In my never-ending battle to improve myself, both physically and mentally (and because I was looking through the video rack at the library
recently), I decided to watch all the episodes of The Prisoner.

For those've you who don't know anything about the series, it was the brainchild of Patrick McGoohan, who previously was on the series
Secret Agent Man.  It was a "mini-series" of seventeen episodes aired in 1967-1968.

In the pilot, Arrival (not to be confused with the ABBA album of the same name) our nameless central character quits his job and is mysteriously whisked away to "The Village", a goofy little villa where everyone is mysteriously happy and there's no real way to escape.  This is not unlike my current situation, where I quit my job and was mysteriously whisked away to "Harris Beach", a goofy little law firm where everyone is mysteriously happy and there's no real way to escape, if you overlook the elevators.

Number 6, as he is soon called, decides he doesn't much care for his new home in The Village.  I was trying to figure out why - The Village is pretty nice-looking - and decided it was because in his normal life he got to drive this cool looking itty-bitty car, but in The Village he had to take the golf-cart taxis.

All is not swell in The Village, however, because there's an Evil White Blob whose job it is to suffocate wrong-doers.  I believe it is called
"Rover" (by looking at different Prisoner websites), Chris called it a blancmange, and I called it "Eric", because I thought that's what the guy in charge called it at one point.

Most of this episode is spent watching Number 6 stalk around trying to escape the Village, either by running (which only gets him an encounter with Eric) and by helicopter (access to which is provided by the Girl With The Goofy Cape, which doesn't work either).

Why is he in the Village?  Will he get out?  What's the deal with the Evil White Blob?  All those questions and more will be answered, as soon as I get more tapes from the library.

(If you get these tapes and you're a fan of the old Muppet Show, you'll be pleased to know that both start up the same way - with the trumpet going and the spinning diamonds of the "ITG" logo.  Yippie and hooray indeed.)