The Prisoner: The Girl Who Was Death

She'll Be The Death Of Me
The Prisoner: Episode 15 The Girl Who Was Death
Written by Terence Feeley
Directed by David Tomblin
Barmaid: "Same again sir?" [drink has been poisoned]
No.6 "No thank you. One of those is quite enough".
Sonia: "Mountaineering rope. Could hold an elephant"
No.6 "I must remember that the next time I go climbing with one".
No.6
takes over from a Colonel who's murdered during a cricket match. Getting instructions from Potter, he goes to a record store where he's relayed instructions as to his new assignment. Mad scientist Schnipps is building a rocket to destroy London, No.6 must find him and destroy rocket, by taking over from the Colonel. He is given various clues and put through various trials by Sonia, the beautiful daughter of Schnipps, the titular Girl Who Was Death.
The third and last filler episode. Apparently this was an unused Danger Man script but I find that rather hard to believe. It's far more like an episode of The Avengers, ABC's rival to the ITC shows. Mad scientists and diabolical masterminds were more their thing rather than Danger Man's. To reinforce this, No.6 chases Sonia in the same make and model of metallic blue Lotus Elkan as Mrs Peel drove in the colour episodes, indeed the chase uses two of The Avenger's most beloved filming locations, the turkey farmhouse and the lodge gates. This 'tribute' would be affectionately returned by The Avengers in their final season episode Wish You Were Here.
Of the three fillers, this again doesn't feature Portrmeirion. Indeed, it doesn't seem to be an episode of The Prisoner at all, taking place, as it does, in real-life Britain with Pat running around free and no mention of The Village. Not until the end do we find out the reason. Given the ending, there's the fun sense of adventure and gentle pastiche of the spy genre which, as with The Man From U.N.C.L.E., had moved from Cold War noir to silly tongue-in-cheek hi-jinks and outlandish gadgetry. If you ignore the fact that it doesn't add (but then again doesn't detract) from the story arc, it's in the end the least confusing of the three fillers. It certainly has no thematic concerns whatsoever.
It does have a nice witty script by Terence Feeley, a dab hand at this sort of thing. See the two quotes above, and I love the device of having a card placed at the bottom of No.6's beer glass, only slowly revealed with each sip, so that he has to drain the glass to read the message: "You have just been poisoned". Brilliant. The sequence of trials in The Town is brilliant too, real Danger Man class with No.6 using his brains and ingenuity to outwit each test. Fantastic.
Minor quibble about the plot, as I've mentioned before are the reuse of familiar names, first the Colonel again! At least the newspaper hoarding gives him a name! And Potter used again. This time, as he's played by Christopher Benjamin, who played that character in the Danger Man episode Koroshi, there's been some speculation that they're one and the same. In a later interview Benjamin put the kibosh on that rumour. He was not instructed by Pat or the director that the character was the same, nor to play him the same. In fact, he plays him differently. The lack of a script editor and Tomblin's patent inability to do this role, is the reason for this, not Feeley's fault.
A nice touch is having the pages from the book at each commercial break to mirror the action. Also, having McGoohan in a boxing match. In his youth he was an amateur boxer in Sheffield.
After the claustrophobia of The Village there's  a lovely sense of freedom, fresh air, and play in this story, the fairground being the now gone Kuursal fair at Southend. I love the car chase through Herts too, with a nearly empty motorway (a feature of much 60s British TV, sadly not so free now), with the aforementioned Avengers locations adding a nice touch. Apart from the use of familiar names as mentioned, the only real goof is that Schnipps & Sonia wouldn't risk grenades to kill No.6 as they would then blow up the boat, which is the the only escape from the rocket. The fact that they and the Napoleons choose exactly the fixed guns & grenades is more a nice piece of humour rather than goof. Notice how they run round before selecting, accompanied by the knockabout music, and this is a nice dig at the absurdity of many TV spies plans, where the enemies always fall for the good guys plans, no matter how complicated or absurd.
If you accept this as a piece of diverting entertainment, I actually rather like this episode, complete with great library instrumental music, especially the Chappell French library selection Chaisse a Courre, and the Nardini piece below. It's far better than the previous two fillers, and I prefer it to some regular episodes (e.g. Funeral). It's helped by having ITC regular, the gorgeous Justine Lord (who musty hae had the most beautiful pair of legs in the business, prominently featured here) as Sonia. She's always welcome in my living room! Kenneth Griffith is great as the mad scientist, McGoohan seems to be having fun, and is most engaging, and the episode is handsomely shot and directed. The actor who plays the Bowler really was called John Drake, apparently Pat was much amused by the coincidence and hired him for this. Great escapist humorous entertainment.
Village rating (out of 6): No.5

Incidental Music
Cast

The Prisoner .................................................................. PATRICK McGOOHAN
Schnipps/Number Two .................................................. KENNETH GRIFFITH
Sonia ............................................................................. JUSTINE LORD
Potter ............................................................................ CHRISTOPHER BENJAMIN
Killer Karminski ............................................................  MICHAEL BRENNAN
Boxing M.C. .................................................................. HAROLD BERENS
Scots Napoleon ............................................................ MAX FAULKNER
Welsh Napoleon ........................................................... JOHN REES
Yorkshire Napoleon .....................................................  JOE GLADWIN
Bowler .......................................................................... JOHN DRAKE
Little Girl ......................................................................  GAYNOR STEWARD
First Little Boy .............................................................. GRAHAM STEWARD
Second Little Boy ......................................................... STEPHEN HOWE
Be Seeing You!
<- Living In Harmony                                                                                                                        Once Upon A Time ->

Comments