ggr@cord.UUCP (Guy Riddle) (02/10/85)
# One thing I always felt was a bit "off" in THE PRISONER: With a number # like "6", he should have been high in the ruling heirarchy, with duties # to perform in the running of the Village, and subordinates under his # control, and for whom he should be responsible. This doesn't jibe with # the reason for him being put in there. I recall him being pressured to # take part in certain Village activities, and otherwise "play his role", # which he resisted. Having an uncooperative low-numbered person would # put a crimp (cramp?) in the functioning of the Village. I always thought it # would have been better if he had been "Number 47" or "Number 238" or # something, instead of "Number 6". # # Will Martin Ah, but that was part of the challenge. Number Six had to "discover who are the prisoners and who the warders". It would have been too easy if one were assured that all people with numbers < N were on the side running the Village -- no one would trust them. [cf. the episode titled "It's Your Move" for Number Six's approach to this question.] However, the magnitude of the number did relate, in a broad way, to how important the person was, regardless of which side they were on. If you met Number 113B (there was one, really) you knew he was a pretty small fish, and key figures had numbers like 8, 12, and 24. But to confound any rule you might make up, there were those characters who didn't go by their numbers, if they had any, such as The Professor, the Colonel, Alison, Roland Walter Dutton, and, of course the Butler. === Guy Riddle == AT&T Bell Laboratories, New Jersey === ggr.btl@csnet-relay.ARPA ihnp4!ggr
mikey@trsvax.UUCP (02/14/85)
I didn't see the last show of the prisoner. Someone told me it had a real strange ending where he was schizo and was also #1. mikey at trsvax