Episode 14: The Prisoner (1967) Episodes 6-7

Hi there. I'm Chris Dashee and I'm just fired, and we are the host of the One Season Show, a podcast where we take a look at TV shows that only lasted one season. Each month we'll taggle several episodes of the show. In this episode, we are going too more into the prisoner with ABC and the General. Yeah, this is a show that exists that we're watching, and this puts us I think, right near the halfway point of the show actually as well.

Yeah, sixteen episodes correcteen seventeen episode, seventeen episodes. Yeah, this is um right right near the halfway point. So let's uh, let's get right to it with ABC in the General already been shot. I know. That's all I get.

I'm five, and that's all I could think. Oh wow, Patrick mcgollan is the prisoner trapped in a strange, terrifying prison. A lot of people are curious about replies behind your resignation. They want to know why he was sucking the left man like he was with a great deal on the open market. The information of your head is priceless.

I don't think you would as what available property of the cap what available property of the cop? So ABC is directed by Pat Jackson, written by Anthony Skeen. Colin Gordon plays Number two, and it's actually interesting Number two is played by the same actor in both of these episodes, which is a little odd for this show because up until this point we've seen only essentially a rotating cast of people playing number two. Right, and given that we you know, the order, the six of one order that we're following, interesting that they put these two makes sense. Yes.

Yeah. It also stars Sheila Allen as Number fourteen and Katherine cath as a woman who knows number six quite well. So this episode essentially takes place inside of a dream manipulation machine where they are where Number two and Number fourteen are attempting to figure out why Number six resigned from his position through the use of introducing pull into his dreams through tapes. Hence the A, B and C A, B and C all indicate a person that they introduce into his dreams. It's interesting episode because for once it's it's actually doing something that is both sci fi and different from what we've been seeing upen to this point.

Yeah, I really liked this episode. Actually, yeah, I thought a large part of why I liked this episode is that it's all taking place within the village. It's all of its purpose, all of its characters, everything we're doing is taking place in the village. And what I mean by that is every episode we've watched pretty much up till now is Number six trying to escape the village. So we don't really we see some of what's going on in the town.

We of course meet people, we know, they have elections there, there are some things, But this, I don't know, this just feels more about the village, and it feels more like Number six is I don't know, maybe starting to get used to being there and not you know, his main focus is not escape in this because it's more so trying to figure out, you know, how these people are inside of his dreams, which in itself is a really interesting content, really interesting plot device, because we haven't really seen any type of, like you said, more sci fi you know, tech other than these ridiculous phones and just like the futuristic aesthetic to everything. But now we're getting actual Yeah oh I am the rougher, Yes, but now we're getting actual like drugs and tapes and so would she you know.

Number fourteen injects Number six with this serum that allows his brain to be manipulated, which introduces a whole new realm of implications. So, yeah, I thought that this episode was fun. I like the fact that because we got to go into Number six's dreams, we aren't just you know, bouncing back between his apartment in the village in Number two's office. We get to see sort of the outside world. I liked all the fight sequences in these I thought that they were really fun.

I think that Patrick McGowan is particularly charismatic in this episode. I think that he seems like he's having fun in this episode. And yeah, I so what did you dig it as well? Yeah? I liked it a lot.

I mean, I'm pretty much in agreement with everything you have said about it. You know, it's a It's an interesting, fun episode that does a lot more with the setup and the framing device than any other episode does. I mean, again, utilizing kind of future ishtech is it works in the episode's favor, because, like you said, a lot of these episodes have been very much one note, the same thing over and over and over again. Stuck in the village, tries to escape, can't escape because of X y Z reason and I like that this episode isn't that, because if it were that, I would I don't know, I mean, I need something more from these episodes at this point, because we're pretty much halfway into the show, and if every episode was the same thing from the halfway point to the end, I would be getting rather frustrated, right, But it's not.

I mean, it's it's a lot more it's a lot more interesting, and you know, ultimately, when you have an episode like this that does something out of the ordinary for the rest of the show so far, it does stick out in a positive way. Yeah, And as I was watching this episode or these two episodes, I was just kind of thinking about the show up to this point, and I think that it's a show that I mean, yes, I am enjoying it, but yes, agreed that because we're watching it so, you know, continuously and back to back, the same meaness of each episode does become very apparent very quickly. But I do think that, like if if this show were just something that I tuned into randomly, you know, almost almost in a way you would a sitcom where if you miss a few episodes it's not a huge deal.

I think that it might be more enjoyable because I'm spacing it out, and I'm kind of because I enjoy the world within each episode, I enjoy being there. But yes, as a series, as a whole, it's not really going anywhere, and that you know that that is a narrative problem problem. But you know, as individual little maybe even sort of like one off stories where number six is sort of just traversing this weird village land. I think that that could have been if they had committed more to that sort of premise where it's just it'sn't the same conceit each time where he's trying to escape. It can be it could be a different story, but still just be one offs each time.

