Cult TV Episode Guides

[HawkMan]

10.  THE GENERAL
Number 2 this episode; Colin Gordon. ( left)

 

 

Number 6 — along with the rest of the Village population — is subjected to a new mind-altering education technology called "Speed Learn" which can instill a three-year university level course in history over a television screen in just three minutes.  A young man, Number 12 tells 6 all this at The Village café. It was invented and is "taught" by an avuncular individual known as "The Professor" who is nevertheless seen trying to escape from the Village along the beach at the episode outset. Number Six finds a tape recorder on the beach dropped  by the Professor as the Villagers chase him. 6 hides it in the sand and is driven back to The Village for the latest lecture that nobodyis permitted to miss.  Back in his cottage 6 sees the Professor on TV no worse for his ordeal,  telling the audience about the wonders of speedlearn and praising The General. A humming noise emanates from the TV and 6 seems hypnotised. When it stops the lecture is apparently over. Number 2 enters with guard  Number 2 tries to find the tape recorder, which he thinks Number Six has, but fails; he then quizzes Number Six on the lecture, and Six answers correctly. 6 can now reel off facts about the Napoleonic wars hitherto unknown to him. After Number Two leaves, Number Six goes back to the beach to find the tape recorder, only to find that Number Twelve has it. Number Twelve agrees to help Number Six.  12 seems a friendly guardian and hands 6 the tape. On the tape the professor states that speed learn is an abomination and slavery, and that The General must be destroyed.

 

 

At the mansion that the Professor and his wife live Number Six discusses art with the Professor's wife, sketching her in a general's uniform. He searches her house, finding busts she has carved of him and Number Two, and smashes a lifelike effigy representing the sleeping Professor. The wife is clearly a talented artist and is shocked and screams when 6 smashes a walking cane on the wax effigy of the Professor in the bed. She thought it was her husband. 2 states that the Professor is helping them prepare the next lecture. Clearly there's some coercion here,  the Professor and wife are prisoners too.
Number Six fears that Speed Learn could eventually be used for mind control. Number Twelve assists him by giving him a set of passes and a pen that will play a message about the professor's confession. Before the next lesson is to be broadcast, Number Six infiltrates the projection room in a labyrinth under the Village Town Hall,   and installs his own message. The pen 12 gave him contains a micro dotted message in a cylindrical metal tube hidden in the pen. He is detected and thwarted in this attempt, and the real message is broadcast.

Number Six is interrogated and refuses to reveal the complicity of Number Twelve. Number Two claims that the General will know who his accomplice was. "The General" is revealed to be a sophisticated, experimental mainframe computer which has purportedly been programmed to be able to answer any question put to it. As Number Two is about to ask who assisted Number Six, Number Six says that there is a question that the General cannot answer. Number Two arrogantly accepts the challenge; when Number Six feeds his brief question into the General, the computer begins to smoke out of sheer consternation. Fearing the worst, the Professor tries to shut down the computer, and as it begins to overload, Number Twelve tries to save him. But The General self-destructs, killing both men in the process. A distraught Number Two asks Number Six what the question was. The General, and Number Two's plans, were destroyed by a simple epistemological trick:

"Why?"

 

 

 

Edited April 18 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

11. A, B and C

Number 2 this episode Colin Gordon ( again)

 

A dark and stormy night sees 6 brought unconscious on a hospital trolley to a secret laboratory on the outskirts of The Village. Number 2 and a white coated Number 14 wait as 6 is brought in and laid out on the medical operation couch.
Number 2 recently had a very uncomfortable conversation with Number 1 on the phone, 1 wants 6 broken and is running out of patience.
In the lab is a dream viewing machine. Once a patient in a sleeping state is connected to it, their dreams can be probed and visualised on a huge TV screen. 6 is asleep and 2 and 14 watch 6's dreams . Not very interesting he's just dreaming of handing in his resignation at the London office of his former employer.
However 2 has compiled three dossiers of agents he believes 6 was going to meet after resigning and sell out to. The mysterious agents just labelled A B and C.
Number 14 has developed a drug that can manipulate dreams, 6 is injected with it and 2 wants 6 to meet all three in his dream, and 2 hopes to discover who he was selling out to if he hadn't been kidnapped and brought to the Village. Just for a second no more, 6 opens his eyes as 14 looms over him holding syringe, then he goes back to sleep.
A film of a party given by socialite Madam Engadine of Paris , a friend of 6, is fed into a projection slot on the dream viewing machine, and fed into 6's brain, possible due to 14's wonder drug.
The picture on the TV screen in the lab that 2 and 14 are watching shows 6 enter the party wearing a tuxedo, the drug works, his dreams are being manipulated.
Now 2 wants 6 to meet the first of his three candidates that he believes 6 was selling out to.
A reel of film showing "A" is placed in the machine and the image fed into 6's mind.

 

 

"A"is an old friend of 6, an agent who has recently defected. After 6 rebuffs "A's attempts to buy secrets from the newly resigned 6, "A" orders two thugs to take 6 out to his car. 2 and 14 watch intensely as 6 is driven away in the dream.
6 is dragged out the car at a deserted roadway, a fight ensues, and 6 wins. In the lab 2 is satisfied that "A" is not the or wouldn't have been the recipient of any deal. 2 orders 14 to move on to B. 14 resists , and says 6 must rest, until tomorrow evening.
The next morning 6 wakes back in cottage with no memory of the events, EXCEPT the momentary sight of 14 looming over him holding a syringe. He frantically looks at wrist, a needle mark is there.

Edited March 18 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

6 sees 14 at the cafe and tells her be recognises her from his sleep. She basically tells him to get lost.

