Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling
| "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling" | |
|---|---|
| The Prisoner episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 13 |
| Directed by | Pat Jackson |
| Written by | Vincent Tilsley |
| Original air date | 22 December 1967 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
|
Number Two - Clifford Evans |
|
Number Two - Clifford Evans
"Colonel" -
Janet Portland - Zena Walker
"Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling" is an episode of the British science fiction-allegorical television series, The Prisoner. It was first broadcast by ITV (ATV Midlands) on 22 December 1967.
Produced while Patrick McGoohan was in America filming Ice Station Zebra, a workaround to McGoohan's absence was accomplished by the writers who contrived to have Number Six's mind implanted in the body of another man (), who is then sent out of the Village to help capture a scientist. As a result, McGoohan appears in the episode for only a couple of minutes.
The episode title, and the background music heard throughout it, derive from the American song "The Ballad of High Noon"—also called "Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin'"—introduced in the 1952 movie High Noon.
In an atypical teaser before a modification of the standard opening sequence (different music, the usual Number Six/Number Two dialogue is absent), two men sit in the office of a senior intelligence officer named Sir Charles. They are analyzing photos by way of seeking clues that will lead them to locate a missing inventor named Professor Seltzman (later revealed to have developed a technology that can switch two people's minds into one another's bodies). They are unsuccessful.
A man referred to only as "Colonel" arrives at the Village and only then learns from a new Number Two that his mission is to trade bodies with Number Six, using Seltzman's system. Number Six had been the last agent to have contact with Seltzman. After the swap, Number Six (now in the Colonel's body, and retaining only his pre-Village memories) awakens in his old London apartment and soon sees an unfamiliar face in his mirror. His fiancée arrives and, of course, fails to recognize him. He prudently restrains himself from enlightening her. Despite the shock, he realizes what has been done to him, maintains his cool, and sets about to regain his own body. After a visit to his former superiors (the most senior of them, Sir Charles Portland, previously seen in the teaser) avails him nothing, he attends his fiancée's birthday party. There, he retrieves an old photo lab receipt from her, which he had given her in pre-Village days. He implies his true identity to her and she seems to almost understand, as Sir Charles (her father, by the way) had not seemed willing to do. With the retrieved photos back at his flat—they had previously been developed by Sir Charles' minions, and then returned to the shop, it seems—he uses an alphanumeric code system based on Seltzman's name to select certain photos which, projected together and viewed with a special filter, reveal the location of Seltzman. This turns out to be (the fictitious) Kandersfeld, Austria, to which Number Six promptly travels. Seltzman is believed—at least by Number Two and his superiors—to have perfected the reversal of the mind swap process. This is exactly what Number Two wanted, and, Number Six having been followed, both men are gassed into unconsciousness and returned to The Village.
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