The Prisoner – The General

November 3,1967 Season 1 Episode 6

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

On the surface, I thought what a great idea, but then, as the show progressed, I saw how evil it could be.

This one is one of The Prisoner episodes that looks simple on the surface, then keeps getting stranger the longer you sit with it. Number Six is dragged into the Village’s latest civic craze, a bright, friendly educational program called “Speed Learn.” It’s sold as progress, a way to teach people anything in 3 minutes, and the whole place treats it like the future has arrived. Number Six doesn’t buy it. He watches how quickly people accept it, how eager they are to be improved, and he starts asking the one question the Village never wants asked: who benefits?

The episode turns into a battle over information, and not in the usual spy-movie way. Speed Learn isn’t just about learning faster; it’s about removing the messy parts of thinking, doubt, and choice. The most important part is: what are they going to encode in the machine for you to learn?  Number Six pushes back by doing what he always does…he refuses to play along. The deeper he digs, the clearer it becomes that the message is all about control. Either you think like everyone else, or you are out of bounds. 

By the end, this episode feels like a warning. It’s not about technology being evil; it’s about how easily it becomes a shortcut to obedience when it’s run by the wrong hands. The episode keeps its tone light on purpose, but the point is blunt. A society that treats knowledge like a product can also treat people like human containers. Number Six’s resistance shows the one thing they can’t fully automate and control… a mind that won’t surrender.

I thought the ending could have been better with this one. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it, though. This episode also urges caution regarding the up-and-coming computer age. I was thinking of TikTok while watching this episode.  Be Seeing You!

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

36 thoughts on “The Prisoner – The General”

  1. Pingback: The Prisoner – The General – MobsterTiger

      1. I don’t do TikTok either but you’re right there is a lot of good stuff that’s rabbit hole worthy. But as you know lots of crap. Just yesterday a YouTube video on Dylan came up on that feed you get under the actual thing you want to see. It was like a half hour which I didn’t listen to much of it. But it’s an AI creation of a totally fictitious story where he has an interaction with a homeless teen playing a broken guitar. But of course it doesn’t say that it’s made up. I just wonder how many people believe this stuff.

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  4. I watched this late last night. Advice: watch the episodes earlier in the day, before your mind is toasty lol. I had to rewind a few times after dozing off, but I’m glad I did. This episode feels so current. It’s exactly what marketers who study logorhythms. The parts where everyone repeats the same “truthspeak” especially.

    This one is more physically violent than others. Does it get progressively more violent? How this #6 keeps his sanity is impressive after everything he’s going through. Another nod to the present. We’re living in some freaky times and holding onto sanity — or at least reality — is becoming a real challenge when tapping into the machine. It strikes me that away from the machine, stepping out into nature, is the biggest dose of reality of all. I’m really looking forward to going on blogging break starting in May.

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    1. Does it get more progressivly violent? I would say yes…in spots yes. Nothing too bad though until the end.
      They could load up the machine to tell you anything…hmmm…social media! lol.
      I liked the idea of the ending…I really did but I thought it was kinda weak…with the “question”….I see it and I loved the thought…but…it I guess he knew what to ask that machine because of who it was programmed by.
      This episode is not as confusing as the last though! That one bent my mind.

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      1. I agree, they sort of tacked on an ending, but I’m glad what he tried worked. I agree not as confusing as the prior one, which I finished watching and still couldn’t figure out.

        What do you think of the way the show uses “plants” that try to get close to him?

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    2. Oh I didn’t address something….yea I know what you mean about looking for time off in May. That is why I post when I do now. It keeps me energized… it can get to you…especially after doing a huge series like you did in March.

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  5. sounds interesting and like a very timely topic nowadays too. I see trends that are worrying to say the least where emphasis on schooling seems to be going from learning how to learn and find out things to how to avoid doing so. That’s not good for the future

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      1. True also and as you said in another comment, social media seems to aim to rapidly dumb down the populace, TikTok and the once-majestic Instagram especially. Then again, what CAN you say or do that’s meaningful in an about 12 second video?
        Cool pix from the show, btw, look like they should have been from a British band opening for the Stranglers in the ’80s.