 

6 visits 2 in the Green Dome office, and shows him the scar on his wrist 2 denies all knowledge of the cause. That evening 6 is drugged again when he drinks his tea and once again is connected up to the dream interpretation machine in the laboratory.

 

As before his dream manipulated so he is at Madam Engadine's party. This time agent "B" is introduced, female of Eastern European origin and another well known to 6. 6 and B dance at the party, this agitates Number 2 who wants him to get on with selling (or not ) his secrets to B. By connecting a microphone to the machine 14 speaks into 6's dream putting words in B's mouth.

 

B ( via 14) urges 6 to sell out to her, 6 is shocked , this doesn't ring true, it doesn't sound like the sort of thing B would ask.
6 leaves her to the mercy of " A" and his thugs who have returned.
2 is satisfied it wasn't her he was going to sell out to. 2 can't but help glancing at the red hotline phone here in the lab, a direct link to Number 1, 2 knows time is short if Number 1 isn't going to run out of patience, and get rid of him.
6 awakes next morning and sees two needle marks on his wrist. The only clue 6 has is that 14 is somehow connected to whatever is happening, he can't forget that image of 14 looming over him with a syringe. He sees her walking through the Village and follows her out of the main village into the surrounding woods, and a rock face with a metal door in it. The door slides open, 14 enters, walks down a corridor to the secret laboratory.
Number 14 efficiency personified spends time checking the equipment ready for the third part of the " 6 dream interrogation."
14 leaves the laboratory and back to The Village, and 6 emerges from an air duct that he climbed into from the outside and enters the lab.
He sees everything the machine, the syringes , two empty one still full, of 14's wonder drug and the three dossiers 2 has of A B and C. He picks up syringe and empties half of in sink and fills it up with water. He leaves laboratory prepared to sabotage that night's shenanigans.

 

Edited March 18 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

That evening in his cottage 6 pours drugged tea down sink, but nevertheless is drugged anyway, the Guardians foresaw this and put the drug in the tap water.
6 is laid out in the laboratory, this time the drug injected is weaker thanks to 6's tampering.

Who is "C"? Well 2 announces that they have no film of C to feed into the machine, whoever it is has kept themselves anonymous.
At the party, in the dream, 6 meets hostess Engadine in the arbor and she reveals she is C ! 2 is staggered , he had no idea, he suggests plans must be made to bring Engadine to the Village. 6's dream next goes to the French countryside as Engadine drives 6 to a mansion to meet her boss. 2 is ecstatic , another person, 14 wryly suggests calling this character "D"

In a deserted darkened street 6 meets this anonymous buyer of the secrets 6 has to sell. This figure is masked until 6 forcibly removes mask to reveal...Number 2 !!
In the laboratory 2 and 14 gasps in horror, then the realisation hits Number 14. 6 was taking the p***

 

 

He of course controlled this third evening because he wasn't properly drugged. Hilariously 6's dream self enters a dream laboratory to meet the dream versions of 2 and 14, he hands the dream Number 2 an envelope, inside are holiday brochures. He didn't intend to sell out after resigning he was planning a holiday. 6 from his SLEEP has beaten 2 and even in his DREAM TALKS TO 2 IN THE REAL LABORATORY ( WTF !!) 6's face looks out of the tv screen to face Number 2! He tells 2 he wasn't selling out, the premise that 2 had was false. The hotline phone in the laboratory rings, its Number 1 .....Number 2 seems to shudder in fear.

Edited March 18 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

12. DO NOT FORSAKE ME OH MY DARLING - the episode without McGoohan, made whilst he was away filming Ice Station Zebra. He returned to appear in a couple of scenes after the rest was in the can.
Number 2 this episode; Clifford Evans 

 

 

In an atypical teaser before a modification of the standard opening sequence (different music, the usual Number 6 / Number 2 dialogue is absent), two men sit in the office of a senior intelligence officer named Sir Charles Portland. They are analyzing photos by way of seeking clues that will lead them to locate a missing inventor named Professor Seltzman (later revealed to have developed a technology that can switch two people's minds into one another's bodies). They are unsuccessful.

A man referred to only as "Colonel" arrives at the Village and only then learns from a new Number 2 that his mission is to trade bodies with Number Six, using Seltzman's system. Number Six had been the last agent to have contact with Seltzman.
6 and The Colonel are placed on the Seltzman machine, two couches connected by complex machinery.
After the swap, Number Six (now in the Colonel's body, and retaining only his pre-Village memories) awakens in his old London apartment and soon sees an unfamiliar face in his mirror. His fiancée arrives and, of course, fails to recognize him.

 

 

He prudently restrains himself from enlightening her, but is shocked that the date is a year on from his last memory. Despite the shock, he realizes what has been done to him, maintains his cool, and sets about to regain his own body. After a visit to his former superiors (the most senior of them, Sir Charles Portland, previously seen in the teaser, Janet's father) avails him nothing because Sir Charles simply doesn't believe this is his agent in another body. 6/ Colonel attends his fiancée's birthday party. There, he retrieves an old photo lab receipt from her, which he had given her in pre-Village days. He implies his true identity to her with a kiss that somehow convinces Janet he is her fiancee. With the retrieved photos back at his flat,

 

 

they had previously been developed by Sir Charles' minions, and then returned to the shop, it seems—he uses an alphanumeric code system based on Seltzman's name to select certain photos which, projected together and viewed with a special filter, reveal the location of Seltzman. This turns out to be (the fictitious) Kandersfeld, Austria, to which Number Six promptly travels. Seltzman is believed—at least by Number Two and his superiors—to have perfected the reversal of the mind swap process. This is exactly what Number Two wanted, and, Number Six having been followed, both men are gassed into unconsciousness and returned to The Village.

