The Prisoner: The General Rewatch
July 11, 2014 8:03 PM - Season 1, Episode 6 - Subscribe
"Speedlearn" is the latest thing in The Village — an entire three-year course of knowledge in three minutes; European History Since Napoleon in 15 seconds. Courses taught by the Professor, and promoted by the General.
You have to wonder if the Village only serves decaf coffee.
Looks the same, tastes the same!
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:12 AM on July 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
Looks the same, tastes the same!
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:12 AM on July 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
I really like how The Prisoner uses simple physical effects and suggestion to depict the mind-control tools they're using. Speedlearn is a slow zoom, some ominous music, and a red lightbulb. The truth test they give Six a few episodes back is a projection and some cutouts. The "pulsator" they use to hypnotize him in his sleep is a pendant light and a dimmer switch.
They're cheap effects, yes; but they're very stylistically consistent. And they also serve to heighten the imbalance against Six: the Village has an array of indistinguishable-from-magic technology arrayed against him, while he just has his mind and his will.
That said: I always find this one rather forgettable; and the "defeat the computer by asking it the unanswerable" premise of the ending always a bit too sci-fi for the show. (Almost a left turn into a Star Trek episode.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:47 PM on July 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
They're cheap effects, yes; but they're very stylistically consistent. And they also serve to heighten the imbalance against Six: the Village has an array of indistinguishable-from-magic technology arrayed against him, while he just has his mind and his will.
That said: I always find this one rather forgettable; and the "defeat the computer by asking it the unanswerable" premise of the ending always a bit too sci-fi for the show. (Almost a left turn into a Star Trek episode.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:47 PM on July 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
Yeah, it's not their greatest effort. And it's not that Colin Gordon was a bad 2, but if I were picking a non-McKern 2 to play the role twice, he'd be middle of the list at best.
(Does anyone know whether maybe The Prisoner aired out of order because the network felt that they should front-load the series with more Danger Man-esque fare? Both "Big Ben" and Gordon's second episode, the equally mediocre "A, B, and C," are as close to Danger Man stories as Prisoner ever got, and the airing order makes them a lot more conspicuous than the production or 6of1 do.)
The supercomputer bit really does feel too SF, and this despite the presence of all that magical tech. You'd think it'd just blend in with the knowledge implanting and the more-than-hypnotism, but it doesn't -- partly because the God-computer-gets-broken-by-ambiguity story is so dated, and maybe partly because it doesn't seem like a 6ish solution. I just don't see him as a man who's comfortable with ambiguity, at least not to the point where he can casually weaponize it. In fact, I see his growing anxiety about the ambiguity of his work -- the impossibility of complete trust, the increasing sense that he himself is disappearing into his tricks and poses -- as the essential reason he resigned.
Within the context of the series, 6 kind of is the General. They keep asking him an ambiguous question ("Why did you resign?"), and I think the question itself breaks him because he knows he can't answer it, doesn't understand the moral mess that led him here any better than they do.
A propos of Star Trek, it's kind of fun to compare 6 with Captain Kirk. They do have a certain amount in common: both are brave and arrogant, strong believers in individual freedom, and good at getting others to follow them. But 6 thinks through consequences, while Kirk glosses them over; 6 quits the job he's great at, while Kirk can't even accept being promoted out of it; 6 is an individualist zealot, while Kirk thrives in a military atmosphere. To see 6 do such an iconically Kirkish thing as logic-bombing God-computers is just weird.
posted by thesmallmachine at 10:52 AM on July 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
(Does anyone know whether maybe The Prisoner aired out of order because the network felt that they should front-load the series with more Danger Man-esque fare? Both "Big Ben" and Gordon's second episode, the equally mediocre "A, B, and C," are as close to Danger Man stories as Prisoner ever got, and the airing order makes them a lot more conspicuous than the production or 6of1 do.)
The supercomputer bit really does feel too SF, and this despite the presence of all that magical tech. You'd think it'd just blend in with the knowledge implanting and the more-than-hypnotism, but it doesn't -- partly because the God-computer-gets-broken-by-ambiguity story is so dated, and maybe partly because it doesn't seem like a 6ish solution. I just don't see him as a man who's comfortable with ambiguity, at least not to the point where he can casually weaponize it. In fact, I see his growing anxiety about the ambiguity of his work -- the impossibility of complete trust, the increasing sense that he himself is disappearing into his tricks and poses -- as the essential reason he resigned.
Within the context of the series, 6 kind of is the General. They keep asking him an ambiguous question ("Why did you resign?"), and I think the question itself breaks him because he knows he can't answer it, doesn't understand the moral mess that led him here any better than they do.
A propos of Star Trek, it's kind of fun to compare 6 with Captain Kirk. They do have a certain amount in common: both are brave and arrogant, strong believers in individual freedom, and good at getting others to follow them. But 6 thinks through consequences, while Kirk glosses them over; 6 quits the job he's great at, while Kirk can't even accept being promoted out of it; 6 is an individualist zealot, while Kirk thrives in a military atmosphere. To see 6 do such an iconically Kirkish thing as logic-bombing God-computers is just weird.
posted by thesmallmachine at 10:52 AM on July 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
the equally mediocre "A, B, and C"
I liked A, B and C a lot more than The General, but that can wait for the next post.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:45 AM on July 14, 2014
I liked A, B and C a lot more than The General, but that can wait for the next post.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:45 AM on July 14, 2014
Incidentally: the ball-and-antennas design of the Speedlearn "projector" strikes me as a Sputnik reference.
