A couple of notes.
Firstly, I’m going to cover the original edit of ‘Arrival’ and matters arising from it, in a separate post before ‘Free For All’.
Secondly, there is - obviously - so much to notice in this overwhelming setup episode, and so to maintain a decent speed I’ll pace some of the overarching observations (for example, the theme tune, the choice of Village public address speaker music, or the visual iconography of the Village) throughout The Annotated Prisoner, at moments when they seem particularly pertinent. Or we’d be stuck in ‘Arrival’ for months!
I shall divide each episode up by its four acts. Sometimes, like with this post, it may take more than one post to cover one Act. As I said in the Introduction, I’m assuming that you’re intimately familiar with The Prisoner. My task here is to notice things that haven’t been noticed before, or at least not in this way.
ACT 1
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