The restoration of the identities, however, takes a final unexpected twist: Seltzman agrees to oversee the switchback, but actually does a three-party switch: the body of Number Six gets his mind back, the mind of the Colonel is transferred into the body of Seltzman, who then dies, and Seltzman transfers his own mind into the body of the Colonel, and then leaves on the helicopter before Number Two knows what is happening.

 

 

Edited March 18 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

13.  HAMMER INTO ANVIL
 

Number 2 this episode; Patrick Cargill 

 

Nunber 2 interrogates a stubborn female prisoner, Number Seventy-Three, in the Village Hospital. Frustrated, he attacks her, she screams, and Number 6 rushes to her aid. The commotion allows her to leap from her bed and kill herself by jumping out the first-floor window. Number Six swears to Number Two that he will pay for his cruelty.

 

 

Number Two forcibly has Number Six brought to the Green Dome and the two begin a war of nerves. Number Two quotes Goethe: Du mußt Amboß oder Hammer sein ("You must be Anvil or Hammer"). "And you see me as the anvil?" asks Number Six, to which Number Two answers "Precisely. I am going to hammer you." Already aware that he is being watched by the Village's hidden camera and spies at every turn, Number Six proceeds to act in a highly suspicious manner, as if he were some sort of spy or double agent. He takes six copies of the same record of Bizet's L'Arlésienne suite at the music store and plays them, eyeing his watch. He then writes out a message, that Number Fourteen retrieves a copy of, which claims to be from "D-6" to "XO4." Number Two is convinced that Number Six is a plant.
Number Two and Number 14 follow Number Six to where he drops a document in the cabin of the stone boat. They retrieve it, but the pages are all blank. After having them tested, Two suspects the technician of working with Number Six. Number Six then goes to place an ad (a quotation from Don Quixote) in the next issue of the Tally Ho. He then calls the head of Psychiatrics, posing as a superior who wants a report on Number Two's mental state. Two monitors the call and starts to become more paranoid at the behavior of Number Six and those around him. Later, Six asks the town band to play the Farandole from the same Bizet piece. He leaves a fake message in a dead drop that is from a deceased person, wishing him a happy birthday.

Number Two becomes increasingly agitated, wishing he could get away with killing Number Six.

 

 

 

Number Fourteen offers to do so, making it appear an accident, and challenges Number Six to a game of "kosho" — a Japanese, trampoline-based contact sport — but is unable to "accidentally" drown his opponent. Number Six leaves a cuckoo clock in front of Number Two's door, causing him to panic and summon a bomb squad. Six captures a pigeon, attaches a message to its leg and sets it free in the woods. The bird is intercepted by Number Two's forces, and Two sees that the message states that Six will send a visual signal the next morning. Six goes to the beach and sends his the visual signal (in light-flash Morse code) — a nursery rhyme with no apparent hidden meaning, all witnessed by Two.

Later, Number Six is able to trick Number Two into believing that Number Fourteen is conspiring against him. When the other keepers of the village cannot discern the hidden meaning in Number Six's messages, Number Two suspects everyone working for him of being part of a conspiracy. Number Fourteen fights with Number Six, who throws him out a window. In the end, Number Six confronts an unnerved and agitated Number Two, who expresses the belief that Number Six is really "D-6", a man sent by "XO4" to test his security. Feeding on Number Two's paranoia, Number Six charges Number Two with treason: if Number Two's belief was true, then he would be duty-bound not to interfere. At Number Six's suggestion, Number Two picks up the red hotline phone to call Number One, report his own failures and ask that he be replaced.

 

Edited March 19 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

14. LIVING IN HARMONY

Number 2 this episode...?

This episode is a Wild West allegory of all the other episodes of The Prisoner. Number Six is again a non-conformist and refuses to be a number or to blend in with the other members of the Village. He refuses to accept things the way they are and wants to escape and expose the Village.
The episode begins with a Western paraphrase of the regular opening sequence, with Number Six, dressed as a Sheriff, turning in his badge and his gun (i.e., resigning). Leaving town, without a horse but still carrying his saddle, he is attacked by several men in the countryside as the episode title "Living in Harmony" appears on screen, where one would expect to see the series' name. (The "I am not a number" dialogue that usually follows the title caption in other episodes is omitted.) Number Six wakes from his beating and finds himself in a strange Western town.

 

A Mexican tells him that he is in the town of Harmony. Number Six goes into a saloon and meets the mayor of the town, also called The Judge. He meets with an intense mute young man known as The Kid who guards the jail. We are also introduced to a saloon girl, Kathy.
After unintentionally agitating a mob into trying to lynch him, Number Six is taken into "protective custody." To satisfy the mob's bloodlust, the Judge allows them to lynch Kathy's brother.

 

She, fearing for Number Six's life, goes into the jail, distracts the Kid, steals the keys, then passes them to Number Six. He escapes, only to be lassoed and brought back to town by the Judge's henchmen. At an impromptu trial, the Judge announces that Number Six is free to go as he was only in protective custody, but Kathy is guilty of aiding a prisoner to escape, as she did not know he was merely in protective custody. The Judge then makes Number Six a deal: if he will become the sheriff of the town, Kathy is free to go. The Judge insinuates that she may not be safe with the Kid watching over her. Reluctantly, Number Six agrees and takes the badge, but refuses to wear a gun. The Judge, disappointed, plans to get him to carry a gun by making unarmed men attack him.
Number Six asks Kathy to escape with him, but while he is clearing the way the Judge gets the Kid to kidnap Kathy. However, the Kid takes it too far and strangles her to death.

Number Six finds her and buries her. He then turns in his badge but picks up the gun, has a showdown with the Kid and kills him. The Judge arrives with several armed men and upon learning of Kathy's death gives Number Six the ultimatum to work for him or be killed. Although Number Six picks off the Judge's men, he is then shot by the Judge. He awakens lying on the floor of the empty saloon. He is wearing his usual Village clothes rather than Western wear, along with headphones and a microphone. All the characters that he saw are present only as paper cutouts.

