précis: (the velvet prison)

 

On the heels of the collaborative 'Farscape' project, I was communicating with Darth Buddha about films and such, and he recommended that I look into Patrick McGoohan's seminal ITV serial 'The Prisoner' (1967-68). Granted, I was familiar with the series, but what I didn't know was that it had some basis in reality. Apparently, one of the series' creators, George Markstein was a former wartime journalist, and in his researches, he learned that there was some sort of institution in Scotland where 'recalcitrant' British agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) - later MI-6 - were committed if they had been compromised in some form or another.

While the full-round of research on this topic has yet to be accomplished - WWII, the history of British Intelligence agencies, et. al. - that shouldn't prohibit the construction of a basic story. The particular interest here is to create a tableau of events within a framework of plausibility, surrealism without the magenta: What if  there were an institution that incarcerated 'retired' espionage agents against their will, for fear of the intelligence they bore, and the possibilty that they might trade that knowledge? Would not these prisoners try to use every bit of their training in an attempt to escape? Likewise, given the opportunity, would they not try to use their spycraft upon one another in order to secure an early realease?

In this way, it occurs to me, in some respects, the premise of 'The Prisoner' did not go far enough. Conceivably, the Village of 'The Prisoner' could have been a madhouse on the proportions of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' with competitions and rivalries beyond that of one protagonist and his wardens. By all rights, such an institution would constitute a war on at least four fronts: The wardens against the inmates, the inmates against the wardens, the inmates against each other and every inmate for themselves - and that on top of all of the Psy-Ops and interrogation techniques used by the wardens to get to the bottom of the inmates allegiances.

So, in summary, we're up to 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'-meets-'1984'-meets- 'Casablanca'-meets-'Charlotte Gray'-meets-'The Great Escape'-meets-'Three Days of the Condor' as derived from 'The Prisoner'. I suppose this premise is as interesting as any other to start with...

Why didn't Dennis Potter think of it first?



-Victor Sparrow, August 30, 2003