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blakeyboy

The Prisoner

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Couldn't get to the top spot because of bloody Joe Dolce....

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......got carried away with the DJ 'feel' of  "It's been up there as No.6 for a few weeks"......

...maybe I should have gone with the Prisoner theme and claimed I was a free man...

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1 hour ago, blakeyboy said:

......got carried away with the DJ 'feel' of  "It's been up there as No.6 for a few weeks"......

...maybe I should have gone with the Prisoner theme and claimed I was a free man...

"I am the new No 2"

"Who is No 1?"

"You are No 6" 

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6 hours ago, 1949threepence said:

"I am the new No 2"

"Who is No 1?"

"You are No 6" 

Riishi and Liz chatting after the election?

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11 hours ago, blakeyboy said:

Couldn't get to the top spot because of bloody Joe Dolce....

Oh just shaddapayour face!

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419716273_Number6andRover.jpg.d03d4fe3d64f433e90a2fe54634505d7.jpg

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1 hour ago, Peckris 2 said:

419716273_Number6andRover.jpg.d03d4fe3d64f433e90a2fe54634505d7.jpg

Back in the day, I wrote a new series for the Prisoner, entitled Prisoner's Return - the clue to the theme of the series is in the title. There were 10 episodes in all, with basic outlines for two more. Unfortunately, ITC who owned the copyright at the time weren't keen to develop it, so the furthest it ever got was onto a website I designed around 2000 or so. Like my proposal, the website is now defunct!

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31 minutes ago, DaveG38 said:

Back in the day, I wrote a new series for the Prisoner, entitled Prisoner's Return - the clue to the theme of the series is in the title. There were 10 episodes in all, with basic outlines for two more. Unfortunately, ITC who owned the copyright at the time weren't keen to develop it, so the furthest it ever got was onto a website I designed around 2000 or so. Like my proposal, the website is now defunct!

Did you ever see the remake, which aired on ITV about ?15 years ago? It got panned, but mostly by fans of the original. Actually it wasn't half bad, and Ruth Wilson gave it her usual edgy glamour. Never even got repeated which is a shame.

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2 hours ago, DaveG38 said:

Back in the day, I wrote a new series for the Prisoner, entitled Prisoner's Return - the clue to the theme of the series is in the title. There were 10 episodes in all, with basic outlines for two more. Unfortunately, ITC who owned the copyright at the time weren't keen to develop it, so the furthest it ever got was onto a website I designed around 2000 or so. Like my proposal, the website is now defunct!

A great pity. I bet that would have been really interesting.

2 hours ago, Peckris 2 said:

Did you ever see the remake, which aired on ITV about ?15 years ago? It got panned, but mostly by fans of the original. Actually it wasn't half bad, and Ruth Wilson gave it her usual edgy glamour. Never even got repeated which is a shame.

No - never saw that. Again, a great pity.

On someone else's recommendation, I did see the original series for the very first time when it was broadcast on the Horror channel early this year. Absolutely brilliant. Started out watching under sufferance as I'd thought it might be not my style, but was gripped less than a quarter of the way in to the first episode. Patrick McGoohan was a great actor with a lot of presence. 

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13 hours ago, Peckris 2 said:

Did you ever see the remake, which aired on ITV about ?15 years ago? It got panned, but mostly by fans of the original. Actually it wasn't half bad, and Ruth Wilson gave it her usual edgy glamour. Never even got repeated which is a shame.

I did watch the remake, but I'm afraid that the 'modernisation' wasn't to my taste. The original was of its time, whereas the recent re-make didn't have much to mark it out as different from any other weird and wonderful sci-fi production. For me, it also didn't really have any kind of central theme or message.

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11 hours ago, 1949threepence said:

A great pity. I bet that would have been really interesting.

No - never saw that. Again, a great pity.

On someone else's recommendation, I did see the original series for the very first time when it was broadcast on the Horror channel early this year. Absolutely brilliant. Started out watching under sufferance as I'd thought it might be not my style, but was gripped less than a quarter of the way in to the first episode. Patrick McGoohan was a great actor with a lot of presence. 

