TVSquad

(S01E13) The beginning of this episode certainly will startle you if you've been watching The Prisoner regularly. There are no opening credits, at least at first. There is a teaser and then goes the title card with different music and no dialogue with Number 2.

First, a little background regarding this episode. When this episode was being filmed, Patrick McGoohan was filming his role in the movie Ice Station Zebra which starred Rock Hudson. (Not a bad flick, by the way.) In any case, you don't see much of Number 6 here except at the beginning and at the end, but his presence is felt throughout the entire episode.

There's an interesting article over at The Morning News, one of my favorite websites for writers, about how producers go about choosing the right people for reality television. I've always wondered this myself, since they seem to find the most outrageous people on the planet. The article is called The Omarosa Experiment, although Omarosa, still the queen of reality tv, doesn't disclose much information because of all the hush-up contracts she's signed. The writer, Keith Hollihan, interviews a handful of well-known reality television contestants about how they got on their respective shows. Some of them made it by being ballsy with the producers, and others made it because they fit a certain stereotype the producers were looking to fill (i.e. the New York Italian). All of them went through extensive psychological screening with a minimum of two doctors who picked their brains to determine how they would react to certain situations. Omarosa says one of the doctors who interviewed her ended up lobbying for her to be on the show because her psych profile was so unusual. To say the least. But, not only do these contestants need to be slightly looney tunes, they also need to be able to handle rejection. One major concern when Survivor started was that contestants would commit suicide, something which did happen on boxing reality show, The Contender. Psychologists help producers choose contestants, by mixing various psychological types which are sure to create sparks. Basically, it all makes for an interesting psychological experiment.