Number Six wanders groggily out of Harmony and finds that it is just an annex of the Village. He rushes to the Green Dome and finds the Judge (the new Number Two) and the Kid (Number Eight). Number Six glowers at them, notices Kathy (Number Twenty-two), and walks out disdainfully. Number Two and Number Eight discuss the failure of their experiment. Number Twenty-two is obviously distressed and rushes out of the Green Dome. Number Eight follows her back to the saloon, calls her "Kathy," and starts strangling her as if the role-playing were continuing. She screams. Number Six hears and rushes over, but too late. Number Twenty-two dies in his arms, in her last words wishing it had all been real. Number Two arrives and Number Eight is mentally unstable and the character of The Kid has taken him over. Seeing Number 2 ,( The Judge in his mind) he frantically throws himself off the saloon balcony to his death.

Edited March 19 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

15. THE GIRL WHO WAS DEATH

Number 2 this episode?
A cricket match ends in a player (Colonel Hawke) being assassinated with a bomb disguised as a cricket ball. Number 6 on an operational assignment, but it is unclear whether this is "real time", pre- The Village, or possibly another induced hallucination. Secret messages are passed to him at a shoeshine box. In a record shop, he receives an assignment to find a Professor Schnipps who has been working on a rocket that will destroy all of London. It turns out that Colonel Hawke was investigating the matter, which is why he was assassinated. He picks up where Colonel Hawke left off in another match, but manages to avoid the same fate. He finds a note to meet a mysterious person at the local pub; while there, he drinks from a glass that says You have just been poisoned. He then starts to drink numerous drinks to try and vomit out the poison. When he goes to the restroom, he gets another message to meet at the Turkish bath. While he is relaxing, a mysterious figure places a plastic dome over his head and locks his stall. Avoiding death, he now gets another message to go to the carnival, to the local fight. Number Six dresses up in a Sherlock Holmes costume with deerstalker hat and cape, with moustache and mutton chop sideburns. At the fight, he is picked for the next match and told by his opponent to go to the tunnel of love. He then hears the voice of a woman, which is a recording in his boat that is rigged with explosives.

 

He tracks down, and is tracked by, a seductive woman called Sonia, alias "Death". She leaves the amusement park with Number Six in pursuit.

 

They come to an abandoned village, where Sonia has set traps, in the butchers, bakers and candlestick makers. He successfully evades all of them,including being sealed in the candle stick makers with cyanide gas burning candles. He goes into a shed to avoid being shot, and rides a bulldozer towards a bell tower where Sonia is launching mortars at him. Sonia destroys the bulldozer with a rocket and departs.

Eventually, after faking his death, Number Six tracks Sonia to a lighthouse where Schnipps (dressed as Napoleon) and his associates are based. His lieutenants are dressed in Grande Armée uniforms and represent an apparently anti-London alliance composed of Scottish, Welsh, Irish, and Northern (particularly Yorkshire) marshals. Number Six sabotages their firearms and hand grenades, rigging them to backfire or malfunction. Captured, Number Six is tied up and left inside the lighthouse, which is revealed to be the rocket. As it is about to launch, he escapes and the rocket blows up without launching, killing his adversaries.

 

 

In the end, it turns out that the adventure was nothing more than a bedtime story which Number Six was telling to three children, two boys and a girl, in the Village nursery. Number Two (who looks like Schnipps) and his assistant (who looks like Sonia) were hoping that he would drop his guard and allow some clue as to why he resigned. But Number Six, after putting the children to bed, turns to the hidden camera and cheekily wishes: "Good night, children... everywhere."

Edited March 19 by HawkMan

[unapologetic pedant]

On 14/03/2024 at 20:53, HawkMan said:

Number 6 may have been John Drake of Danger Man, but McGoohan always denied it. Suspicion fell because admitting it was the same character would result in McGoohan having to pay royalties to Danger Man creator, Ralph Smart.

Acknowledged or not, the implied identity of the Danger Man agent was an initial hook. Without that link to the real world of espionage, The Prisoner would have been Alice Through the Looking-Glass. How many would have tuned in for a series of freewheeling mystifying allegories?

The governing motif was that all manoeuvres were staged with the primarily prosaic purpose of extracting information regarding the resignation of the captive from the secret service. 

This will be why the final episode provoked such controversy on its original showing. The prospect of a temporal dénouement meant viewers were willing to tolerate a high level of bewilderment en route. When the climax divulged only further bewilderment, rightly or wrongly, the more lucid and literal-minded felt they had been strung along.

[HawkMan]

48 minutes ago, unapologetic pedant said:

Acknowledged or not, the implied identity of the Danger Man agent was an initial hook. Without that link to the real world of espionage, The Prisoner would have been Alice Through the Looking-Glass. How many would have tuned in for a series of freewheeling mystifying allegories?

The governing motif was that all manoeuvres were staged with the primarily prosaic purpose of extracting information regarding the resignation of the captive from the secret service. 

This will be why the final episode provoked such controversy on its original showing. The prospect of a temporal dénouement meant viewers were willing to tolerate a high level of bewilderment en route. When the climax divulged only further bewilderment, rightly or wrongly, the more lucid and literal-minded felt they had been strung along.

