Fall Out

My father who in the 1960's worked on a number of film studio productions in the art and engineering Dept, as well as briefly on screen, corroborated the story linked to the final episode of the Prisoner.

He was on good terms with Patrick McGoohan who would take breaks between shoots by snoozing on a table in Shepperton. Turned out to be the same place that I many years later would be having quick nap when I was acting at Shepperton in Inkheart! For the final episode Patrick hadn't written much, and the deadline was getting closer and closer. Finally he and a co writer had to stay up all night to complete the script. This rush explains why there are some even more surreal scenes than usual. The piece with all the singing been a case in point.

Number 6 has a disturbing problem which skews this episode away from Number 5's eternal struggle to showing that the System may be about to crumble.

Then the episode goes into even greater flights as one of the most psychedelic works of the decade. Just remember it wasn't planned. More of a case of stream of consciousness to complete a script that was urgently needed.

McGoohan pulls out all the stops in his writing and directing this allegorical conclusion to the groundbreaking TV series. Though there were many hints scattered throughout the series that #6 was essentially dealing with his own demons—that point is made abundantly clear in this outrageously inventive episode. We are all locked in our cells, both the cells of our material bodies and the cells of our past, our reputations, our egos. When #6 begins to address the forces of society his word "I" gets repeated to the point of drowning out his message (it also is the word "aye" meaning yes and a pun for the all seeing "eye" of number one). The ego and ego worship appears as a mad god (#1 or eye). Though many would revere freedom in the abstract, there is a great internal fear of true freedom. McGoohan's character is very controlled and emotionally tight, thus his shadow side (#1) is a complete loon (for example, playing the Beatles tune "All you need is love" over a blazing gun fight). When McGoohan launches #1 into space, a chain of events occur leading the four escapees toward various illusions of freedom within the outside world (hitching a ride to nowhere in particular, joining the halls of political power or racing a sports car). The silent butler appears to take McGoohan place in his home which opens by itself as an extension of the Village.

Though many dislike the episode for its unabashed symbolism, it stands as a fitting and provocatively ambiguous end to the series. Along with "Free for All," it's my personal favorite episode.

I watched the original broadcast of this episode (and the entire series) on CBS the summer it ran in the United States. After the first viewing, I absolutely hated this episode. I wanted factual explanations, a very real and solid down-to-earth conclusion, and Mr. McGoohan provided imagery and allegory. I was perhaps excessively literal in those days, and may have been led astray by the series itself. While the episode title escapes me at the moment, I'm sure the hard core fans will remember: Number 6 wakes up to a deserted Village, fashions a raft, and eventually finds his way back to London. He works out where the Village might be from a variety of clues and returns in a military plane, only to be ejected and returned to the once-again lively Village. I was looking for something building on that episode's "clues", and was vastly disappointed. As some of you may recall, CBS ran the series again the next summer, and I tuned in again. After a year of contemplation (and maybe some maturing), I was able to accept FALL OUT for the fine work that it was and is.

After killing Number Two, Number Six is granted his wish to meet Number One. However, first he must meet the Assembly and sit in as the President of the Assembly presides on cases of errant behaviour. The proceedings don't go very smoothly.

For the first 12 episodes The Prisoner was great, an intense, intriguing, intelligent battle of wits and wills between Number Six and a variety of Number Twos and their minions. Then came the 13th episode - Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling - and the quality of the show took a sharp downturn with a plot that was threadbare and didn't make much sense.

The 14th and 15th episodes - Living In Harmony and The Girl Who Was Death - were even worse, suddenly moving the setting to another time and place. Anytime a show suddenly is set in a new location and/or time period (especially) you know the writers have run out of ideas and this exactly what happened there. These two episodes weren't really The Prisoner but rather out-of-place, haphazard stories jammed into the show.

With the 16th episode I was hoping that normal transmission would be resumed and we would again see a Number 6 vs Number 2 battle of wits and wills. Plus, being the penultimate episode I was expecting an indication of how Number 6's predicament would be resolved.

Well, we have the duel and some progress toward a solution but it's not done in a good way. The writing here is all over the place, with random detours, plot developments that make no sense and all sorts of trippy images and scenes that are just there to paper over the lack of genuine plot.

This, the final episode, follows in the same vein. Plot is all over the place, random trippy scenes, stuff that's really in there just to kill time, action scenes that seem very out of place. The resolution is also pretty lacklustre: hardly the clever, gripping conclusion I was hoping for every episode of the show. Quite sad as after the first 12 episodes this was set up for a brilliant, intelligent climax.

Very disappointing.

As is now better known to the general public, this episode was hatched by McGoohan after he was told that the series was to be canceled. Originally, the preceding "Once Upon a Time" was to be the final episode of the first season. McKern was to die, The Prisoner was on his way to see Number 1, and the audience would have to wait the summer to find out what happens.

McGoohan, whose political and social viewpoint was by then clear to everyone who had watched the series from its inception, was as should be expected miffed by its termination, and decided to give audience and producers alike a run for their money. The surrealism of this episode is never matched again until the finale of 'Twin Peaks'(qv). I give it a 9 rather than a 10 because the preceding episode is im(ns)ho one of the greatest pieces of television drama ever written, and therefore should not ever have another piece from the same series given equal appraisal.