Number 5's Surreal Creepy Film Collection

[Rev. Rye]

And, while it's not exactly a film, are you familiar with The Prisoner? It's a 17-episode sci-fi series set mostly in a Village where a former spy is imprisoned, and it's very strange. How strange? Well, here's a (spoiler-free) clip from the final episode:





The rest of the series is only slightly less strange than that.

For what it's worth, it's on Amazon Prime, Tubi, and you can even find every episode in Blu-Ray quality on YouTube, and I know this because I just did. The only real drawback is that they use the Original UK Broadcast Order (hereinafter referred to as OBO), which is... very non-linear to say the least. Here's the order I've worked out (OBO number in parentheses):

1. Arrival (1)
   
2. Free For All (4)
   
3. Dance of the Dead (8)
   
4. Checkmate (9)
   
5. The Chimes of Big Ben (2)
   
6. The Schizoid Man (5)
   
7. Many Happy Returns (7)
   
8. It's Your Funeral (11)
   
9. The General (6)
   
10. A, B, and C (3)
    
11. Change of Mind (12)
    
12. Hammer into Anvil (10)
    
13. Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling (13)
    
14. Living in Harmony (14)
    
15. The Girl Who Was Death (15)
    
16. Once Upon a Time (16)
    
17. Fall Out (17)
    

And if you want to know my rationale, unhide this:

---

Everyone agrees that "Arrival" is the first episode, and that "Once Upon a Time" and "Fall Out" are the last two episodes. Beyond that, in terms of official episode order, all we have are the OBO, and a list of seven episodes that star/creator Patrick McGoohan considers the episodes that truly mattered. This list consists of the first 5 episodes of my list plus the last two. That said, I have heard versions of that same list that swap "Free for All" and "Dance of the Dead," but, as far as I've been able to figure out, this is the preferred order, and because I tend towards authorial intent in cases like these, McGoohan's first 5 are my first five.

But the next couple episodes is trickier. In "The Schizoid Man" and "Many Happy Returns," Number 6 is still trying to escape from The Village like it's a normal prison, something that is rare in the later episodes of the series. And I think it's safe to say that after the ending of "Many Happy Returns," it only makes sense he'd stop trying. But the later episodes involve him trying another track: turning the tables on the episode's Number Two. Aside from the three episodes featuring Leo McKer, there's two episodes with Colin Gordon as Number Two: "The General" and "A, B, and C." In the former episode, Gordon is very confident and authoritative, and in the latter, he's... not. So, it makes sense to assume that these two episodes, in that order, are Number 6 managing to break him down over the span of two episodes. "Change of Mind" continues with this track, with him eventually convincing the Village Council to expel the episode's Number Two. By "Hammer into Anvil," Number 6 manages to break The Village's most brutal Number Two while barely even doing much more than using an Aldis lamp to relay a nursery rhyme. Evidently, he's getting more and more dangerous. However, "It's Your Funeral" doesn't fall into this pattern, since Number 6 is neither escaping nor turning the tables on Number 2, and, frankly, it makes sense that a transitional episode like this appear not only between these two patterns, but in the exact mid-point of the series.

Episodes 13-15 are the hardest to place in the context of any arc. I call these three the Bizarro episodes, since they're so far removed from the arcs formed by the previous twelve and final two episodes (to the point where they put Number Six in what basically amount to alternate realities) that it's bizarre, even by the standards of the series. Frankly, if all three were removed from the episode, we'd lose very little (except maybe Alexis Kenner's role in "Living in Harmony" foreshadowing his character in "Fall Out" or how perfectly the ending of "The Girl Who Was Death," with Number Two so frustrated by how Number Six turned these repeated assassination attempts into a fucking bedtime story, feels like a cliffhanger for the drastic Degree Absolute procedure that takes up most of "Once Upon a Time.") Indeed, McGoohan barely even appears in "Do Not Forsake Me" (for Ice Station Zebra-related reasons.) For lack of a better point, I'm placing these episodes between "Hammer and Anvil"  and "Once Upon a Time." Most fans who quibble on episode orders do this (and in that order), and I'm no exception. If I was more invested in this trio of episodes, I could find different places for them, but I'm content to treat them as The Village trying a softer touch than Patrick Cargill's Number Two. And, as mentioned before, there's ZERO debate about whether or not "Once Upon a Time" and "Fall Out" fit as anything but the last two episodes.

---