After 35 years we finally have a brand new episode of "THE PRISONER" . . . well, sort of . . .

In the thirty-odd years since "The Prisoner" first hit the small screen, there have been innumerable reviews, discussions, theories, counter-theories, interviews and articles on just about every aspect of the show. With only seventeen one-hour episodes, it's remarkable that so much material has been, and continues to be, generated.     Fans of the programme are always on the lookout for that 'something extra' - that never-been-published-before photograph, an old script which was written but never made it to film, perhaps even some discarded footage. Such things are very rare in older filmed-for-television programmes because no-one at the time thought that such things had any longevity, much less any value, beyond the first couple of screenings. Unused material was simply junked, unless someone took something home as a souvenir. Unlike today of course, when every feature film seems to transfer to DVD replete with out-takes, deleted scenes, restored cuts and documentaries.

Unlike other series of the same vintage, the release of The Prisoner series on DVD has been much enhanced by extra material which would not exist if it had all been left to the various companies who have owned the rights to it. Dozens of irreplaceable production stills have been mislaid over the years, music tapes have been thrown away, production notes have disappeared and documentary material has been wiped.     Luckily, Six Of One, The Prisoner Appreciation Society, came into being within a few years of the programme being shown and has, over a twenty-five year period, gradually researched, dug into, worried at and generally brow beaten just about every person, company and source of every kind of Prisoner-orientated material there was, is and will be. From this store of filmic treasure comes the "extras" which appear on the DVD collections, from script extracts, music cuts, documentaries, commercials and, most of all, the advice of experts. Without all that the DVD's would contain seventeen episodes, nothing more.

Those remarkable twists of fate . . .     Perhaps the most treasured finds have been two early cuts of episodes which are absolutely complete and finished. Although they don't change the stories which appear in the official versions, they include extra footage, alternate cuts of certain scenes, some different music and extended dialogue. Theoretically these different versions should have been destroyed many years ago as they were created almost as pilots to sell the series and as 'demos' for press screenings.     The editors, and particularly Patrick McGoohan, continued to refine and re-edit the episodes to produce what became the definitive versions which were then duplicated for distribution and TV screening. Meanwhile, the demo or "alternate" versions having circulated the various TV companies should have been returned to ITC, who were distributing the series, for disposal. Somehow they never did get back home, and were erroneously delivered to a TV company in Toronto who were screening the series for the very first time. It was noticed that these two episodes didn't match the rest, so the prints were put to one side for quite some time.     The prints somehow did eventually make it back to ITC, albeit in New York, where they sat for several more years. Another distribution mistake finally sent the "Arrival" print out to a small PBS company who transmitted it as the first episode of their run of The Prisoner. It's history becomes vague at this point because it then disappeared and, to date, has never been found. Fortunately a twist of fate saved at least the transmitted image as it was recorded on an early home-video machine by a science-fiction fan and stored in his private collection. Pictured right is a selection of frames from the opening sequence of this "alternate" version of Arrival; most of them are different to the ones in the regular episode. See the next page for a further selection and for the conclusion of it's history and transfer to DVD.

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