I suppose my favourite No.2 would have to be Leo McKern, followed by Colin Gordon, who I really felt sorry for. Well his failure in A B & C was not all his to bear, but would have to because he was the boss at the time. Okay, I know No.1's the boss, be we won't get into No.1 just yet, if at all. A favourite episode would have to be Arrival, with Checkmate a close second because of all the film footage of Portmeirion it contains.
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling is my least favourite episode, because there are far too many holes in the plot. There's absolutely no need to have Professor Seltzman brought ot the village, because there's no need for any such 'reversal process.' I mean to say, all you have to do to reverse the original effects of the Seltzman machine, having first swopped the minds of two people, is to put those same two people through the exact same process they went through originally. And in any case, if they don't know where Seltzman is, how did they get their hands on a Seltzman machine in the first place?
I have often been asked how it was that I got into the Prisoner in the first place? Well as a boy I was a fan of Danger Man, and John Drake was my boyhood hero. And so I merely saw the Prisoner as a continuation or sequal to Danger Man. That John Drake had resigned, as Patrick McGoohan had had enough of playing John Drake. But then where do you put recalcitrant agents who cannot be left around, not with all that knowledge inside their heads? You put them in The Village of course. And that's what I believe they did to John Drake.
For me the Prisoner has been a life-time passion, an obsession which I have been unable to let go of. From that first crack of thunder of the opening sequence in Arrival Patrick McGoohan made a Prisoner of me, and many like me. Yes I do wear my piped blazer when I go out and about, well they have become very fashionable in the past couple of years, and that made it easy for me. But I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Because once upon a time, when I wore my piped blazer out and about in the Town I would stand out. But now, others are wearing trendy piped jackets, and so now I sort of, blend into the background once more. I know, perhaps I should wear my colourful striped Village cape. I can guarantee that no-one else in Town will own one of them, with my mate Tommy Moke as the one excpetion, then I will once again stand out from the crowd, a true individual, showing his individual tendencies. What's more, everyone will be looking at me!
I'm Johnny Prisoner
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