Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world
With an earth, comprised of eternal humans, only a few cloning cells and DNA tweaks away, I can look at my mortality, and laugh at why I ever drove 50 miles (round trip for 17 weeks), to record, off of the television speaker, the SOUNDTRACK to the British TV program The Prisoner. No coughing was allowed. The show was originally broadcasted in the late 60's and I watched it with my nose nearly on the tv's glass screen. I actually played back the audio only tapes. During the silent sections, I tried to imagine the course of action. Thank goodness the series came out on laser disc. The show is an iconic fable of a dis-associated individual being bent to society's control. Episode after episode found the main character foiling his controllers' plan, but also failing to escape his village jail. In the last two episode, No. 6, the Prisoner, does turn the tables on his captors with a hallucinatory contest of minds, where logic is ignored in favor of a Monty Python sketch. The psychedelic 60's on film.
In 1977 the show was replayed on cable tv. Limited cable, but no satellites, no internet, no napster, no bit torrent. The show was not on VHS or BETAMAX tapes. Since I did not have cable or a VCR, the weekly sojourn began.
The series always had a cult following, but that does not mean commercial sales. DVDs were unknown and many years away. Getting the show on laser disc greatly helped, but finding all the episodes was another adventure. The Prisoner DVDs are being re-released in an anniversary box set with background documentaries and alternative episodes.
Another fave, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is on the DVD horizon. There are two corporations that claim copyright ownership and are fighting over the distribution rights, but that will get resolved. It is only about money. Listening to the Soundtrack CD of the music from the series - Jerry Goldsmith's Crime Jazz Space Age Pop - bongos, flutes, percussive organ riffs galore, trumpets!!!! With Robert Drasnin, Gerald Fried, Lalo Schifrin, Richard Shores composing episode scores from the Goldsmith's U.N.C.L.E. music template. Bring on the THRUSH villains. Open channel "D."
And the first season of The Wild Wild West with Michael Dunn as "Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless," the master arch villain, in elegant Black and White, is available.
Killing my television might have to wait a bit. Technology has restored the fun. I think I have time to return to my childhood.