Yeah, No, you know, like you said, what's weird about this show is obviously they redid it in two thousand and nine to lesser success. Apparently. I mean again, we haven't gotten around to watching it, and I think at some point we should probably at least watch an episode or two to comment on it. But this is the kind of show that needed week to week continuity because of the inherent nature of the storyline and because this show came out when it came out in the late sixties, it wasn't beholden to the kinds of storytelling ideas and essentially storytelling norms that we have in you know, twenty twenty. And so without those storytelling norms, you have a story like this where it, for all intents and purposes, should be connected every week it should be building to a finale or at least a mid season finale and then a you know, a final series finale.

But because of when this show came out, it doesn't have those kinds of things because shows like Star Trek we're out at the same time time is this, and Star Trek never had like a over you know, a season arc for the characters, or a season mythology. That's great, that's a new idea, that's an that is a that is an idea that has come around in the last thirty forty years of television and its TV. Yeah, it's not, it's not. Wasn't the expectation then, and so you can't fault the show for it. But sitting here in twenty twenty, it's hard to look back and not want that thing, you know, not want that from the show.

Well, I mean even wanting more, like you said, Star Trek is out around this time, and you're right, yeah, Star Trek. The original series doesn't really have too many you know, maybe they have a couple, you know, multi part episodes, but they don't have there's there's not a full character arc through through everything. Everybody's pretty much who they are um. But even still each episode is at least entertaining and fun because we're going to new worlds, we're seeing people were doing new things, and we have like these characters that we build a relationship with and we like, you know, some of their eccentricities and we come to love those. With this, I'm kind of reminded of a little bit of Kitchen Confidential, where we're teetering this weird line where like how Kitchen Confidential was teetering a strange line of sitcom and maybe dramedy, but it also failed to have like a really decent and consistent story arc and character development.

Everybody just kind of reset from episode to episode, and that's kind of what's happening here. I think that the Prisoner, at least for me, is maybe succeeding a little bit, because I do feel like there's some kind of progression happening at least within the characters and I do think that, like, as we're seeing different number twos come around, we're seeing that some of them are getting more frustrated, and so we realize, you know, as number six is having an effect on what it's going on here and he is starting to grate at them. So for me, I don't know, I kind of like to watch that slow unraveling. But yeah, it's it's weird because we're in this middle ground and even still like Catching Confidential, that show was around even before like peak TV, like right before it, sure, but we were still very much like you know, in the late nineties early two thousand spin of sitcoms, and so we were just kind of coming out of that.

And I think that it's really interesting to look at TV in this way in these different decades and kind of see how it was evolving, because we know the shows that were out in the sixties and they were all, yeah, you're a little twenty thirty minute, wholesome, family friendly episodes of Bewitched and Lucy and all that stuff, and everybody pretty much resets and then we get shows like The Twilight Zone, which are also one offs, but they're more serious and they're more intentional with what they're trying to say, they're not just yeah, sure you're watching a new story every week, but that new story has a message and has something that it's trying to hammer home to you. It's not just the sitcom to make you laugh for thirty minutes and then forget about later.

I mean, this show really would have benefited from not better writing. But I mean it's clear they didn't. I mean, again, we've touched on this now several times. It's clear that they didn't have any idea where this show was going right, and that's a failure of Patrick McGowan and other creators on this you know, other showrunners and producers on this show. That a large part of blame lays at their feet, right, And a large part of it too, is this show is very ambitious for nineteen sixty eight, nineteen sixty so like it the just the amount of detail that's going into the set design, and this is something that's you know, really not touched on much in TV shows of the sixties, where they were all done pretty much within sound stages in one or two rooms.

You know, Max, we're getting this true exactly, but now we're getting this whole world, the village is and creating like you know, all these different textures and atmospheres, and I think that they really succeed in that. And I think that a large part of this shows, you know, liability for me is that atmosphere and aesthetic and the world that it's built that I don't mind being lost in it, even if it kind of seems to be you know, meandering and not going too many places. But if this show lacked that, I think that it would be much more difficult for me to get through. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, again, you know, there's a lot of positives with the show.

I just think that, you know, when you look at an episode like this that has broken the mold of the show, because the show has done almost not nothing creative, but it hasn't broken its own mold in the last several episodes. When you see an episode like ABC, it is so different that it makes me wish more of the episodes we'd watched up until this point were like this episode, and they were taking chances and doing interesting different things as opposed to just showing the daily lives of the people in the village. But we don't need to see that five times over one or two episodes, maybe, but not five of the last six episodes, right, and then we get onto the next episode, yeah don't we. So The General is directed by Peter Graham Scott, written by Louis Grief, stars once again Colin Gordon as Number two and John Castle as well.

A learning process becomes the village's newest fad. But Number six is sure that Number two is using it as a brainwashing tool. Yeah, I guess that's what this episode is about. Sure, it sure doesn't seem like it. Why not this episode is the worst episode we've watched so far.

Yeah, it kind of, it really is. And there's a variety of reasons to that. One for me being and like, I know, I know that we've mentioned. We just mentioned here that it's interesting that they have the same actor applying Number two in these two episodes. I'm not a fan of this version of Number two so much.

