Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

For the song from the 1952 film High Noon whose refrain is the source of this title, see The Ballad of High Noon.

"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 stars
Number Two - Clifford Evans The Colonel - Nigel Stock Janet - Zena Walker
Episode chronology
← Previous "A Change of Mind" Next → "Living in Harmony"

Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling is the thirteenth episode of the television series The Prisoner, produced while Patrick McGoohan was in America filming Ice Station Zebra. As a workaround to McGoohan's absence the writers contrived to have Number Six's mind implanted in the body of another man (Nigel Stock), 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.

Synopsis

This episode is unusual in its format and narrative structure. In a teaser before the standard opening sequence (although the usual Number 6/Number 2 dialogue is absent), two men sitting in one's office are seen analyzing a set of photographic slides (a third silently operates the projector on command). It is revealed that they are seeking clues in the photos that would lead them to an inventor named Seltzman, who had developed a technology that could switch two people's minds into one another's bodies. They are unsuccessful at interpreting the purported clues in the photos.

After the two men's minds are swapped, Number 6 (now in the Colonel's body, and retaining all his memories) gets sent back to England by Number 2, and awakens in his old apartment, with no memory of The Village, of having resigned, or even intending to do so. When he sees an unfamiliar face in his mirror, Number 6 realizes what has been done to him and wants to regain his own body. After a visit to his former superiors (the most senior of whom, Sir Charles Portland, was one of the men seen in the opening) avails him nothing, he attends his fiancée's birthday party. There, Six obtains a photographic lab receipt for the slides from her, convincing her of his true identity as he could not her father, Portland. Claiming them at a camera shop and taking them back to his flat, he uses a system based on Seltzman's name to select certain slides which when projected together and viewed with a special filter reveal the location of Seltzman, who is believed—at least by Number 2 and his superiors—to have perfected the reversal. This is exactly what Number 2 wants, and, upon Number 6's accomplishing his goal, has both men gassed into unconsciousness and returned to The Village. However, the restoration of their identities takes an unexpected twist: Seltzman agrees to oversee the switchback, but actually does a three-party switch: the body of Number 6 gets his mind back, the mind of the Colonel is transferred into the body of Seltzman, who then dies, and Seltzman transfers his mind into the body of the Colonel, and then leaves with the helicopter.

Additional guest cast

• Seltzman - Hugo Schuster
• Sir Charles - John Wentworth
• Villiers - James Bree
• Minister - Kynaston Reeves
• Stapleton - Lloyd Lamble
• Danvers - Patrick Jordan
• Camera shop manager - Lockwood West
• Potter - Fredric Abbott
• Cafe waiter - Gertan Klauber
• Old guest - Henry B. Longhurst
• New man - Danvers Walker
• Young guard - John Nolan

Trivia

• This is the only Prisoner episode to begin with a pre-credits teaser sequence (not counting the recap which opens "Fall Out" or the unusual structure of "Living in Harmony"). It shows several men, including one who will be identified later in the episode as the former superior of Number 6, trying to find clues to the whereabouts of Professor Seltzman in a group of seemingly innocuous photographic slides of Seltzman on holiday. According to The Prisoner by Robert Fairclough, had the series been renewed for a second season, the format would have followed that presented in this episode, with Number 6 being sent out on missions on behalf of The Village.
• McGoohan appears only at the very beginning and the very end of the episode, the role of Number 6 (after the mind transfer) being played the rest of the time by Nigel Stock. This episode was so-formatted in order to allow McGoohan to take a leave of absence from the series to film his role in the motion picture Ice Station Zebra.
• It has been theorized that calling Stock's character "The Colonel" was a misinterpretation of McGoohan's instructions in his absence. In the two other episodes when The Prisoner manages/seems to return to London and contacts his former superiors ("The Chimes of Big Ben" and "Many Happy Returns"), the man in charge is called "The Colonel" (there is a further mention of "The Colonel" among his former associates in "Dance of the Dead"). The suggestion is that McGoohan wanted this to be the case here as well, but returned from Hollywood to find that character called Sir Charles Portland and "Colonel" attached to his own substitute.
• This is also the only Prisoner episode to show Number 6 kissing a woman (although he is in another man's body, hence the scene did not involve the devout Catholic and very moral McGoohan).
• When The Prisoner awakens in his London flat unaware of the body/mind swap, a series of his thoughts, heard via a voice-over recorded by McGoohan, indicates that he believes he is still in the employ of British intelligence and is not considering resigning. Shortly thereafter, his fiancée arrives, and dialogue establishes that it has been one year to the day since he "disappeared." Therefore, his motive for quitting must have been something more than a general matter of principle, even though the very first Number 2, in "Arrival" indicates that to have been Number Six's "story".
• In the scene where Seltzman produces the letter that Number 6 had sent him previously, Seltzman's Scottish address starts "Portmeirion Road", which is the name of the actual hotel where The Prisoner's exterior scenes were filmed.
• The reference work The Complete Encyclopedia of Television Programs 1947-1979, by Vincent Terrace, which takes the view that The Prisoner is a continuation of Danger Man, speculates that John Drake resigned from the secret service over the events that led up to this episode, although there is nothing actually indicated on screen to support this.
• Boston band Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, who have also created a music video, shot-for-shot recreation^[1] of the opening of The Prisoner were named after this episode of the show.