OK, here's my take on the original and the suggested sequal.

The original series concerned the attempts by 'Number 6' to escape from the 'village', a surrealistic organisation which was responsible for kidnapping, imprisoning and brainwashing people who had vital information, or who discovered their existence. At the same time, the 'village' used advanced scientific techniques to maintain their control over those they imprisoned, including number 6. Number 6 generally managed to outwit or overcome the efforts to force him to conform to the standards of the 'village' and explain why he resigned from his job as a secret agent, and eventually escaped, destroying the 'village' as he did so.

My suggested revival resurrects the establishment of a 'village' in a modern setting, but now with number 6 on the outside in the normal world, where he learns of the re-establishment of the 'village'. He then sets out to find and destroy this new 'village' as he did the old, and the 'village' uses all its powers and technology to prevent him from finding them. In other words, my idea changes the original direction of the programme from a series of escape attempts, and inverts it into a quest, but with the same broad theme behind it. Each episode had its own encompassing title, which described the theme of the episode, as in the original, and each used a number of fantasy ideas to build the story. In each episode number 6 is thwarted by the village, but keeps on trying, getting closer all the time. At the end, number 6 discovers the new 'village' and attempts to destroy it, only for the village to say 'gotcha' and he finds himself a prisoner once again. Hence, the title 'Prisoner's Return' for the whole series. The end. A bit obvious perhaps?

What do you think?

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3 hours ago, DaveG38 said:

OK, here's my take on the original and the suggested sequal.

The original series concerned the attempts by 'Number 6' to escape from the 'village', a surrealistic organisation which was responsible for kidnapping, imprisoning and brainwashing people who had vital information, or who discovered their existence. At the same time, the 'village' used advanced scientific techniques to maintain their control over those they imprisoned, including number 6. Number 6 generally managed to outwit or overcome the efforts to force him to conform to the standards of the 'village' and explain why he resigned from his job as a secret agent, and eventually escaped, destroying the 'village' as he did so.

My suggested revival resurrects the establishment of a 'village' in a modern setting, but now with number 6 on the outside in the normal world, where he learns of the re-establishment of the 'village'. He then sets out to find and destroy this new 'village' as he did the old, and the 'village' uses all its powers and technology to prevent him from finding them. In other words, my idea changes the original direction of the programme from a series of escape attempts, and inverts it into a quest, but with the same broad theme behind it. Each episode had its own encompassing title, which described the theme of the episode, as in the original, and each used a number of fantasy ideas to build the story. In each episode number 6 is thwarted by the village, but keeps on trying, getting closer all the time. At the end, number 6 discovers the new 'village' and attempts to destroy it, only for the village to say 'gotcha' and he finds himself a prisoner once again. Hence, the title 'Prisoner's Return' for the whole series. The end. A bit obvious perhaps?

What do you think?

 

 

 

Not bad, although I'd vary that slightly by - yes - still having him on the outside, but also attempting to find out who is funding the operation and why. Also, what the big deal was in determining why he resigned. He gets nowhere with outside enquiries, so again sets out to find the village, and how it's so immaculately protected from the outside world - land, sea and air. There has to be a border zone as it's not an island. In real life this would attract the attention of nosey and curious outsiders. How are they kept out? I'd then have him in the village trying to get the information he couldn't get on the outside, and with agents outside the perimeter working on breaching it, so that locals can get in.

Ultimately, the village wouldn't be destroyed as such, but there'd be a mass incursion of outsiders. Need to put some meat on the bone however, and have a meaningful conclusion.

Also, a question which was never answered in the original series. How come the village appeared deserted in a couple of episodes, with just a cat remaining? Where did all the residents go? Remove any fantasy and make it as real life as possible.        

   

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Many apologies to all from me and on behalf of fellow forum members for the off topic posts. I think we got a bit carried away there.

I'm going to message @TomGoodheart to see if he will possibly move the errant posts to the "Nothing to do with coins" area, under a new thread title called "The Prisoner" 

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Mea culpa.