You're right about the Alice reference. It was clear from the start that this wasn't a straight linear story. Too many clues were apparent that this was in effect not really happening. In Many Happy Returns time in the Village appeared to stop for the 6 weeks Number 6 was away. Multiple locations within the narrative were given for the Village location,  which of course is impossible. The series was on two levels, a spy in captivity level and a metaphorical level. Some episodes were commentaries on Education (The General) or politics ( Free For All). Those watching and seeing the metaphorical or allegorical level were not expecting a straight forward end. McGoohan basically abandoned the more linear story of a spy resisting efforts to make him talk for the last episode and gave us a metaphorical ending only. So I can understand people's dissatisfaction with the ending because as a linear story the end doesn't make sense or wrap up the story satisfactorily

McGoohan knew though precisely what he had done. In interview he stated he wanted viewers outraged and to stand up and say, " you can't do this to me." The controversial last episode worked really,  otherwise the series would have been forgotten by now, but is still capturing new viewers. BTW in the next few months two YouTube channels will have two young reactors watching the series for themselves and reacting to it, should be entertaining.

Edited March 19 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

16. ONCE UPON A TIME
Number 2 this episode: Leo McKern

 

The Number 2 from the prior episode " The Chimes Of Big Ben" returns to the Village. He calls his superiors and obtains permission to undertake a dangerous technique called "Degree Absolute" in a final attempt to break Number Six and learn why he resigned from his position as an intelligence agent. Number Six is put into a trance state, causing his mind to regress back to his childhood. He is taken to the "Embryo Room", deep below the Green Dome, filled with various props, as well as a caged room that contains living space and a kitchen. He, Number Two, and the Butler are subsequently locked into the room via a timer that will unlock the room after one week.

Number Two begins to use regressive therapy following Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man, using the various props to enact a series of psychodramas, with Number Two playing the authority figure (e.g., father, headmaster, employer) and Number Six the subject (child, student, employee). Each drama is aimed at trying to make Number Six explain why he resigned. During the first six of these, Number Two finds Number Six has developed an aversion to saying the word "six". Number Two also comes to like and respect Number Six as he learns more about him.

Roles that Number 2 plays are: 6's Olympic boxing trainer, first employer, and a Judge in each case 2 with varying degrees of firmness interrogates 6 to get the reason why he resigned.

 

 

On the final day, Number Two enacts the role of military jailer, harshly interrogating Number Six as a prisoner of war. Number Two's efforts seem to have effect as Number Six starts to blather on reasons for resigning, because too many people knew too much, including about Number Two. Number Two becomes agitated, and Number Six continues to call him a fool and an idiot. Suddenly, Number Six starts counting down from "six", and by the time he's reached zero, has regained full control of his mind. Already exhausted from his efforts, Number Two is shocked and collapses. He explains to Number Six that Degree Absolute, a well-known psychiatric technique, has its risks to the one performing the therapy if they have their own psychological problems. Number Six shows his understanding in a brief role reversal (by asking Number Two "Why don't you resign?"), much to Number Two's delighted amusement.

Number Two recovers and joyfully offers Number Six a tour of the Embryo Room. They end at the door timer, finding only five minutes remain before the room unlocks. Number Two becomes scared and pleads with Number Six to tell him why he resigned. Number Six remains quiet as Number Two goes to the kitchen area and pours them both a glass of wine. Number Six suddenly closes the door to the caged area, locking a panicked Number Two inside. The Butler takes the key from Number Two. Number Two paces the caged area while 6 screams "Die, Six, die!", until the timer runs out. Number Two falls over, apparently dead. The door to the Embryo room opens where the Supervisor waits. He tells Number Six they will need the body and then asks Number Six what he wants. Number Six only replies "Number One", and the Supervisor offers to take him there. He, Number Six, and the Butler depart the room.

Edited March 20 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

FINAL EPISODE

17. FALL OUT

After besting Number 2 at a battle of wills in "Once Upon A Time " at the apparent cost of Number Two's life, Number 6 requests he be taken to see Number One. He is taken by The Supervisor to a large cavernous chamber that includes a British assembly hall with a number of masked delegates, of which the Supervisor joins, and a large metallic cylinder with a mechanical eye, labeled "1". Six is shown to his seat, a large ornate throne, to watch the proceedings.

An MC acts as The President, and announces Six has passed the "ultimate test" and won the "right to be individual", but there are matters of ceremony involved in the "transfer of ultimate power". The caged area with Number Two's body is brought to the chamber; medical personnel recover the body, resuscitate him, and give Two a make-over. Number Two along with Number 48—a young modishly-dressed man—are presented as two different examples of "revolt" to the assembly. Number 48 refuses to cooperate and drives the assembly to sing a rendition of "Dem Bones" before he is restrained. Number Two reveals he too was abducted to the Village and spits at the mechanical eye in defiance. Both men are taken away.

 

 

 

The President then presents Number Six as a third form of revolt, but as "a revolutionary of a different calibre" to be treated with respect. Six is shown his home in London is being prepared for his return, and he is presented with traveller's cheques, a passport, and the keys to his home and car. The President calls on Number Six to lead them as his behavior has been exemplary. Six attempts to address the assembly but their shouting and banging drown him out.

Six is shown into the metallic cylinder. He passes transparent tubes holding Numbers Two and 48 along with a third, empty tube, each labelled as "Orbit". Climbing a stairway, he finds a robed man in a mask watching surveillance videos of Six. The man has a number 1 on his robe!! Six pulls off the mask to find a gorilla mask underneath, and then under that, a man seemingly identical to Number Six. The robed figure escapes into a hatch above. Six locks the hatch and recognises the cylinder is a rocket. He initiates its countdown, sending the President and Assembly into a panic, and a evacuation of the Village is ordered.

Six frees Numbers Two and 48, and along with the Butler, they gun down armed guards, making their way to the caged room which is revealed to be on the bed of a Scammell Highwayman low loader. They drive away from the Village as the rocket launches from the abandoned Village. Rover (the security of the Village) deflates and is destroyed (to the accompaniment of "I, Yi, Yi, Yi, Yi (I Like You Very Much)") upon exposure to the flames of the rocket's exhaust.

