Post by Adam H. KermanFinally! The pilot episode!
As I mentioned, there's continuity with the two-part "Variation on a
Million Bucks". The CIA characters have counterparts but they didn't
bother hiring the same cast, so their names are different.
Rachel (Angela Browne) is the young and beautiful music teacher at
London's equivalent of a nursery school. It's called House on the Hill,
which cracked me up as it's kind of a horror movie name and it sure
looked similar to the school used in Bunny Lake is Missing.
Also it doesn’t actually seem to be on a hill.
Post by Adam H. KermanAfter school, she spots her father Harry (John Barrie). This is
unexpected as her father had died accidentally six years earlier.
Harry was coming to see her. But she spotted him first so he had to run for
it. I have no idea what they’re talking about.
Post by Adam H. KermanI can see why ITV and its affiliated networks didn't want to air this
first. The plot devices are incredibly annoying. All throughout the
episode, Rachel and McGill are grabbed or kidnapped but it's done not to
advance the plot but for exposition. Running after her father, Rachel is
grabbed by a policeman acting like a hall monitor who causes her to lose
sight of him. He doesn't approve of her running on the sidewalk. The
The cop is so Monty Python. I thought he was going to arrest her on the
charge of silliness.
Post by Adam H. Kermanonly purpose is so she can reveal he's been dead for six years.
I guess the British were in on it because she ends up with the CIA.
Harry was McGill's boss. McGill was set up to "lose" a scientist to the
Russians. Harry "died"; McGill takes the fall and gets fired. Now, the
real reason why McGill wasn't prosecuted as a traitor was the were
planting the scientist as a double agent. Harry is his control, even
though Harry has been in hiding. I have no idea how this works as the
script didn't explain.
Harry doesn’t seem to so much be the guys control as just a courier. I
guess they’re carrying Russian secrets out through his job as a sailor.
It’s not so much Harry they are protecting as the “defected” scientist.
When the backstory is revealed, McGill is talked
Post by Adam H. Kermanout of revealing that Harry is alive and restoring McGill's personal
credibility within the CIA.
Harry had been hiding as a sailor. It docked in London. He couldn't
resist visiting his daughter but she saw him first. This put his mission
and her life in jeopardy but he didn't care. Also he's sure to be
recognized.
Harry is dying so he doesn’t really care. But he wants to keep the secret
that he’s alive so they don’t connect the pieces and figure out the
scientist is still alive as well. Or maybe they know the scientist is
alive but not that he’s a double agent.
Somebody is going to have to take over Harry’s job though but nobody’s
thought of that. I
Post by Adam H. KermanThere's a set piece conclusion in a soccer stadium. Lots of extra were
Yeah! There were at least a dozen of them!
Post by Adam H. Kermanhired as Russian henchmen but McGill delays them with his face getting
punched a lot. Harry drove his car back to the dock.
How this protects the double agent now that the Russians know Harry's
death was faked makes no sense.
1) In other episodes, we thought that the title referred to McGill's
suitecase, a regular prop although it's rarely opened and not in every
episode. Where it's in the episode, there's a throw away line at the end
in which he gets it back.
In this episode, there is a specific line of dialogue that Harry is the
"man in the suitcase" because McGill kepts a photographic print of the
man who could clear his name.
2) The theme song has a brighter, more orchestrated arrangement, and
I'll bet that the unnamed arranger worked on music for The Prisoner.
Also, the same opening title arrangement is simply repeated under the
secondary titles at the opening of the second act as McGill buys his
newspaper with Harry's picture on the front page, then walks into CIA.
3) There is a longer version of the closing theme with similar
orchestration. Not sure why the closing titles are more numerous.
4) The "developers" (not creators) are Richard Harris and Dennis
Spooner. Stanley R. Greenberg wrote the script. The Wikipedia page said
that neither Harris nor Spooner had any involvement in the series beyond
the pilot but weren't specific about exactly what they had developed as
the series concept. It's interesting that they didn't even write the
pilot episode.
I think the Credit actually said they “devised“ the series.
Let’s talk about the sets. The mad crazy sets. The CIA headquarters doesn’t
have a right angle in it. Doors are set 3 inches apart and everyone at a
different angle. They can only possibly open into linen closets. The main
guys office has stripes everywhere. But they aren’t paint they’re actually
3-D molding of some kind. And there isn’t even an attempt to make anything
look like it has a ceiling. All the walls just go 20 feet up. And the funky
phone booths! They have all but the last digit of a phone number so there
are only nine possible phone numbers it could be. What the hell? Do the
British not use zero as the last digit of their phone numbers?
No one will be seated during the endless rotary dial dialing sequence. The
babes apartment is absolutely horrible with the ugliest wallpaper
imaginable. Her bed doesn’t even have a headboard it’s just a mattress
shoved up against the wall. And she sleeps with her dressing gown laid out
on top of the covers over her feet right where the wardrobe lady put it.
McGill calls each phone booth in turn until Harry comes out and answers.
How does Harry who is hiding know which phone in a row of phones is the one
ringing?
Somehow as long as the Russians never actually see Harry then they won’t
believe her story that he’s alive and all will be well. Of course at the
end of the episode McGill is headed straight towards where Harry left his
car when he got on the ship again in Southampton and we know there are at
least a dozen Rusky agents in the vicinity! I think I’d pick up my car the
next day at least.
You’d think he’d go back to dating the babe again.
So at the beginning she spots her father after school gets out. The cop
takes her to the station. The station is full of reporters which pick up
her story which is effectively I saw a guy in the distance who had a beard
who kind of looked like my dad. They pick up the story and plaster it all
over the papers with photos where the CIA reads it and sometime later
McGill reads it and cuts it out and heads in to talk to the CIA guy. The
daughter is already there and she says she thought she saw her father
earlier that afternoon. Holy shit! That’s a lot to happen in the span of an
hour or two and it must’ve been a really really really slow News-day!
So a dozen plus dirty Commie agents leave our hero in the middle of a
soccer stadium in broad daylight beaten half to death because they hear a
police siren and all run like little girls from the house on the hill in
different directions. The head of the CIA, his assistant, and the possibly
dead guy‘s daughter who was told to stay hidden, all come running out and
have a scene together in the middle of the soccer stadium in broad
daylight. The police never do show up (and I don’t know who called them or
why). But do you think that maybe any of these dozen or so enemy agents
might have looked back and considered that this group of people meeting was
sort of suspicious?
--
“The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it’s still on my list.”
