I appreciate the posting of the interviews, but ... I'm stuck with a really slow dial-up connection that makes playing utube stuff impossible. The only way I could play those interviews is if they were on a disc.

Number 6 knows who he is and so do the various Number 2's. That much is certain. I read on an English forum that McGoohan originally intended Number 6 to be John Drake, the secret agent from Danger Man. However, the character was owned by Ralph Smart, creator and producer of Danger Man, who understandably would have demanded payment and a financial piece of The Prisoner for the use of his character. So McGoohan went over the scripts and took the name out. He decided to let the question of identity be part of the show rather than state outright who Number 6 is by name, believing that his identity is not as important as the situation he finds himself in. Note that Number 2 is demanding to know why Number 6 resigned, not questioning his identity. They know who he is. As for the ending in which no questions are answered and no story threads resolved, McGoohan had only planned for 8 episodes, and had always intended to leave the program open-ended. The last episode was originally intended to be The Chimes of Big Ben in which Number 6 escapes, is caught, and returned to the village, but he will keep trying to escape. When the American finance demanded more episodes and a happy ending, McGoohan had to comply with additional episodes that he wasn't entirely happy with, but he told them where to go in the last one.

The source for all this, I gathered from a post on the English forum, is a book detailing the history of the program which was included as part of the original Special Edition box-set of The Prisoner in region 2, now withdrawn and oop. If anyone here has that book maybe they can check it out and report back to us?

Richard

"... little by little the look of the country
changes because of the people we admire."
dialog in HUD (1963)