I just don't see him as a man who's comfortable with ambiguity, at least not to the point where he can casually weaponize it. In fact, I see his growing anxiety about the ambiguity of his work -- the impossibility of complete trust, the increasing sense that he himself is disappearing into his tricks and poses -- as the essential reason he resigned.
I like this.
The irony is that Six has landed in a place which is utterly and deliberately ambiguous and which refuses to answer any of his questions: "that would be telling".
charlie don't surf touched on this in the recent MetaFilter post:
I just don't see him as a man who's comfortable with ambiguity, at least not to the point where he can casually weaponize it. In fact, I see his growing anxiety about the ambiguity of his work -- the impossibility of complete trust, the increasing sense that he himself is disappearing into his tricks and poses -- as the essential reason he resigned.
I like this.
The irony is that Six has landed in a place which is utterly and deliberately ambiguous and which refuses to answer any of his questions: "that would be telling".
charlie don't surf touched on this in the recent MetaFilter post:
It's an abstraction of the spy game into its purest form: asymmetric information. We don't know why #6 resigned, but we can deduce from his completely rational behavior that it is obviously damn important to him. We don't know why #2 wants the information or why it would be important to him, and from #2 and the Villagers' completely irrational behavior, we cannot possibly deduce anything. It is a clash between a man who has nothing left but his principles, standing alone against a situation that is completely amoral and would destroy him.posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:29 PM on July 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
The busts have a distinct resemblance to the various 2s (and Our Hero!), which are either foreshadowing or reference, depending on the order watched.
I like how 12 seems to be an alternate 6, with a different colored turtleneck and a different color piping.
Why does the announcer about the General's course have an American accent?
Our Hero, canonically, has the same birthday as McGoohan. This reinforces the interpretation of the series as a meditation on acting, on playing a part, pretending to be someone else, and the psychological stresses it induces.
Doing a little digging, I read more about Angelo Muscat, the only actor to appear in as many episodes as McGoohan. Angelo Muscat: The Butler.
a place which is utterly and deliberately ambiguous
After watching the last episode, I think this is the wrong idea to take. They very deliberately push the idea of two sides: white and black, West and Soviet. But the essence of the Village is that it is of both, and neither. Like Two said in the carnivale episode, "we're democratic, in some ways." The Village, I think, represents a "Third Way" faction, an alternative to the dichotomy, which incorporates aspects of both but is in fact neither. The string-pullers.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:14 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
I like how 12 seems to be an alternate 6, with a different colored turtleneck and a different color piping.
Why does the announcer about the General's course have an American accent?
Our Hero, canonically, has the same birthday as McGoohan. This reinforces the interpretation of the series as a meditation on acting, on playing a part, pretending to be someone else, and the psychological stresses it induces.
Doing a little digging, I read more about Angelo Muscat, the only actor to appear in as many episodes as McGoohan. Angelo Muscat: The Butler.
a place which is utterly and deliberately ambiguous
After watching the last episode, I think this is the wrong idea to take. They very deliberately push the idea of two sides: white and black, West and Soviet. But the essence of the Village is that it is of both, and neither. Like Two said in the carnivale episode, "we're democratic, in some ways." The Village, I think, represents a "Third Way" faction, an alternative to the dichotomy, which incorporates aspects of both but is in fact neither. The string-pullers.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:14 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
When "A Liberal Arts Curriculum in Two Minutes" came across my Facebook feed, this was the first thing I thought of. Not sure that's what the creator intended...
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:20 AM on September 25, 2014
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:20 AM on September 25, 2014
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-I feel great about John Castle in "The General" -- he does "easy, weary contempt with something behind it" so well, and he distinguishes himself even with McGoohan playing a similar archetype a few feet away. I feel like I'm always taking time in these posts just to praise Prisoner guest stars, but the show was so well cast, and McGoohan, an actor who acted a lot at all times, was nonetheless generous about sharing his light.
-It's a singular episode in that it's not about 6 at all. He's just the investigator. It's about the Professor's wife, 12, the Professor, and 2 before it even starts to think about 6, and despite 2's claim to have "an obsession about him," it's almost entirely unconcerned with the 2/6 relationship. Some Prisoner themes recur -- infantilization, psychic driving -- but they're with regard to the Village as a whole, not something that 6 and/or a small cohort are suffering individually.
-I have no idea what's going on with the ongoing image of people destroying realistic art, or why the Professor's wife made a waxwork of her husband (other than to symbolize her attempts to keep him alive; "making a waxwork" of the man is not a bad metaphor). I am more tempted than usual to explain this as "it looked cool, and the episode needed five minutes' more time."
-6 really loves to compare people to cabbages.
posted by thesmallmachine at 11:20 PM on July 11, 2014 [3 favorites]