I don't find him particularly engaging or interesting to watch, where some of the other ones were, you know, at least more a little more flamboyant and fine and engaging or something. Yeah, he's very very bland, Yes exactly. He's a bureaucrat villain, and he's boring and that, whereas Number two is usually kind of like the fun spot that pops up in a lot of these episodes. Unfortunately, this is not one of those, and we do we are stuck with him for two and then yeah, we go into this episode where Number six I has to kill the general because reasons I don't know. I honestly don't know what's happening in this episode for ninety percent of it.

And like my note card that I take notes on for each of these episode ABC is like, you know, pretty full this one. I have three lines and the last one is why. And this episode ends with somebody just saying why, why why? And that's exactly how I felt at the end of it. Yeah, it's it's it's you know, we've talked in the past about on this show with the Prisoner several of these episodes that are kind of unintelligible with what's going on.

This episode is completely unintelligible. Yeah. I really don't even know, quite honestly what to say so much about it because I don't really know what was going I know that Number sixcess to kill this villager, this cheese fillager, this general, and that's about it. I mean, did you get anything. I know that there's also these exams that they have to take.

Yeah, I didn't understand the I understood kind of the setup, but I did not understand the follow through in the episode because it just didn't seem it didn't seem like it didn't seem like the episode was giving the initial premise enough room to breathe. It like was just jumping from one thing to another so quickly that it wasn't allowing any of the ideas to fully right breathe or I guess to fully kind of yeah, grow for the audience to kind of be given an understanding and a reason as to why these things are going on. And then at the end of the episode, what essentially happens is is none of the ideas matter and they're all dropped in the episode, right, And we had that happened before where the episode just kind of ends out of nowhere and it's it's really it's really jarring when it happens then, and it's even more jarring now because again we're getting to the halfway point of the show and I wasn't expecting them to continue doing it yet here we are, well and I mean when the last time they did it at least appeared like it was going to be a cliffhanger, which even though inevitably it was not resolved, but still it did kind of have that, whereas this one does just feel like somebody just said, and that's it, that's all we shot, see you later, And yeah, the editing on this one is really weird and quick and jumpy.

It's this episode definitely feels like they just kind of didn't have a complete script and just shot a bunch of stuff and threw it together and hoped that, you know, it would at least be you know, esthetically pleasing to watch. But even this one's not that interesting, Like, there's just nothing that interesting about this episode in general, and it's incoherent. Well, and the other thing about this episode is when you contrasted against the last episode, I mean, the last episode, it was good. Obviously we both liked it, but you know, the last episode it's not like it was really doing anything crazy creative in just in just a general narrative sense. But the thing is it was bolstered by a charismatic performance by Patrick McGowan, and this episode doesn't have any of that.

No, it doesn't allow him to be charismatic or interesting and again bringing back Colin Gordon as the other Number two. I mean, in the last episode you kind of just ignored it because everything else was going on was so interesting. But here the failings of his character version of number two are kind of front and center, and it's not great now it's interesting as number two at all, and like that seems to be like that, that seems to be like the you know, the Monsters of the Week and the X Files, or or the kind of the villains in the episodes of Star Trek. I mean, these characters and the show are almost only as good as their villains that they're dealing with and the directions that their villains are pushing them in.

And obviously with this show, you have a Number two every week who's being recast, and so some of them are interesting and they allow Patrick McGowan to have something interesting to do, and then some of them are what we have here, which is a complete bureaucratic, dry character that is neither interesting nor exciting. And it you know, if you're not if you're not, if your character isn't interesting or exciting to begin with, then Patrick McGowan is really not able to kind of work off of that character. No, not at all. Yeah, this episode is unfortunately, Like, if you're watching this episode and you are you know, you're you could pass this one absolutely and it's not going to matter one bit. I would recommend it.

It's it's not really worth the time. This is mostly just it's a total filler failure of an episode for me. Yeah, I agree one percent. I'm disappointed at this episode, Like this is the first episode where I'm just completely disappointed at the show right at the show and what the show is trying to pass off as an episode, because it feels like a half formed idea, if if even half four. Right, So what episodes are we talking about on the next show?

Well, next episode we are going to be talking about eight to nine, the Schizoid Man and many happy returns. But again, that is our six to one ordering, the ordering we're going with as opposed to I guess maybe an official ordering. Who knows, who knows what's official anymore? With this show. There doesn't seem to be any official is all in the eye of the beholder, I guess with this show.

So until then, where can people find you? Jess? People can find me on Twitter at writer Jess Byered. You can find me on your show, Chris The Culture Cast. You can find me there twice a month where we're talking about movies.

You can find me on our podcast, our other podcasts, Scary Stories we tell where Chris and I navigate through true crime, horror, culture, and the unexplained. So we ever, interviews, one opts, all kinds of fun stuff there. Uh and yeah, that's about it. What about you, Chris? Just follow me on Twitter Casualty Underscore Chris, I plug all the things that I'm part of on there, So there you go, and you mentioned everything else, so now yeah, nothing, nothing else really to mention.

Check us out on Twitter at one season show, and we're at one season at show dot com. Big thanks as always to the music for the one season show, which is Mustaches and Martini's We'll catch you on the next episode.