A CHANGE OF MIND
SINNESWANDEL

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"I AM NOT
A NUMBER.
I AM
A PERSON."

"SIX OF ONE,
HALF A
DOZEN OF
THE OTHER."

SCREENPLAY Roger Parks
DIRECTED by Joseph Serf (= Patrick McGoohan)
GERMAN VERSION by Frank Wesel
FIRST GERMAN BROADCAST: ARTE 14.08.2010

MORE: EN-TITLE-D
DIESE SEITE AUF DEUTSCH

APPRECIATIVE EXAMINATION

Difficult times: Number Six is pursued by the local "Commitee" and branded as a social paria for his secluded way of living and being unmutual. He receives a lobotomy treatment which is performed publicly on television. Back in the community he uncovers the plot and forces Number Two to hastily get out of the Village.

RANKED 15th It's an oppressive episode but with considerable weak points. The central idea of a "formed society" put aside, there is just one scene that remains: Number Six telling his doctor how to make a decent cup of tea.

Don't read any further
unless you know THE PRSIONER already
and you want to delve more indepth
into theoretical discussions and facts
around the history of the production.
- Be seeing you!

By Arno Baumgärtel

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.

NOT THE SALVATION'S ARMY - THE APPEAL SUB-COMMITTEE ANTE PORTAS

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 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. It was Roger Parkes' first script displaying the looming shadows of the 1962 film THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE as well the Orwellian 1984. It was also the time of US senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist witch hunt in the 1950s when thousands of people both celebrities and unknowns were dragged before special "Comitees against unamerican Activities".

Altering the personality of a man by force was the subject of novels and movies of that era like Ken Kesey's novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1962) and John Frankenheimer's film SECONDS (1966). The underlying pattern is the rigid, formed authoritarian society which will brand dissenters and segregate them. However, it doesn't necessarily have to be a dictatorship. The expression "formed society" (German: "formierte Gesellschaft") describes the era of post-WW II Germany under Chancellor Erhard between 1963 and 1966. It implies a political system of non-criticism declared by the ruling party, i.e. the German Christ Democratic Party, and postulates almost unanimous consensus on governmental and economical decisions.

The episode is ambivalent, although it does have its moments like the scene when Number teaches the doctor how to prepare a decent cup of tea ("always warm the pot"). Angela Browne as the doctor seen, and heard, lecturing what is happening while the fake brain surgery is underway; tongue-in-cheek really. And another one, when a group of angry matrons shows up in front of Number Six' door threatening and beating him with their umbrellas for his unmutual behaviour. However, it doesn't come clearly whether the irony was placed purposefully here.

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 a real good plot.

Roy Rossotti was the assigned but hapless director who was fired by McGoohan after only one half day on the set. Actress Angela Browne [1] told in an interview that apparently they had been behind the production schedule. Rossotti would have taken time to work scenes out, most likely too much time for Patrick McGoohan who is said to have been under enormous psychological stress. Robert Fairclough, the author of two books on THE PRISONER, writes, McGoohan, "proved over-optimistic in one of his ambitions" [2]. When it came to shooting a difficult tracking shot works had to be stopped in the evening because the technicians had turned off the lights. McGoohan got furious. A number of people involved in the production have reported about McGoohan getting aggressive or treating them unfair.

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.

IN A SCENE HARDLY CREDIBLE NUMBER SIX CURES
HIS DOCTOR USING HYPNOSIS.

Ultimately, what remains is the impression 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, perhaps three other ones - "The General", "A. B. and C." and "It's Your Funeral" where there is lots of ideas but rather misfired execution of them.

[1] Interview on the Unmutual Web: https://www.theunmutual.co.uk/interviewsbrowne.htm
[2] Robert Fairclough: THE PRISONER. The Official Companion to the Classic TV Series, 2002

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