Original Script

The original script for this episode, to be found in volume two of The Prisoner: The Original Scripts, is significantly different from the aired version, while working with the same constraint of Patrick McGoohan's limited availability. The beginning is similar, with Number Two meeting the Colonel, here named Oscar, the man whose body Number Six's mind will occupy.

But in this earlier draft of the story, Number Six awakens in his flat in a furious mood, storming to his office to angrily resign. Only at the office does he realize that his appearance is not his own and that a year of his life is missing.

Fearing that this is a ploy to force him to reveal confidential information, Six leaves the office, determined to find "Saltzman" (who became Seltzman in the aired version), the inventor of the body-swap machine. Meanwhile, Number Six's former employer, the Colonel, is shown to be in collusion with a mysterious, unseen figure, an apparent agent of the Village. They are collaborating to manipulate Six into locating Saltzman, intending to follow Six as he finds the scientist.

Six returns to his house to find Janet, his fiancée, who doesn't recognize him. Six offers Janet a deal in exchange for locating her missing lover. He later meets her at her birthday party and reclaims from her a receipt for developed photographs held at a camera shop, which Six gave to Janet a year ago. He proceeds to kiss her intimately, in a manner that reminds her of her disappeared lover, and then departs from the party.

Six procures the photographs from the shop, which, overlaid atop each other, produce a map with a set of co-ordinates in Kanderfield, Austria. Six finds Saltzman there, and convinces Saltzman of his identity by referring to their arranged meeting at which Six never arrived. However, Saltzman notices that someone has followed Number Six. It is Potter, a former colleague of Number Six's, sent by their employers to tail Six — and tailing Potter has been an agent of the Village, who gases Saltzman, Six, and Potter unconscious and proceeds to transport the scientist and Number Six back to the Village.

Saltzman is forced to show his captors how to reverse the mind-transfer process, in order to return Number Six and Oscar to their proper bodies. The Village lacked the ability to perform the reversal; that is why they wanted Saltzman. Saltzman says the reversal requires a third party as a "medium" for the transfer, and volunteers himself. Number Two consents, and Six, Oscar and Saltzman are linked to the mind-transfer machine after Saltzman reconfigures it.

The unconscious body of Number Six awakens with the correct mind in place. However, the process has been too much for the elderly Saltzman, who is dying. Oscar is flown out of the Village in the helicopter while Number Six sits by the dying Saltzman's side. Later, Number Two basks in his victory while Six awaits Saltzman's end. But Six reveals that the reversal process never required a third man.

Saltzman then revives briefly, speaking of the orders of Number One, and then dies. Six grimly bids farewell to Saltzman — who is actually Oscar, in Saltzman's body. A horrified Number Two calls the control room, only to learn that the helicopter and Saltzman are out of range.

This original version of the story is more deeply developed in almost all respects. Number Two is portrayed as an arrogant, self-satisfied braggart who boasts to the Butler of being the one Number Two who won't be leaving his position. While the televised version ignores the issue of Number Six's resignation, the original script has Six angrily carrying it out. His interactions with Janet are also slightly different, with Janet being forceful and unwilling to play what she thinks is a game with an employee of her father's.

Absent from the televised version but present here is the treachery of Number Six's superior, the Colonel, speaking to an unidentified 'Voice' who is never seen and is observing the transplanted Number Six's actions. Finally, the script makes inventive use of McGoohan's short time. One scene has Number Two conversing with Oscar-in-Six's-body, who is represented through what the script describes as a single shot of McGoohan. Later, the script has Number Two watching "appropriate stockshots" of Number Six, whose body Oscar occupies, with Number Two commenting that Oscar lacks Six's charm, and when Six awakens restored to his own body, he declares, "I'll tell you nothing! I'm a free man!"

At the end, Six sits with the dying Saltzman before revealing that the reversal process didn't need three men. "Only one could end up free," says Number Six in this brief scene. "It could have been me. But I felt it should be Saltzman. Because I'm going to escape anyway."

This script was apparently rewritten, in the absence of Patrick McGoohan, and after the departure of George Markstein, becoming what was seen onscreen.

References

1. ^ Cacciola, Sophia (26 July 2011). "DNFMOMD: Episode 1: Arrival Music Video News & Press - 25K views!". The web log of Michael J. Epstein and Sophia Cacciola. http://blog.michaeljepstein.com/2011/07/dnfmomd-episode-1-arrival-music-video.html. Retrieved 24 August 2011. 

• BBC Page
• Allmovie
• TB.com
• MSN TV
• "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling". The Prisoner. ITV. ITV4. 2009-03-31.
• White, Matthew; Jaffer Ali (1988). The Official Prisoner Companion. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 028399598X. 

Bibliography

• Fairclough, Robert, ed. The Prisoner: The Original Scripts. vol. 2. foreword by Roger Parkes. Reynolds & Hearn. ISBN 978-1903111819. OCLC 61145235.  - script of episode

External links

• The Prisoner: Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling at the Internet Movie Database