The Prisoner: Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

"It's The Prisoner, Jim, But Not As We Know It"

The Prisoner: Episode 13 Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling
Written by  Vincent Tilsley

Directed by Pat Jackson

The episode starts with a cold open teaser, as a group of men look at a series of colour slides, hoping to find a clue as to the whereabouts of Professor Seltzman. The Village are also interested, as his invention, a mention that can transfer two people's minds from one into another's bodies, would be invaluable to them. They hire The Colonel, and use the machine they have to swap his body for No.6's mind. Thus letting No.6 free in the outside world to find the Professor, in the hope that he had perfected the reversal process so No.6, now in the body of The Colonel,  can return to his own body. To this end he goes to his superiors, who don't believe his story. Thus he goes to the camera shop to pick up his slides. By putting a combination intro a projector he discovers the professor's location, travels there, where he is followed by his colleague Potter, and The Village henchman. 

Where do we begin with this peculiar story? Firstly, the reason for the episode. Pat had decided he did not want to make a further series and promised ITC's Lew Grade an ending., In order to fit the U.S. summer schedule, there would be a further four episodes (including the ending) needed, and they had to be completed for the U.K. broadcast dates of  January to February 1968.  However, McGoohan would be absent making the film Ice Station Zebra. So writer Vincent Tilsley (who'd written one episode already) was given the impossible brief, write an episode of The Prisoner without Pat and not to be shot in Portmeirion (there wasn't time or budget to accommodate for this). As Tilsley pointed out in later interviews, Pat and Portmeirion were The Prisoner. Thus this was to become the first of three 'filler' episodes until the finale.

Interestingly we don't see the usual opening, instead there's a pre-credits sequence, and after the first part of the opening credits, when No.6 awakes we skip the usual voiceover by no.2 replaced by helicopter shots arriving at The Village. Already, this change does not augur well.

The plot has been likened to Danger Man, but it's too poor to have ever been considered for that show. Apart from the terrible Sci-Fi McGuffin of the body/mind swap device, which is obviously a device simply to explain McGoohan's absence, and is the realms of fantasy, there is no real mystery. The Professor's location is hidden on the slides. But if the slides belonged to No.6 surely he wouldn't need to decipher the location, he would know it? Perhaps the slides were sent to him by The Professor? This is not explained, and the inference by all the characters are that they're No.6's. 

Another plot hole or inconsistency is No.6's fiancée, Janet. When No.6 escaped in the earlier episode Many Happy Returns, there was no mention of her at all, no photo of her on his desk. Secondly, when he went to see his superiors, they were The Colonel (a different one than here) and Thorpe, there's no mention of Sir Charles Portland, his apparent superior here. Not only that, but the appearance of Janet gives rise to that old cliché beloved of writers, that a lover can always tell their beloved from their kiss. Well, I don't believe that, that's sentimental rubbish. After all, if you've physically changed (and Stock is nothing like McGoohan), then your lips and height would be different. I just don't buy the fiancée at all. She's conveniently not mentioned in the closing episode Fall Out either.

To add to the rather shoddy plot, we also have some shoddy production values. The absence of Portmeirion is sadly apparent (and felt), and we don't get to see London either really. The doubles used for the principals is very poorly done. In No.2's control room, the doubles for Stock and Evans look nothing like them. When The Colonel drives around London, it's clearly McGoohan in most of the shots driving the Lotus around London (from which the opening credit sequence was edited). Also, in the fight scene in the professor's basement, the stunt doubles are all too apparent, and gain look nothing like the actors involved. In a series noted for its excellent production and set design, this is all the more distressing.

Apparently, according to Tilsley, his script was radically changed, so that, as he said, "a not very good script was replaced by a different not very good script". There's  a laziness in the plotting to add to the laziness in production. There's no real mystery to the professor's location, No.6 gets  the slides, reads the address, and simply travels there to to see him. There's an overuse of character names, like The Colonel (there's other military ranks), and we have a colleague called Potter, who was in the Danger Man episode Koroshi, and later Potter is used in The Girl Who Was Death.

There's a kind of tired defeatism in the episode. Knowing this was an unnecessary filler that didn't feature its two major assets (star and location), it's as if David Tomblin, who took over responsibility for the three filler episodes after the departure of Markstein as story editor, simply admitted the impossibility of the task and didn't attempt a quality programme. McGoogan also was absent for the shoot, only adding one scene at the end and some voiceover. Stock is no substitute for McGoohan, and this severely hampers the episode. The other acting is fine and competent but with no outstanding class or merit as in other episodes, and Evans is a rather lacklustre No.2, like his poor wig, and easily forgettable. There's also an overreliance on already familiar stock film (e.g. taxi pulling up to Town Hall) that's been used before. 

There's also no attempt at consistency with the other episodes, thus causing continuity problems. Some people might even base their theories on the show's meaning using such inconsistencies. The resolution is obvious, and again lazy. Knowing the professor is now in The Colonel's body, The Village would simply abduct The Colonel's, surely? And the Seltzman machine, and the previously unseen Amnesia Room, cause more problems than they solve. They also make The Village far too powerful, with those two devices they can never be defeated. I think the Amnesia Room is used to make No.6 forget he's been in The Village, but it's not made clear, and the reasoning rather eludes me. It establishes that No.6 has been absent for  a year, but surely he couldn't suffer amnesia for  a whole year and then find himself looking different. He'd go insane. And notice that No.6 uses his codenames to identify himself, not his real name.

So in the end, a disappointing story that adds nothing to the story arc and indeed confuses more than explains. You can easily skip this episode entirely. An interesting pastime would be to see if one could come up with a better solution to the problem that bedevilled the show's makers. It would certainly be a more entertaining use of one's time than this.

The Village rating (out of six): No.2 (lowest score)

Incidental Music

Cast

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

Number Two .................................................................. CLIFFORD EVANS
The Butler  ..................................................................... ANGELO MUSCAT
Janet Portland ............................................................... ZENA WALKER

The Colonel ................................................................... NIGEL STOCK

Professor Jacob Seltzman ............................................ HUGO SCHUSTER 
Sir Charles Portland .....................................................  JOHN WENTWORTH

Villiers ..........................................................................  JAMES BREE
Stapleton ......................................................................  LLOYD LAMBLE
Danvers .......................................................................   PATRICK JORDAN

Camera shop manager ................................................  LOCKWOOD WEST

Potter ...........................................................................  FREDRIC ABBOTT

Café waiter ..................................................................  GERTAN KLAUBER

Old guest .....................................................................  HENRY LONGHURST

First new man ..............................................................  DANVERS WALKER

Young guest ................................................................  JOHN NOLAN

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