jay@npois.UUCP (Anton Winteroak) (02/25/85)
I have only seen the prisoner when it was first run, so some of my impressions may be a bit rusty. Still I faithfully watched every episode that was broadcast in the US of A. (there were four that didn't get shown here). As I recall on the surface level, the last episode of Secret Agent shows (Patric McG) working to save a scientist from the other side. The scientist tells him something that could destroy the world, and our hero decides to not tell anyone. (the scientist dies.) So he quits, and thus ends the series Secret Agent. The next season we have the prisoner, in which they try to get this valuable information out of him for 17 surrealistic weeks. (and fun too!) I think the prisoner started as a single episode of Secret Agent that got out of hand. It went on to become an intellectual tv series, and ended as the final artistic expression of McG. In this light I suggest that it can best be understood as a surreal view of the life of a work-aholic going through a mid-life crisis. Many things take on new light or meaning when seen this way. The numbers are of course the loss of identity we struggle against. Rover may represent a clinging wife (hence the Carman Miranda song at the end sung by Rover "Oh, Oh, Oh, I love you very much"). His need to escape from his obvious success, to just be himself, or to not conform perhaps makes this point best. One point that I am not especially clear on is whether "All you need is Love" being played during the gun fight scene in the last episode was simply ironic, or triply ironic. Whose choice was it on the Juke box?