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      2. LOL…it DOES look like a cool band! Yes…it is dumbing down people. Many times they warp history to fit their way of thinking.
        The answer is…you can’t show anything meaningful in 12 seconds. Hell some don’t watch YouTube longer videos anymore because they can’t get 20 seconds….it’s “too long.”
        This show was ahead of it’s time no doubt.

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  6. It’s a real concern that people are equating online information with hard truth. Humanity isn’t -or shouldn’t- be thinking ‘one size fits all,’ obviously.

    If you want to ‘learn’ off Tish Tish or whatever you’re not going to learn a damned thing that hasn’t been shonkily influenced, so to speak. But since AI is already insinuating itself into our lives via search engines our thinking is already virus infected I guess… What can you do, log off and read a book by candlelight?

    Scary how a persons thought processes can now be reduced down to common denominators. Now I’m certainly no professor but how can nice safe data led computer driven ‘thinking’ lead to those crazy human leaps of logic and new theories? I don’t know, it’s all well beyond me.

    Anyway, my brain hurts now, I’ll have to go have a cuppa tea and a wee lie down!

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    1. I hear what you are saying! I’ve watched some TikTok videos and I felt my IQ drop in my pointy head lol.

      This episode sure is relavant today! Now when I do a search…I put -ai at the end of my search question because that way it won’t come up.

      I’ve seen some Youtube videos ask college kids who was our first president? Ahhh….Lincoln? I could understand about something difficult but really?

      I hear you obbverse…hmmm…candlelight! lol. I’ll have some tea as well…ice tea but tea all the same!

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      3. Interesting comment tea wise Max. Here Earl Grey tea is so well known. So what’s the big or at least best known tea brand that’s sold in the States? I know coffee is king but tea is at least second tier as a hot drink.

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      4. I’ve never been a coffee drinker. Just regular sweet tea…nothing fancy. I go to a restaurant and they want to know…what kind of tea? Blackberry, lemonade tea, etc…when all I wanted was regular tea bag tea with a little sugar!
        We buy “Milo” tea….and at times I’ll make some tea from Lipton tea bags.

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  7. I may have said this before.  When my daughters were of that delightful teen age where they knew everything, I asked them a question.  What is the most dangerous word in the English language?  They had no idea how to respond.  I gave them a hint and said it was a three letter word.  Being teenagers, they immediately thought of sex.  No, the most dangerous word in the English language is WHY?

    This is paramount in The Prisoner.  Asking why is the ultimate rebellion. 

    Speed learning.  When I was a kid my brother and father got interested in Evelyn Wood’s Speed Reading.  It improved their reading speed and their reading comprehension tremendously, they claimed.

    There was a book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, that I read.  It is a horrible book and I don’t recommend it.  It took me all of an hour and a half to read the thing.  I spent 45 minutes on the first sentence and 45 minutes on the rest of the book.  I don’t remember what caught my attention and caused my lengthy contemplation of that first sentence.  I have gone back to it and am no longer so enamored with it.  But the point is it isn’t an issue of how much you read, but what you get from the reading. 

    I think that is parallel to the ideology of the Prisoner.  Speed Learning is nothing but brain washing. 

    I remain amazed at how well the Prisoner throws this stuff at us.

    Plot?  Who cares?  I don’t.  The plot isn’t complicated, the presentation is.  And the presentation is what has me hooked.

    Not far off topic. Earl Grey tea is very popular here in the States, although I don’t drink coffee or tea. But Lipton had a bigger advertising budget. Here in the States it is product name more than flavor.

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    1. These episodes are getting harder as we go on to write up. Like we said before…there is no right or wrong answers but I look the best I can.
      Yes…it’s brainwashing pure and simple. You could put “JFK was our first president” in there or whatever you wanted…and that would be your answer.
      I never heard of Earl Grey tea!

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      1. Not ever hearing about Earl Grey tea is, to some, like never hearing about Coors or whatever is the favorite beer in Texas these days. Since I don’t drink either beer or tea, it matters not to me. But I would think there’d be a connection between Earl Grey and the fab four. But I don’t know for sure.

        And yes, if you feel your leg being pulled, I admit to it.

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