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23 minutes ago, 1949threepence said:

Many apologies to all from me and on behalf of fellow forum members for the off topic posts. I think we got a bit carried away there.

I'm going to message @TomGoodheart to see if he will possibly move the errant posts to the "Nothing to do with coins" area, under a new thread title called "The Prisoner" 

Good idea. It didn't seem to fit in with pennies, except for the penny farthing bicycle in the ending credits. I'm happy to continue on the prisoner theme, but elsewhere on this forum.

Edited by DaveG38

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On 8/5/2022 at 9:10 PM, DaveG38 said:

My suggested revival resurrects the establishment of a 'village' in a modern setting, but now with number 6 on the outside in the normal world, where he learns of the re-establishment of the 'village'. He then sets out to find and destroy this new 'village' as he did the old, and the 'village' uses all its powers and technology to prevent him from finding them. In other words, my idea changes the original direction of the programme from a series of escape attempts, and inverts it into a quest, but with the same broad theme behind it. Each episode had its own encompassing title, which described the theme of the episode, as in the original, and each used a number of fantasy ideas to build the story. In each episode number 6 is thwarted by the village, but keeps on trying, getting closer all the time. At the end, number 6 discovers the new 'village' and attempts to destroy it, only for the village to say 'gotcha' and he finds himself a prisoner once again. Hence, the title 'Prisoner's Return' for the whole series. The end. A bit obvious perhaps?

The ending is kind of appropriate, but the original had an ending which was the result of not knowing how to end it, which is why they came up with that totally psychedelic final episode.

Edited by Peckris 2

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40 minutes ago, Peckris 2 said:

The ending is kind of appropriate, but the original had an ending which was the result of not knowing how to end it, which is why they came up with that totally psychedelic final episode.

Yes, the ending was a bit odd. Effective, but odd.

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On 8/4/2022 at 10:07 PM, blakeyboy said:

Couldn't get to the top spot because of bloody Joe Dolce....

251483847_OVNRScrabble.jpg.b478b09ac93639da8e19ba9e85d36b0a.jpg

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14 hours ago, 1949threepence said:

Yes, the ending was a bit odd. Effective, but odd.

I think the clue to the main reason for this lies in the total number of episodes of the whole series, which was 17. I'm not sure that any other series has had such an odd number before finishing. My understanding is that the filming was incredibly expensive - it did use some cutting edge techniques for its time - and Lew Grade (I think it was) was getting nervous about the spiralling costs. Patrick McGoohan, whose series it essentially was, was told to wrap it up PDQ. Hence the last two episodes seem slightly disconnected from the rest.

It is also likely that these two were rather cobbled up in a hurry, with little real build up to them, and were likely hastily scripted around PMG's own, not completely clear, vision of how the whole thing should end. I seem to recall that there was originally envisaged that there would be 24 episodes made, which means 7 are 'missing.' To the best of my knowledge, there are at least 2 for which scripts, or at least story outlines, were produced, but were rejected at the time by PMG.

Whether these would have added to our understanding, I'm not sure, since the whole series was, I think, intended to leave the viewer guessing, even though some of the explanations were subtly there. For instance, in the final few seconds of the final episode, when the butler stands at the door of the prisoner's house, the door opens automatically, as doors did in the village, suggesting quite clearly, that for all the appearence of his escape, he was really still trapped. My view is that if anybody tries to discern explanations for everything that went on, they will drive themselves crazy because the explanations just aren't there, deliberately. That's what I liked about the whole thing. In my view there has been nothing remotely so unusual and interesting since.

Edited by DaveG38
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2 hours ago, DaveG38 said:

I think the clue to the main reason for this lies in the total number of episodes of the whole series, which was 17. I'm not sure that any other series has had such an odd number before finishing. My understanding is that the filming was incredibly expensive - it did use some cutting edge techniques for its time - and Lew Grade (I think it was) was getting nervous about the spiralling costs. Patrick McGoohan, whose series it essentially was, was told to wrap it up PDQ. Hence the last two episodes seem slightly disconnected from the rest.

