(November 3, 1967; director: Peter Graham Scott)
To my memory, there aren’t any truly bad episodes of The Prisoner, but there are a few lesser lights here and there. Hey, it happens. Case in point, “The General”.
Is it well-written? Yes. Is it reliably eccentric? Yes. Is it good stuff with clever twists and turns? Yes.
So, what the hell is my problem? What am I, an idiot? Maybe, but let me explain.
My problem is that this is the first episode that doesn’t touch the main theme of the series, which is The Village’s often-bizarre efforts to psychologically destroy ex-secret agent Patrick McGoohan’s “Number Six” so that he’ll spill his secrets. The best episodes of The Prisoner are paranoid to the max. They leave us questioning just how elaborate is The Village’s plan. Is EVERYONE around McGoohan–these people of all ages who seem to be doing just fine trapped in this place–in on it? Do they ALL know something that he doesn’t know? Just how alone is he?
It’s a creepy idea that sticks with you after each episode ends.
By contrast, The Village in this one are just some Dr. Dooms who figure out how to brainwash people through their TV sets. And they’re doing it to everyone, not just McGoohan. It’s a test run for a dastardly plan to take over the world or something. Today, they’re merely planting European history lessons in peoples’ heads. Tomorrow, who knows what?
It’s a cool story that makes a coherent point about the dangers of indoctrination, but it feels like something that sat in someone’s desk drawer since 1951 and then eventually got re-tooled for The Prisoner. The presentation is Pure Weird though, very much a piece with the rest of the series.
It’s just missing a little something.
It starts with announcements everywhere that “all students taking the three-part history course” should head home immediately for The Professor’s big new lecture, broadcast on television. It’s supposed to be amazing stuff, You get three years’ worth of schooling in a mere fifteen minutes.
They never say that it’s mandatory, but anybody seen outside during the lecture is escorted home.
Also, curiously, mere minutes before the lecture begins, The Professor is seen running frantically along the beach at the outside perimeter of The Village, as if trying to escape. He’s a white-haired, dignified-looking guy in a purple smoking jacket. A large group of people chase and tackle him and then forcefully walk him back.
McGoohan watches this go down until he himself gets bullied back home, where he turns on his TV out of curiosity.
The program begins with an introduction from The Professor about Speed Learn, the new frontier in education in which volumes of knowledge are “indelibly impressed upon the mind” almost instantly.
Then the “lecture” itself begins and on the surface it’s nothing more than a shadowy black-and-white photo of The Professor’s face while eerie music plays. This puts the audience in a kind of hypnotized state. Then a green light pulses. Then it’s over.
Next thing the viewer knows, they have an encyclopedic knowledge of Greek independence and 19th century German warfare. When asked specific questions, everyone recites the same lock-step paragraph of information, almost involuntarily, as if compelled to do so.
McGoohan knows that this is bad news and so does one other person, a young guy called “Number 12” (John Castle) and who happens to have access to the inner workings at The Village, where meetings are conducted in secret by men in black coats, top hats and sunglasses. From there, a plan forms.
Along the way, we meet The Professor’s wife (Betty McDowall), an art instructor whose skill at sculpting likenesses is useful to The Village (and maybe explains McGoohan’s double in “Schizoid Man“) and we keep hearing about The General, a mysterious entity who’s behind all of this.
Aside from the perpetually mysterious “Number 1”, that is.
And speaking of “Number 1”, this episode’s “Number 2” is Colin Gordon, who also played the role in “A. B. and C.“, where he tried to get McGoohan to tell his secrets in his dreams. There, Gordon was meek and mousy, the “Number 2” who’s most afraid of the unseen leader. He’s since grown some balls, I guess, and is more of a glowering villain type here.
The director of this episode is Peter Graham Scott, who also made one of this site’s favorite offbeat Hammer films, Night Creatures.