The four drive towards London. Nearing the city, Number 48 alights and proceeds to hitch-hike. Just outside Westminster Palace, the truck is stopped by the police. The three abandon it and leave their separate ways. Number Two enters the Palace by the Peers' Entrance, while the Butler escorts Six back to his home, where his Lotus 7 car waits. Six sets off in his car, while the Butler enters Six's home, its door opening in the same manner as the automatic doors in the Village. The episode ends with similar audio cues from the series' opening sequence, with shots of Six driving around London.

 

 

 

Edited March 20 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

       STAR COPS

A nine part BBC series created by Chris Boucher, a Dr Who and Blake's 7 writer. Set in 2027 on the Moon mostly and deals with the efforts of the ISPF, International Space Police Force, aka Star Cops, who keep law and order among early moon settlements. The feel of the show is very much to keep everything as realistic as possible, and the show makes some shrewd guesses as to advancement in science and communication. 

 

1. AN INSTINCT FOR MURDER
Career cop Nathan Spring isn't too chuffed to discover he's on a short list to take over as Commander of Moonbase Star Cops, but his bosses insist he attends interviews and training to represent Britain in an international competition to get the prestigious job. Whilst visiting the space Station The Choral Sea Spring is involved in investigating the death of a politician by suit failure whilst Space walking. A plan is exposed to sabotage Space suits to take the servicing contract away from the Russians. Nathan solves the case and unfortunately for him is therefore offered the job of Commander. A reluctant hero is appointed

Edited March 21 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

 

2. CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEAD
A supply ship has gone rogue, out of control and heading into deep space, the crew know they're dead with no fuel to correct their course and limited air. But was it an accident or did someone set out to kill them. Meanwhile a new U.S. Station is launched with the Americans warning that to try and pry into its purpose will be viewed as an act of war. On Earth Nathan's fiancee is assassinated, and cleverly these threads link up to reveal British Intelligence at its most ruthless.

 

Edited March 21 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

 

3. INTELLIGENT LISTENING FOR BEGINNERS
Disaster in the Channel Tunnel as two trains collide, an explosion at a chemical plant, both incidents preceded by strange poetry appearing on computer screens, " oh rose thou art sick, the invisible worm that turns in the night" Internet terrorists are at work, meantime Nathan has two of his officers exposed as corrupt and have to be fired. But when officer Pal Kenzy gets involved in stopping a hijacking, sacking her is difficult.

 

Edited March 21 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

 

4. TRIVIAL GAMES AND PARANOID PURSUITS
Doctor Harvey Goodman a geneticist has gone missing from the Station The Ronald Reagan, in fact the Americans running the station say they've never heard of him. A cover up is happening but why, and why has a module been removed from the Ronald Reagan and dropped into the sun. Tensions rise as Nathan attempts to install Star Cop officers on the station amid hostilities from the Commander of The Ronald Reagan who is involved in this cover up.

 

Edited March 21 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

5. THIS CASE TO BE OPENED IN A MILLION YEARS
A moonquake causes a rocket launch to go wrong , the vehicle carrying nuclear waste crashes onto the moon, but this was totally predictable, why didn't the launch company abort the mission. Investigations reveal the company's links to Sicily and the Mafia, and with money being paid into Nathan's bank account suspicion ferments that Nathan is turning a blind eye to smuggling. Was it toxic waste in the rocket cargo or something else?

 

 

 

Edited March 21 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

6. IN WARM BLOOD
A returning ship the Pluto 5 parks itself in orbit around the Moon. But the crew are all dead, in fact mummified. What happened? Have they brought back a virus. Investigations reveal they all died at the same time, to the second, when the cabin temperature hit 42 degrees.
The Japanese company owning the Pluto 5 are remarkably unhelpful in trying to discover the truth. The crew was subjected to something that went horribly wrong, something illegal.

 

 

Edited March 21 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

7. A DOUBLE LIFE
Embryos are stolen from a refrigeration unit on Moonbase, they belong to Arab leader Chamsia Asadi, a ruthless woman desperate to have children. The DNA evidence leads to James Bannnerman being the thief, unfortunately he is a concert pianist and was performing at the Albert Hall when the theft occurred. So a mystery, how can Bannerman be in two places at once? He is kidnapped by Asadi's thugs and threatened with hand mutilation unless he returns the embryos.

 

8. OTHER PEOPLE'S SECRETS
Nathan wants his staff to undergo psychiatric vetting, an exercise to reassure visitors to Moonbase. Star Cops officers are pretty furious with Nathan, especially as the psychiatrist is Dr Parr , a tactless rude nosey woman, and an ex wife of Colin Devis , Star Cop. Geoffrey Bayldon ,Catweazle (see photo) appears as Woolfhart, an aging official depressed and seemingly in need of counselling. Chaos ensues as a section of the base decompress as a vandal who really needs Dr Parr 's help is wrecking the place.

 

9. LITTLE GREEN MEN AND OTHER MARTIANS
Final episode, as journalists come to the moon to investigate an amazing discovery on Mars. A Mayan sculpture found buried on Mars. Did ancient Martians visit Earth and take back with them Mayan culture. Is this some elaborate hoax , if so why have both pilots who brought the sculpture to the Moon died in suspicious circumstances. Nathan is off to Mars himself to extend the Star Cops influence. When he gets on board the Mars bound ship, which has the sculpture on it hidden in the hold....BANG!!! It blows up ...all dead. A Mayan curse ? A Martian plot or something else?