It is also likely that these two were rather cobbled up in a hurry, with little real build up to them, and were likely hastily scripted around PMG's own, not completely clear, vision of how the whole thing should end. I seem to recall that there was originally envisaged that there would be 24 episodes made, which means 7 are 'missing.' To the best of my knowledge, there are at least 2 for which scripts, or at least story outlines, were produced, but were rejected at the time by PMG.

I don't know how accurate this is, but I once read that there were intended to be two series of The Prisoner (at least). The first series was to be 13 episodes, and they had already filmed the first two episodes of Series 2 - "Living In Harmony" and "The Girl Who Was Death" - which do have a different feel about them to the initial 13. However, for the reasons DaveG says, it wasn't taken up so they broadcast them immediately following the supposed end of Series 1. But they did need to end the show somehow, so McGoohan was instructed to do that, and he is listed as the writer for episodes 16 and 17, for which they also brought back Leo McKern as Number Two.

I'm not sure McGoohan even knew how it was all meant to end - if at all - which explains the very psychedelic and confusing final episode which left more balls in the air than they knew what to do with. The very end though, does make you think that he never did escape ... though whether that means The Village or - by analogy - from what society was becoming, the whole show being a metaphor of some kind, is left rather open-ended.

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3 hours ago, Peckris 2 said:

I don't know how accurate this is, but I once read that there were intended to be two series of The Prisoner (at least). The first series was to be 13 episodes, and they had already filmed the first two episodes of Series 2 - "Living In Harmony" and "The Girl Who Was Death" - which do have a different feel about them to the initial 13. However, for the reasons DaveG says, it wasn't taken up so they broadcast them immediately following the supposed end of Series 1. But they did need to end the show somehow, so McGoohan was instructed to do that, and he is listed as the writer for episodes 16 and 17, for which they also brought back Leo McKern as Number Two.

I'm not sure McGoohan even knew how it was all meant to end - if at all - which explains the very psychedelic and confusing final episode which left more balls in the air than they knew what to do with. The very end though, does make you think that he never did escape ... though whether that means The Village or - by analogy - from what society was becoming, the whole show being a metaphor of some kind, is left rather open-ended.

I also feel that the booming laughter which followed "I am not a number, I am a free man" was a cryptic message to us all. Much more true today, in fact, than it was back then.

#dem bones, dem bones, dem...dry bones, now hear the word of the Lord. I wonder what inspired that being included. 

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3 hours ago, Peckris 2 said:

I don't know how accurate this is, but I once read that there were intended to be two series of The Prisoner (at least). The first series was to be 13 episodes, and they had already filmed the first two episodes of Series 2 - "Living In Harmony" and "The Girl Who Was Death" - which do have a different feel about them to the initial 13. However, for the reasons DaveG says, it wasn't taken up so they broadcast them immediately following the supposed end of Series 1. But they did need to end the show somehow, so McGoohan was instructed to do that, and he is listed as the writer for episodes 16 and 17, for which they also brought back Leo McKern as Number Two.

I'm not sure McGoohan even knew how it was all meant to end - if at all - which explains the very psychedelic and confusing final episode which left more balls in the air than they knew what to do with. The very end though, does make you think that he never did escape ... though whether that means The Village or - by analogy - from what society was becoming, the whole show being a metaphor of some kind, is left rather open-ended.

Very nicely put. Now that you mention it, I think you are right about the 13 episodes. I also believe that PMG only had a hazy idea of the ending, maybe the general principles only, but in the haste to put something together he went with outrageously psychedic and iconically 1960s imagery, chucking anything into the pot that worked. It must have been fun to come up with.

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On 8/6/2022 at 10:36 PM, 1949threepence said:

Yes, the ending was a bit odd. Effective, but odd.

I thought the ending was complete rubbish, considering we'd been teased for all those episodes about him escaping. It was just nonsense and none of the built-up expectation they'd stoked up over all those episodes was resolved. Sorry, my one and only comment on the Prisoner!

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