The Prisoner: Checkmate

"We're All Pawns Me Dear"

The Prisoner: Episode 9 Checkmate

Written by Gerald Kelsey

Directed by Don Chaffey

No.2 "in any society one must learn to conform"

No.6 notices that when everyone stands still at Rover's approach, an old man with a stick does not. He is the Chess Champion, and persuades No.6 to play on a giant chessboard using real people as chess pieces. The Queen invites him to be her pawn. The Rook (No.58) makes an independent move of his own volition, and is taken to the Hospital for "rehabilitation". After the game, the Man informs No.6 that he can tell the difference between the prisoners and those who have gone over to the side of The Village, and are in fact guards masquerading as prisoners, by their behaviour. The prisoners obedient, the guards arrogant and self confident. No.6 uses this distinction to pick a group of likeminded prisoners for an escape plan.

No.6 is later invited by No.2 to visit the hospital to observe the fate of the Rook, and sees him subjected to Pavlovian mind control treatment. The woman playing the queen (No. 8), who had fraternised with No.6 during the game, is subjected to hypnosis to make her fall in love with him and report his whereabouts should he attempt to escape again, but No.6 shuns her.

They attempt an escape by making a two-way radio out of various pilfered electronic parts and then hailing a passing ship with a Mayday distress call, pretending to be a crashed airliner. No.6 discovers, however, that again he has been a pawn – the Rook had mistaken the strong-minded No.6 for a guardian.

An early episode (third produced), again magnificently directed by the great film director Don Chaffey, and using extensive Portmeirion location shooting. It starts with a really spooky opening - everyone standing still as Rover patrols the streets. This was the first episode I ever saw, on Southern TV in the summer of 76 or 77, and it was that opening that hooked me, and it was my abiding memory of the show (I saw it on holiday so never got to see the whole series then) until the Channel4 repeat of the whole series in 1984.

The episode clearly uses Chess as metaphor for life, interestingly No.6 is the Queen's pawn. The Chess pieces resembled the social hierarchy of medieval society, still relevant in modern times, with the more prominent members of society having more power and freedom of movement, whilst the lowly pawns can only move forward one move at a time, and frequently get sacrificed in preference to the powerful pieces. The Queen is the most powerful, and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II No.6 finds himself a pawn of The Village.

There is also a lot about Behavioural Psychology, a very hot topic of 1960s counterculture a d academic studies, such as Skinner's experiments, here behaviour showing whether one is guard or prisoner. The techniques used against The Rook are essentially and crudely Pavlovian (an electric shock when water tank used without sanction, none when sanctioned).

Along with this, there is No.2's comment "in any society one must learn to conform". Conformity is a major theme of the series, and here is the cornerstone of the plot. It plays particular attention to peer pressure, a social psychology theory relatively new, that developed out of the experiences of Nazism and the Holocaust in WWII. A society needs to show less obvious mechanisms of force and control if it can get its individual members to police themselves and each other. Others, however, have pointed out that peer pressure is unavoidable given the societal and familial structures of human life, see also the other primates, which is not germane to mechanistic societies of ants or bees, for example. Other examples of behavioural studies that are used by The Village against No.6 include the Milgram experiment, the Asch conformity experiments and the Stanford prison experiment. Of course, conformity is not in and of itself dangerous, all humans live in societies that need cooperation if they are to function or the individual perishes, but The Village is clearly a society that is not run for the health and benefit of its members, only for the power elite.

The 1st Psychiatrist describes No.6 a shaving superhuman will power and a negative reaction to pain. It can be seen in many episodes (see the previous Dance of the Dead) that No.6 is rather lucky in being granted such importance by The Village. We see that others have been physically and psychologically destroyed, but that the various No.2s cannot use these methods against No.6. It's easy to be 'brave' and resist if the ultimate sanctions can't be used against you. It can also be seen that No.6 is more than human, 'superhuman', in his ability to control his own thoughts and behaviours, even when asleep, as well as in his resistance.

Unlike Kafka's protagonists, No.6 isn't faced with an essentially weak and decaying if unknowable power structure, but quite the opposite. Nazi prison camps and Capitalist consumer societies are al too evident. It is tempting to see No.6 not as a real human being at all, but as an archetype. He is too strong willed, too self reliant, he is in fact more like a character in Ancient Mythology, like Orpheus or Ulysses, being given various tasks and trials by the Gods. He is certainly not a warm hearted or sociable man, notice his rebuffs of the Queen's advances, and how at the end no.6 leaves his fellow escapees behind in an act of pure selfishness. This is one of the episodes that question whether No.6 is the 'hero' of the fable, and this makes him all the more interesting as a protagonist. Again, I believe it's this antipathy in his status that has aided the show's longevity.

The saddest aspect of the episode, if we excuse his selfishness in leaving the others behind, is the way The Village perverts one of humanity's finer emotions, love, as yet another tool of controlling observing and oppression. The Queen is hypnotised into thinking she is in love with No.6 and vice versa, and a monitoring device is placed in a locket near her heart. If she thinks he's about to escape, and thus lose him, she will betray him to them for his own sake. This really must have hit home when broadcast so soon after the Summer of Love, and given youth culture's idealisation of free love as beneficial and freeing. The Queen has done nothing wrong herself, and it's typical of the cold-hearted cruelty of The Village, and its misuse of medicine, to devise such a scheme.

The script, by ITC regular Gerald Kelsey, is excellent, very well structured, with good dialogue, and an emphasis on observation, monitoring, and control, that makes this one of the strongest episodes of the series. The Village is no paper or symbolic authority here but very real, and rooted in the real world.

Given the strong script, the acting is exemplary. Peter Wyngarde, an excellent actor who is always very good in whatever he does, nicely plays No.2 with all the actor's charm, but with a still sense of power and aggression below the surface, as witness the excellent moment when he's meditating. Patricia Jessel as the cold-hearted professional Psychiatrist is excellent, all mean sadism masquerading as detached scientific curiosity. Especial praise to ITC regular Ronald Radd, quietly and despairingly fatalistic as The Rook, a man with an independent spirit crushed by fear and conformity, while Rosalie Crutchley makes the most of an unsympathetic role with a genuine affection tinged with sadness at No.6's indifference.

An excellent episode, nearly all shot in exteriors, so there's an nice interplay between the freeness and openness of the outside and the closed security of the setting, that strongly nails the show's main thematic concerns, but with an exciting plot, wonderfully shot, directed, and acted by a fine cast. One of my favourites.

The Village rating (out of 6): no.6

Cast

The Prisoner .................................................................. PATRICK McGOOHAN

Number Two .................................................................. PETER WYNGARDE
The Butler ..................................................................... ANGELO MUSCAT
Rook ............................................................................. RONALD RADD

Queen .......................................................................... ROSALIE CRUTCHLEY

Man with the Stick ......................................................... GEORGE COULOURIS
1st Psychiatrist .............................................................. PATRICIA JESSEL
2nd Psychiatrist ............................................................. BEE DUFFELL
Supervisor .................................................................... BASIL DIGNAM
Painter .......................................................................... DANVERS WALKER
Shopkeeper.................................................................. DENIS SHAW

Assistant Supervisor .................................................... VICTOR PLATT

Nurse ........................................................................... SHIVAUN O'CASEY

Skipper ........................................................................ GEOFFREY READ

Sailor ........................................................................... TERENCE DONOVAN

1st Tower Guard .......................................................... JOE DUNNE

2ndTower Guard .......................................................... ROMO GORRARA