I’m lounging on an island and that brought to mind The Village on The Island, and the old series, “The Prisoner” (1968), a seventeen episode series starring Patrick McGoohan.

In the series, a British case officer/spy quit and the Brits tossed him into the Village to try and figure out why…and to determine if he “knew too much”. The standard gripes common to people who leave the service were never fully explored. 

He was #6 (but didn’t like the number for some reason) and kept wanting to know who #1 was. The #2’s were assigned to break him and everyone who failed left the show and were replaced by a “New Two”). Every time he ran, The Rover, a large bouncing ball/soap bubble went after him, sucked him inside of it, and deposited him back in the Village.

#6, the Prisoner, wasn’t the only one in the village but he seemed to be the only one who counted.

AMC aired a re-make episode in 2009, but it didn’t do well enough for a re-made series to come of it. I always thought that re-making The Prisoner should include elements of Bay Watch if you want to get the viewership interested. There were no women in the Village who could entice The Prisoner (in the series). Then again, he was never faced with the Bay Watch cuties, was he? If you wanted to keep our friend CW, from the Daily Timewaster blog on the island, she’d have to be a freckle faced redhead.
So there you are. It’s on Netflix if you want to review episodes.

I don’t think that I’m a prisoner in The Village on The Island. Then again, I haven’t tried to run, invoking pursuit by a large soap bubble.

I’m content to crack open the I-Pad and read from the Kindle. In years past, I hauled paper books and they were heavy. The I-Pad is lighter and contains all of the Jim Curtis classics, should I wish to re-read them yet again. He’s threatening to release another edition of Rimworld, but I haven’t seen it yet. If Curtis doesn’t get the novel into the cue, I have some other science fiction to read:

Fallen Dragon, by Peter F. Hamilton
Thin Air, by Richard K. Morgan
Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky
Nelf Rings, Mervyn Miller
The Murderbot Diaries (series) by Martha Wells
Ancillary (series) by Ann Leckie

The Caravan

If the British could come up with a giant bouncing ball/soap bubble that sucked up fleeing people in the 1960’s, the US should be able to come up with something similar to handle the vagaries of the Border Wall in 2018/2019. Of course we’d need more than one. It would send a message wouldn’t it?

Juan and Maria splash across the Rio Grande just to be swallowed in a cool bit of Yankee tech and spit back out on the other side, still wet from the intended crossing. 

I’m sure that DRJIM and SIGREAYBEARD (who haunt this blog from time to time) could come up with something between them that would deal with the issue in a creative way. LSP could bless each giant soap bubble (invoking the Almighty) to find success.

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24 COMMENTS

  1. I could sure use that beach right now. Yesterday we had snow with blustery winds gusting to 40mph or so. Naturally I needed to be out in it. I watched The Prisoner some years ago. I seem to recall that it was a follow up of McGoohan's Secret Agent Man series. Interesting show.

  2. I used to like the Prisoner series, mostly late at night after the pub.

    And I'll happily do my bit as BORDER CHAPLAIN.

  3. As a young lad, I thought the theme music to "Secret Agent" by Johnny Rivers was just the coolest thing ever.

    Lately I've taken to watching some of the sci-fi shorts on YouTube. Was pleasantly surprised to see Sigourney Weaver turn up in one of them.

  6. Border defense- How about goo? A nice sticky goo mat a foot deep and 50 yards wide on the border. Something soft, tenacious and sticky enough to make it impossible to walk through more than a few yards. Boards laid on top would sink in, a coffer dam to hold back the goo would be needed to get across. Sort of a modern day LaBrea tar pit.

  7. I don't know whether Secret Agent was better than The Prisoner. Secret Agent had a better theme song. As I type, it's running through my head.

  8. The Prisoner re-ran for a LONG long time, and it might just have been better with a bit of a buzz on rather than watching it sone cold sober while eating a TV dinner.

  9. Many of the sci-fi shorts on YouTube are very good. The French films are typically French, though. Even in the future, they say "life is shit"…

  10. Great grab, Pip. Exactly. Except, we need to have a way for the balls to suck up illegal aliens and transport the BACK across the border and barf them out before fetching another one.

  11. Thanks. The airplane flight was less than perfect because I flew on points, which meant back-of-the-bus, but I'm here now, the waves are big, the air is warm and humid and yeah. Life of Riley.

  12. Any La Brea tar pit should be several thousand feet deep to accommodate them all and to provide scientists in the year 2525 to have something to study.

    Having said that, we do have that foam glue that can be sprayed out of a water cannon and it's uber-cool. Imagine being covered in foamy glue that's hardening and trying to run from La Imigre. USGOV also can un-bond the glue by spraying them with something so that they can be unbound from their cocoons. Of course, you could toss the cocoons into the tar pit.

  13. Idle mind is the Diavel's playground. Speaking of which…
    I too remember The Prisoner from my early teens. Was intriguing concept, and now that I've seen more of "the world" at work, makes sense.
    Better idea than covering invaders at the border with glue – synthesize hagfish slime in mass quantities and use that to coat any and all south-facing surfaces on the border. Biggest problem would be making sure that there was no solvent available to the invaders.
    Enjoy the warmth. It's sunny here but in the mid-30s (about 120 miles south of SIGREYBEARD)
    Wandering Neurons

  15. If they sink in too deep, all the drama is lost and there go the movie $$$. Plus, if we do decide to let a couple free, they will never, ever, spit gum on a sidewalk again.

  16. You have a heart, Raven, and eye toward the bottom line. You always need to consider the movie rights and the back end (the tar pit toys – "Tar Baby" was done but was wiped out by Disney – we can bring it back). Action figures of illegal aliens struggling in the tar would be a big seller at Christmas. There are also the hats, the t-shirts, the golf accessories and the on-site retail store.

  19. "I'm not a NUMBER, I am a FREE MAN!"

    My favorite quite from the Prisoner.

    Kilowatt millimeter wave "Area Denial Devices" would do nicely. They make your skin feel on fire from several hundred yards…..

  20. Never caught "The Prisoner," on TV, but with Spectrum, I'm told I can watch anything from anywhere. BTW your list of books sounds intriguing, but with the exception of Peter F. Hamilton's "Pandora's Star," I hadn't heard of them. At first sight, I thought "Rimworld," was "Ringworld." I have some catching up to do with the new writers.

  22. Jim Curtis (Old NFO) haunts this blog and his new book is said to be coming out soon, possibly as early as this week – Rimworld.

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