In the Village a formerly unknown "Comittee" persues Number Six and accuses him of being "unmutual" and "disharmonious" because of his anti-social behaviour in living on his own. Because just words won't persuade an individual like Number Six into cooperation a neuro-surgical treatment is eventually forced upon him. This operation is broadcast on the Village television as a demonstration of a succesful "social conversion". And the Village authorites appear to be on the lucky path with Number Six becoming a new social member of the society.

IN A SCENE HARDLY CREDIBLE NUMBER SIX CURES HIS DOCTOR USING HYPNOSIS.
APPARENTLY SHE DISLIKED HIS WAY OF PREPARING TEA.

Like most other episode titles of THE PRISONER, "A Change of Mind" has a double or even multiple meaning in terms of brain washing, altering the mind, changing one's opinion. The episode itself is ambivalent, although it does have its moments. But considered as one out of a bunch of episodes it falls behind. Partly this is due to the fact that the regular director was fired by McGoohan and he himself took control. Thereby the emphasis was shifted more in favour of the spirit than of the plot.

NUMBER TWO AS THE AMIABLE BIG BROTHER

The pressure to conform and to adapt, to shut one's mouth, was never stronger in THE PRISONER. Also the Village, its general atmosphere, the inhabitants were never sketched in a more unpleasant and oppressive way; looming shadows of the Orwellian 1984.
Altering the personality of a man by force was the subject of movies of that era like ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Milos Forman and SECONDS by John Frankenheimer. The underlying pattern is the rigid, formed authoritarian society which will brand dissenters and segregate them but which doesn't necessarily have to be a dictatorship.

The episode's weakness is also partly due to the studio-bound setting which really doesn't lift you up. And there is the plot which must constrain itself regarding Number Six in order not to "damage the tissue" instead of actually lobotomizing him or maybe the script having at least launch a last second's rescue device. It would probably have been against McGoohan's view of the title character who always used to have a firm grip on things.
Hard to believe also that Number Two, played insinuatingly by John Sharpe as an amiable uncle, is supposed to rapidly flee the Village for being publicly labelled "unmutual" after a simple rhetorical trick by Number Six. The impression remains that this epsiode has been glued together in an equally hastily way as Number Two leaves the Village. That's what it links to two other one - "The General" and "A. B. and C."

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