Friday, March 29, 2013

Number Forty Seven Knows The Deadly Secret Behind Tic Tacs

For Christmas my dad gave me two great books: Not Since Carrie: 40 Years Of Broadway Musical Flops by Ken Mandelbaum, which I read a month or two ago, and Patrick McGoohan: Danger Man Or Prisoner? by Roger Langley, which I am reading now (well, not right this second, clearly, but it's the book I've been reading this week).
There's three chapters in the book devoted to The Prisoner and one of those chapters includes an interesting quote from Patrick McGoohan, from the 1967 press screening of The Prisoner:
"It's about a top scientist who has vital space secrets in his head and decides he wants to resign."
You know what that means?
Number Six is not John Drake!!! Take that, everybody who thinks they're the same guy!
I'm not sure why I'm so adamantly againtst that theory; I was against it even before I'd ever watched Danger Man. And when I finally did see Danger Man, I was even more against the theory. John Drake is way too affable to be the same character as the man in The Prisoner.
Also, the Simpsons episode The Computer Wore Menace Shoes supports the theory that Number Six was a scientist, rather than a secret agent, when he says the line "I invented the bottomless peanut bag." Sounds like something a scientist would do.
I will only accept the theory that John Drake is Number Six if it goes on to claim that Number Six is Doctor John Rafferty.
Actually, the story of how Number Six escaped his infinite loop and the watchful eye of The Village and escaped to California where he became a grouchy doctor might be a pretty interesting one. Why don't they make a movie of that?
...Wait. No. Don't. Forget I said anything. If they tried to make it, they'd fuck it up. I saw what they did with that godawful Prisoner remake.
I said it before and I'll say it again: Patrick McGoohan only died so he'd have a grave to roll over in when that remake aired.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

No comments: