Hi fans

I haven't watched the series for a very long time but this week saw the episode "Many happy returns" on cable TV. I didn't remember much it seemed all new to me. In fact I feel pretty sure that I haven't seen that episode before at all!
However, one thing struck me that I hadn't realised had ever come to pass, namely that No 6 actually got back to London for real and even tracked down the location of the village.
What do you all make of it? Were the estimates of its location (pieced together from No 6's travels) accurate? (I realise that he flew back there in a jet fighter but the pilot was obviously "one of them" so No 6 might not have been deceived by the route taken).
Were the two characers (played by Donald Sinden and Patrick Cargill) genuine or were they part of the conspiracy?
I guess it's all part of the intrigue because one can never know for sure, but my take on it was that the captors were in fact British and imprisoned him because he knew too much.

Many Happy Returns is my all time favourite episode. I can't think of any other TV show to dare to go 20 mins without a single word being spoken!

If Number 6's logic in locating it was accurate then he must have been pretty spot on with the location. Unless the help he got from Donald Sinden and Patrick Cargill was dodgy, in which case it could have been way off.

Brilliant episode though.

Hi!

As Tom said, Many Happy Returns is amazing for the fact that's it's silent for over 20 minutes -you couldn't do that now... or barely do that then!

I think that the two characters were part of the conspiracy, and the location revealed to Number 6 was possibly completely wrong. Or at least, a little of the way off - they couldn't let him know the actual place, if they were on the side of the village.

Also I find it interesting because, the characters of Cargill and Sinden were obviously British, but there is the angle of -was it the British government, or was it that these two men had changed sides, had defected? I love that angle because it shows that the village goes far and wide - can he trust anyone at all?

I agree. Though can you imagine may programmes these days with such a long title sequence, sometimes i just put my few episodes on that I have just to watch that.
Now if you get anything over 20 seconds long it's too much.
That is another reason for me that the prisoner is such an outstanding programme.

After 'Arrival','Many Happy Returns' is my fave Prisoner episode..
Such a pity though that prior to escaping,the scenes involving #6 visiting the hospital and trying to start the helicopter were axed.

As for the location,the only thing we can be sure on was that 'the village' was on an island,which slightly makes a mockery of the 'Fall Out' escape down the tunnel.

I'm not sure we know for sure from MHR that The Village is on an Island - after all, isn't the UK an island linked to Europe by a tunnel?

There could, of course, be multipole identical villages!!

Great episode, and one of my favourites also.