(October 13, 1967; director: Pat Jackson)
Like my all-time favorite TV show, Twin Peaks, The Prisoner takes a turn for the dreamy in its third episode.
The difference is that this is a more scrutable dream. No one’s talking backwards or speaking in non-sequiturs, but this is still a mind-bending story in its own way. It’s one of the wildest trips of the series.
Just to recap, here Patrick McGoohan and The Village remain at a stalemate. McGoohan’s “Number Six” still refuses to reveal why he quit his secret agent job; the keepers of The Village still refuse to say who’s in charge and why they want this information badly enough to confine him to this strange island prison/resort. Neither side are revealing a thing to each other or us. We have the same questions that they have.
As usual, there’s a new “Number Two” in charge of getting McGoohan to talk. He’s a nervous, weasely sorta guy (British character-actor stalwart Colin Gordon) and he’s the first “Number Two” we’ve seen who’s frightened out of his wits by the mysterious, unseen “Number One”. He breaks into a cold sweat every time he calls (via a strange giant red phone).
The new guy’s plan: Stop trying to outsmart McGoohan or appeal to him. McGoohan is a special case and a certified tough cookie. He’s never going to talk. So, it’s time to get crazy and take the Mad Scientist approach.
A scientist in The Village, “Number 14” (pretty blonde Sheila Allen), has somehow figured out a way to spy into a person’s dreams.
All she has to do is inject ’em with her special magic nonsense potion and hook up a few electronic bullshit thingamabobs to their skull. Next thing you know, their dreams are projected against the laboratory wall like a Three Stooges short.
It’s one of those ridiculous ideas that you see in old Boris Karloff movies like The Devil Commands. It makes no sense, but you go with it. You take the ride. The people on screen certainly believe in it. Also, this script (by Anthony Skene) puts a lot more thought into its absurd premise than any 1940s B-flick ever did.
“Number 14” here not only sees your dreams, but she can also maniuplate them via analog film strips and photographs. She can put you in a certain setting and introduce characters. In time, she even figures out how to manipulate those characters.
And this is how the new “Number 2” intends to finally get Patrick McGoohan to spill his secrets. In his dreams.
BUT Patrick McGoohan is a clever motherfucker. He very quickly figures out what’s happening. Those new injection scars on his wrist that he sees every morning must mean something. The new woman in The Village whom he first saw in a dream must mean something. He proceeds to investigate.
We live in a weird world. McGoohan knows all about that. He’s got thousands of top secrets in his head. He’s open to any oddball fucking thing that crosses his path. Even a dream-reading machine.
We see three dream sequences here. Each one gets more screwy than the last as the rules change, as these two enemies size up each other. The last one is a real doozy as a lucid McGoohan (pretending to be asleep) gets wheeled back into the dream lab and proceeds to manipulate the dream machine himself and in psychedelic fashion.
I love the whole of ideas of movies and TV as a dream state (did I mention that I’m a big Twin Peaks fan?). Absurdity rules. Reality has jumped out the window. Dreams, in a way, were the first movies. Dreams are still movies (all of my dreams are cinematic affairs). Movies and TV are dreams, too. It almost never looks like reality, no matter how hard they try.
You may as well go with it.
This great fifty minutes of out-there television goes with it.