Appreciative examination
Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling - 2:2=2
It is not known who brought in that (English) song textline from the Zinnemann noble western HIGH NOON. Probably copyright considerations played a role because the story underwent substantial reworking before the now familiar shape emerged.
From the start the mind of Number Six is in the body of another man, played by Nigel Stock. It is the intention of the Village responsibles to coerce Number Six into cooperation and to detect the inventer of that piece of machinery, Professor Seltzmann. He alone has the knowledge to perform the reverse process. So Number Six has to make his way to Austria where Seltzman is supposed to be living. It was taken for granted that the Prisoner would (be) return(ed) to the Village.
A
TOUCH OF BOND - JAMES BOND HERE. WHO'S THE MAN WITH THE "FACE UNKNOWN"
(ORIGINAL TITLE)? NUMBER SIX, IN THE BODY OF A DIFFERENT MAN,
ENCOUNTERS HIS EX-FIANCÉE - A TRUCLKOAD FULL OF POTENTIAL DRAMA,
BUT NOT HERE.
Vincent Tilsley was the author of this episode. During the 2003 Prisoner Convention he told about the way his script was handled and that he had had mixed feelings about it. The task, in this case, was to create a convincing PRISONER story without having the principal actor present. Patrick McGoohan was in the USA for his Hollywood debut movie, the John Sturges film ICE STATION ZEBRA. Back home it was decided to end the series after the completion of 17 episodes.
The
idea of a mind transfer was a hard undertaking. Tilsley delivered the
script of "Forsake" hoping he'd receive an invitation to a discussion
about it (together with Tomblin, Markstein, McGoohan?) in order to get
the threads and the whole story improved. As a result he hoped to achieve
a conclusive episode. But nothing Tilsley ever heard of anyone. Neither
did he know if his script had been rejected nor if it had indeed been
turned into a film without notifying him. Eventually, when he heard this
episode was being screened and he was watching it on television he almost
failed to identify it as "his" episode.
McGoohan was totally dissatisfied. And probably the script was "rewritten"
by David Tomblin, the story thereby losing so much of its initial meat
to enforce a title change from "Face Unknown" to "Do Not
Forsake Me, Oh My Darling". And maybe, already working on the subsequent
episode that he was going to direct, too, Tomblin did have something in
his mind: the western parable "Living In Harmony".
Quintessentially
it's the mind transfer which remained solely intact of Tilsley's concept.
Of all, "Forsake" is the only episode to have a so called pre-credit
sequence, something which is quite popular as a dramatic device to
get the TV audience hooked and keep the interest alive during the following
commercial break right before the start of the actual credit sequence.
And indeed, this intro is really good, worth a thriller and intriguing,
makes you want to get more. Moreover, the episode offers a sequence of
(albeit only stock) footage of a journey through Europe by car which lends
an ample ambience to it, a taste of Bond, that is.
On the contrary, the machine required for the reverse process of this
mind transfer on Number Six is likely to go to the props department of
Edward D. Wood Jr. To put it in favour of those responsible, it could
be regarded as a SF-trash parody. And there is the one curious detail,
to say the least, about Number Six who, as a private person, isn't known
at all that he is supposed to having been engaged for some time to Janet,
his former superior's daughter. He now encounters her in the body of a
different man. Sadly, the script doesn't take advantage of the constellation
and nothing ensues with regard to whatever drama, except that Number Six
has to prove to Janet, rather technically, it's really him who she met.
In
one of the previous SIX-OF-ONE society magazines the two episode scripts
"Face Unknown" and "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling"
were compared to each other. According to this survey Tilsley's "Face
Unkown" was much better than the current work. Number Six' resignation
was at the centre of it and the letter he later dashes on his superior's
desk. He receives a treatment in the "room of oblivion" and
he, now in the body of "the Colonel" whose name in Tilsley's
script is Oscar, is sent back to the day of his resignation where he experiences
the important hours that lead him to his decision as a matter of conscience.
A regression therapy of that kind can be found very similarly in the episode
"Once Upon A Time" where there is an "Embryo Room"
as the central place of the action. One musn't forget, however, that this
episode had in fact been produced many weeks earlier - written and directed
by McGoohan himself; a reason to reject it?
When Tilsley was told the German title "2:2=2" he was amazed but kind of liked that non-working equation, that the title wasn't so far off as it appeared at first glance. Nevertheless, there was his overall feeling of discomfort that this episode just isn't "his" episode. On the other hand, his name as the author has been connected with this episode ever since. And this is surely more than nothing.
Research done by Michael Brüne
