarrassing results.
"The Prisoner" is currently free on #YouTube Movies & TV. You can watch this episode right now, right here! Be seeing you. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keGKsFqQUxc
@lauren this was such a weird but great and fun series. The look itself is dated, but the stories are pretty solid, at least till the series finale.
@kkeller @lauren Yes. While it was clear that he wanted the conclusion to be allegorical rather than a clean wrap-up, I never really understood what he was specifically trying to do with it.
I see the series as a whole as a battle between personal integrity and sham ideologies that are simply fancy dress for misrule, corruption and the will to power, and most of the series does speak to that. But I've never been clear on how the last one does.
Simplistically, you could go with "in the end it's all an utter farce, and no one is in charge -- but if anyone is, you are."
This goes along with an interpretation I've heard -- which there's no real reason to believe was intended -- of the voice-over dialogue which opened each episode:
...who are you?
The new Number Two.
Who is Number One?
You are Number Six.
That last comes across as an evasion and a non sequitur, but some commenters have interpreted it as:
"You are, Number Six."
Like I said, might not be what was intended but it sort of fits the thesis and the seeming "reveal".
@lauren @kkeller Certainly it's too cute by half, and McGoohan didn't really do cute. I'm under the impression, and he may have said as much but I don't recall where, that the last episode was simply a deliberate defiance of people's desire for an explanatory conclusion. He wanted the series to be thought provoking, but not to tell anyone what to think.
@pieist @kkeller @lauren A message of the final episode is that we're prisoners of ourselves (since Number 1 is revealed to be an alter ego of Number 6, and the address of the house is Number 1 Buckingham Place), and also that there is ultimately no escape (the door to 6's house opens automatically like a Village door, and the start is the same as the end making the whole thing a loop).
@kkeller @mathew @pieist There are (or were) on YT a long serious of behind the scenes videos cut apart from an old British documentary I believe, that goes into enormous detail regarding every aspect of every episode (including unused shots, musical cues, etc.) As I recall the last episode was largely the result of time just running out and having to cut things together way too fast.
In fact, I believe the editor noted that the final thunderclap at the end of the last scene (the repeat of him driving down the runway) was an editing error. When she apologized to Pat about that, he said it liked it and that it should remain.
@lauren @kkeller @pieist Unfortunately Lew Grade was obsessed with selling shows to the major US networks. So he often demanded 13 or 26 50-minute episodes when the budget wouldn't really cover it. Then when the show didn't sell like crazy, he'd cut it short over cost issues or force episodes to be made on a shoestring.
For example, for "Thunderbirds" he demanded the episodes be twice as long, for 1.5x the budget. And then it was canceled in season 2 after 6 episodes.
I'm delighted not to know about this and with luck can keep it that way. I did see the pilot for the US remake of The IT Crowd, and you should see my therapy bills.
(That said, i think I'd like to pitch "Reb Dwarf", about a Confederate ironclad that somehow gets launched into space in the 1860s.
Where's my free money, Netflix?)
@pieist @lauren yeah, I've read that too. But even then, those rushed episodes still seem better to me than the finale. And more importantly, they seem consistent with the tenor of the rest of the series. The finale just seems completely out of place. And not just because it's surreal and strange; the penultimate episode was also surreal and strange but is one of my favorites, and felt consistent with the rest of the series.