THE END

Edited March 21 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

MOONBASE 3

 

1973 BBC 6 part mini series, a scientific research base on the moon faces scientific and exploration puzzles.

 

 

 

 

1. DEPARTURE AND ARRIVAL

 

Astronaut Harry Sanders suffers a mental breakdown while piloting a shuttle from the Moon back to Earth, causing an accident that kills him and his passenger, Moonbase 3 director Tony Ransome (Michael Lees). Under political pressure to close the Moonbase following the deaths, the Director-General of the European space programme appoints David Caulder to take over as Director of Moonbase 3 and investigate the accident.

 

2. BEHEMOTH

When two seismologists mysteriously vanish in the Mare Frigoris region, Caulder bans all travel into the area, a decision that upsets Dr Heinz Laubenthal (Peter Miles) who is conducting research in the area but won't reveal what he is working on. Some time later, Laubenthal is killed in an explosion in his laboratory. Investigations reveal that the lab walls were breached from the outside and strange tracks are found leading from the lab in the direction of the Mare Frigoris. As rumours of space monsters begin to disrupt life on the moonbases, Caulder leads a team into Mare Frigoris in search of the truth.

 

 

 

Edited March 21 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

3. ACHILLES HEEL.

While Caulder is pressured to deliver results from Moonbase 3's research programme under threat of budget cuts, the CORA radio astronomy project is thrown into disarray by a series of accidents. As the situation develops it becomes apparent that one of the three CORA scientists – Adam Blaney , Bill Knight and Kate Weyman  are suffering from a mental breakdown and is sabotaging the project.

 

 

 

4. OUTSIDERS 

 

Faced with an inspection ahead of potential budget cuts, Caulder's hopes of demonstrating that the Moonbase 3 research programme is worthwhile lie with two brilliant, but erratic, researchers, Stephen Partness and Peter Conway  both of whom are showing evidence of cracking under the strain.

 

Edited March 21 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

5. CASTOR AND POLLUX

While Caulder explores the possibility of participating in a joint expedition to Jupiter the Russians, an accident during a routine docking manoeuvre with a satellite leaves a shuttle with Tom Hill on board tumbling out into deep space. Caulder mounts a rescue mission but must convince the Russians to help him.

6. VIEW OF A DEAD  PLANET 

Controversy surrounds the Arctic Sun Project, a plan to detonate a hydrogen bomb above the Arctic Circle to melt the icecaps and open up new land for development. When the project is initiated, all contact with Earth is lost as it becomes enveloped in a strange mist. The inhabitants of the Moon colonies struggle to come to terms with the possibility that Earth has been destroyed and they are all that's left of humanity.

THE END

 

 

Edited March 21 by HawkMan

[HawkMan]

THE MAN IN ROOM 17

Just a quick word about this series , I'm still in the process of watching this for the first time.

Found this series by luck really.
Amazon sent me an email recommending this.
Three series of spy stories,crime stories, with an unusual twist. The protagonists Oldenshaw and Dimmock never leave a room in Scotland Yard, the aforementioned room 17. Every scene of our two heroes is in this room. However these are powerful guys. The chief of the Met.London Police has to politely knock on the door to gain admittance. Oldenshaw and Dimmock can pick up one of the numerous phones they have and give orders to agents all over the world. They're like chess masters moving pawns around. Obviously it would be dull to just have the whole show in room 17, actually only about 20 minutes of the 50 have them on screen, the rest is the agent of the week being instructed and guided by Oldenshaw and Dimmock. The plots are often complex, mostly actually set abroad, the sort of plots you'd get in any ITC series, but everything guided by these 40 somethings in London who spend a large amount of time arguing while working out schemes to topple dictators, steal valuable papers, snare crooks etc.
Three series made , 1 and 3 with Richard Vernon and Michael Aldridge ,series 2 with Denholm Elliott playing Imlac Defraits replacing Dimmock as Aldridge was taken ill.
Plenty of top British talent playing either the agent in the field of the week or one of the villains.

Oldenshaw  and Dimmock plot how to topple villains without leaving room 17.

Anthony Hopkins made an appearance.

Series 3 the pair moved out of Scotland Yard and were operating out of a university office, I've actually not got round to seeing this series yet, but I believe it's a similar format to first two series.

 

EPISODE 1 ON YOUTUBE 

 

 

Nice review of the series;
Review from WordPress.com

The Man in Room 17 (1965-1966) inverts the locked-room mystery in a clever way: it’s not the crime that occurs in the locked room, it’s the detection. It’s about two criminologists (why, one wonders, is the title of the series singular rather than plural?) whose skills are so rarefied and irreplaceable that they remain sequestered inside a chamber deep in the confines of the British government apparatus. On paper it sounds a bit like the American series Checkmate (1960-1962), which was created by a prominent British novelist, Eric Ambler, and had some vague pretensions toward emulating brainy literary whodunits. But Checkmate saddled its plummy British sleuth (Sebastian Cabot) with a pair of dullard underlings who spent most episodes getting conked on the head. The Man in Room 17 comes closer to fulfilling the rigor of its premise. Even when the crimes are routine, the dialogue is allusive and witty, and the intellectual vanity of the heroes is something no American series could conceive. Oldenshaw (Richard Vernon) and Dimmock (Michael Aldridge) – the first stuffy and acerbic, the other intense and arrogant – not only never get their hands dirty, they seem to revel in the cushiness of their surroundings. The two men evince no masculine vanity, no aspirations to physical courage. The only other regular character, portly, easily-flustered Sir Geoffrey (Willoughby Goddard), isn’t the bulldog one might expect, but an ineffectual liaison to the higher-ups in the government. He’s less of a boss than a glorified manservant.

