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A. B. AND C. |
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"I AM NOT
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Anthony Skene
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A lot of its inherent potential, in comparison to the episode "Living In Harmony", is left untouched and even the thin layer of irony included in "The General", that other episode where there are equally poor production values, is absent here.
Interestingly, it isn't the story, it's the details, little vignettes, rendering the episode "acceptable".
There is Colin Gordon and his portrayal of the Number Two character: kissing up and kicking down thereby always having a glass of milk at hand; a personality mixture of ambition and servility. It's hard to think of any other actor in this role. The big red curved telephone, the Number One hot-wire, is placed prominently in the foreground while somewhere in the back, winced at its beeping sound, there's Number Two, a shot that isn't easily forgotten. Among the best scenes are those from Madame Engadine's "dreamy party", Number Six, for once, seen here not in his familiar Village attire but in plain clothes, dressed in in a dinner jacket, a little bit like John Drake. And there's also the magic moment when he unexpectedly, out of his own, grabs a wall mirror hanging askew and rights it. Thereby doing the same with the whole (imaginary, filmic) space around himself. This remains a non-sequitur, a surreal moment.
ALAN N. SHAPIRO: THE PRISONER AS 'THE HOSTAGE' (GERMAN LANGUAGE)
ABOUT THE LOST 2ND VILLAGE OF THE PRISONER
MORE: EPISODE LIVING IN HARMONY
Finally, the end of the episode: Quite nice the exposure of "C", the infamous person unknown, the supposed buyer of Number Six' secrets (in a scene filmed on the so-called "French street" of the former MGM studio backlot), to be Number Two (ha, ha!), while Number Six is still sleeping in the lab. Number Two and Number 14 staring worriedly at
the screen where the dream action controlled by Number Six is unfolding. A dream within a dream. He rewinds the title sequence of the series for them, the walk through the dark corridor, the letter of resignation. And then from the virtuality he turns to his bloodhounds: 'Now I'm coming at you!' (Where's the Village administration, where are the guards? Is Number Two granted only little backing?) The experiment has gone wrong. Number Two is a loser. These scenes are quite delightful. But they are also piecemeal within a very mediocre episode.
You can put it this way as well: "Any serious critical analysis of A. B. and C. is null and void… for this episode is simply superb fun." [1]
In contrast to the statement above US media scientist Alan N. Shapiro puts his emphasis on this aspect of the episode: "What I find to be especially interesting about the advanced science fictional technology presented in the episode 'A. B. and C.' is that it is simulataneously a totalitarian Nazi-like police technology of torture, interrogation, surveillance and mind-control, and yet is at the same time a potential postmodern cyber-consumerist technology what I call the digital-neurological interface. This technology of, so to speak, the second wave of digitalization would successfully convert signals and information back-and-forth between the neurological data format and what we might call the digital multimedia data format. The coming to realization in the years ahead of such a technology will clearly enable widespread “killer applications” for so-called play, entertainment, pornography, and professional training in the consumer and educational markets. One can even speculate that the digital-neurological system depicted in 'A. B. and C.' is an exemplary technology of what we today in 2019 call the approaching Fourth Industrial Revolution." [2]
[1] The comment on the Anorakzone website. www.anorakzone.com/prisoner
[2] Alan N. Shapiros lecture was held at the 50th German anniversary of THE PRISONER in 2019; the English version of his text (on his blog) being somewhat different to the German variant.