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From: @RUTGERS.ARPA:milne@uci-icse
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: The Prisoner
Message-ID: <602@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 00:07:27 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.602
Posted: Wed Feb 13 00:07:27 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Feb-85 01:23:31 EST
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: Alastair Milne 


   Marvellous series.  I hope it comes around this way again.
   But WITHOUT the psychiatrist who, the last time it was run, supplied 
   comments after every show.  Yes, I know it's hard to believe anything
   so ruinous, but that's what they did.  Hanging would have been far too
   good.  (BTW, this in the LA/Orange County area of California.)

   I never really thought that, beyond Number 1 and Number 2, there was 
   any real heirarchy in the numbering system.  For one thing, *nobody* 
   would have been at the same level as anybody else.  Odd heirarchy.  But how
   did he get to be Number 6, when there were people with numbers in the
   hundreds (and who were *they*?  Spies?  Warders?  Innocent people?)?  One
   wonders whether the Village had already been there, or whether it was 
   specially set up to try to break him.  Big project for one man, but then
   he was an important agent.  But if it had already been there for a time,
   surely that number would already have been taken.  Or did it happen to be 
   vacant at the time?  

   As to that umbrella thing that the Number 2's carry, it could (knowing 
   the Village) be just about anything (a personal escape rocket, perhaps?)
   but it *could* just be an umbrella.  As I recall, lots of the Villagers, 
   especially the women, wore rain capes from time to time.  If the Village
   is in Britain, they'd need them.

   I agree that the Village was *probably* run by British Intelligence,
   but it's almost as hard for us to tell as it is for Number 6.  That, of 
   course, is the fundamental conflict of the series: he doesn't know whether 
   the warders are British, or enemies trying to break him; they don't know 
   whether he's loyal to Britain, or selling out to enemies.  And we really 
   get no more clues than he does.  It keeps the suspense up constantly.

   Begging your pardon, I believe that quote is:
   "I am not a number, I am a free man!"  to which the only reply he gets 
   is Number 2's long, loud laughter, seeming to come from a moonlit, grey
   sky.

   Excellent series, one of the finest I've ever seen.  I do hope it comes
   back.

				Alastair Milne

   "Je ne suis pas une numero!  Je suis un homme LIBRE!"
      -- from the French translation shown on channel 79 in Toronto.