Sir Geoffrey somewhat reluctantly takes a case to the supersleuths in the opening scene of the first episode, which is cannily designed to emphasize the secrecy and exclusivity surrounding Room 17. After that, the series largely avoids showing any of the bureaucratic tissue connecting Oldenshaw and Dimmock to the legal system. The show’s creator, Robin Chapman, isn’t interested in the mythology around Room 17 (which would be an irresistable temptation if the show were remade today), but in the limits imposed by the claustrophobic premise. Like the corpulent Nero Wolfe, these puppetmasters can’t operate without tentacles in the outside world. The easy way out would have been to assign them a regular legman, but instead the Room 17 gents recruit a different proxy for each operation – often through blackmail, trickery, or some other dubiously ethical machination. In one episode, their operative is discovered and killed by the bad guy. Dimmock and Oldenshaw react with shock and anger but not remorse. The episode “The Bequest” finds the fellows at their most mischievous and sinister. An American is advised to buy a chemical formula known to be fraudulent, and Room 17 finds this hilarious. Later Oldenshaw has the option to rescue an imprisoned operative but declines. “We always disavow our agents,” he shrugs.

The idea of the top-secret crimefighter’s lair isn’t unique – think of the Batcave, or the kid-lit characters the Three Investigators, whose hideaway is a mobile home deep inside a junkyard, accessible only by secret passage. Room 17 is an irresistable hangout, by stuffy bow-tied genius standards. There are no windows and one foreboding metal door, but also some comfy leather couches and a "Go" board. (The fellows play regularly, and "Go" pieces inspired the opening title graphics. I guess the idea was that chess was child’s play for these brainiacs.) A pleasure of visiting Room 17 today is trying to puzzle out how its occupants acquired and analyzed data back in the analog era. Somehow, via daily newspaper deliveries and just a handful of file cabinets and reference books (the prop budget was sparse, apparently), all the world’s knowledge is at their fingertips.
 

The bulk of The Man in Room 17’s cases involve espionage of one sort or another, which is probably a shame; it dates the show within a certain skein of Cold War paranoia, and attaches it as a sort of also-ran to the sixties spy craze. It offers an occasional frisson of the fanciful glamour of Bond, but lands closer to the grit of Le Carré. In the best of the first year’s segments, “Hello, Lazarus,” the men suspect that an industrialist has faked his own death in a plane crash, and set out to lure the fugitive into revealing himself. The script by Chapman and Gerald Wilson emphasizes the extent to which Room 17 operates without a mandate – Sir Geoffrey and his superiors do not share the men’s view that their quarry is still alive, and yet Oldenshaw and Dimmock brush that off and set to work anyway. The glee that Dimmock takes in manipulating the world bond market to solve a relatively inconsequential crime, and his not-terribly-sheepish concession that this represents a self-indulgent folly, are very funny. The writers permit the audience to consider that their protagonists may be ridiculous or even dangerous. Another standout 1965 entry, “The Seat of Power,” has a startling last-act twist, in which the men realize that the true target of an enemy’s up-to-that-point routine espionage operation is them: the whole scheme was designed as bait to flush them out of hiding, and it almost works. If the series were in color, you could see just how pale Dimmock and Oldenshaw turn when the caper suddenly acquires the life-or-death stakes that their isolation was designed to prevent. Though it is primarily procedural and apolitical, what is most intriguing about The Man in Room 17 is that Deep State subtext. It is, in the most literal way imaginable, about how the world is largely run by nondescript men in three-piece suits, invisible to most of us and subject to no one’s oversight.

 

 

Edited March 21 by HawkMan

[unapologetic pedant]

Not previously acquainted with any of these latest three. I'm always interested in the original broadcast timeslot. Which day and whether early or late evening. Gives a sense of the place the programme occupied, what it was trying to accomplish and whom it was aimed at.

Re watching old TV series DVDs -

Had a brief buying spree around a decade ago. One Amazon recommendation led to another, etc. Eclectic childhood mix of fondly-remembered, half-remembered, dimly-remembered productions.

With each purchase, unwittingly found myself settled into a routine of one episode per day at roughly the same time. Of course in most cases the erstwhile order would have been weekly not daily. Nonetheless I felt no appetite for second helpings and certainly not tempted to binge-watch the whole lot.

Which begs the question, were these series consciously devised for consumption in small doses with gaps in between? Or did growing up in the analogue era condition our minds to appreciate the value of delayed gratification? 

[HawkMan]

12 hours ago, unapologetic pedant said:

Not previously acquainted with any of these latest three. I'm always interested in the original broadcast timeslot. Which day and whether early or late evening. Gives a sense of the place the programme occupied, what it was trying to accomplish and whom it was aimed at.

Re watching old TV series DVDs -

Had a brief buying spree around a decade ago. One Amazon recommendation led to another, etc. Eclectic childhood mix of fondly-remembered, half-remembered, dimly-remembered productions.

With each purchase, unwittingly found myself settled into a routine of one episode per day at roughly the same time. Of course in most cases the erstwhile order would have been weekly not daily. Nonetheless I felt no appetite for second helpings and certainly not tempted to binge-watch the whole lot.

Which begs the question, were these series consciously devised for consumption in small doses with gaps in between? Or did growing up in the analogue era condition our minds to appreciate the value of delayed gratification? 

Moonbase 3 episode 1

Star Cops episode 1

I can recommend these three if you want well written classic drama. Star Cops was as good as sabotaged by the BBC. In 1987 when the beeb were attempting to cancel Dr Who they had a low opinion of Sci Fi and Star Cops had a ridiculous transmission time of 8.30 to 9.25 on BBC 2. So any viewers watching it would have had to leave the 8pm offering on BBC1 or ITV and miss the first half of the 9pm offering. Not surprisingly it didn't get good viewing figures. But it was always well regarded and recently full cast audio adventures with the original cast have been produced.

Both Star Cops and Moonbase 3 were produced by Dr Who production team. So Star Cops feels like 80's Who and Moonbase 3 like 70's Who.

 

        

 

Edited March 22 by HawkMan