Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 44

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Popular Culture Review

credits when the words "Government Denies Knowledge" flicker on
the screen in the style of newspaper headlines. The Prisoner wants to
know who Number One is (and wants to discover the one way to
escape him). The intricate plots of the government not only indicate
attempts at discovering the reason for his resignation, but actively
keep him from escaping to freedom. In several episodes, it seems as if
he has escaped from The Village—in one he can even hear Big Ben in
the background—but in the end he is still on the island and any
indications otherwise are part of the particular trick of the episode
(the chimes are from a tape recording).
In these programs we also find evidence of psychosis. In
"Fallout," the last episode of The Prisoner, the protagonist is lauded
for his individuality, his refusal to give in to the demands of the
Other. He is asked by a faceless, robed jury to take the position of
Number One. After seeming to rebel against this final attempt at
reappropriation, he forces his way into the secret office of Number
One where he finds another m ask^ figure monogrammed with a "1."
He unmasks his enemy, only to discover his own mad countenance. We
may consider this as a psychotic break— the Prisoner recognizes
himself in the Other, that he is and has always been a part of the
Other, that he is the Other. We find more evidence of this in the
closing scenes when he approach es his apartment door, apparently
free of the island, with the mute butler who always served Number
Two. The door opens automatically, as did all of the doors on the
island, and we see the number on the door is One.
Unlike The Prisoner, The X-Files is a series in progress and so
we can only speculate as to how it might end. However, there is
evidence that it could end similarly, with the psychotic break of
Agent Mulder. In an episode concerning government involvement with
a particularly virulent virus, Mulder says "I won't be a party to it," to
which Cancer Man, the enigmatic representative of an organization
which possibly controls the government responds, "You're a party to
it already." Later in that same episode, Mulder explains to his
p artn er,". . .Even if we succeeded in finding the (Tjruth, we'd be
discredited as part of it." This statement, coupled with the fact that
he is actually an agent of the government himself, indicates that if
he were to discover the Truth, the one Cause for all of the X-File
cases, he would be subsumed by the Cause, by the Other, by an even
greater virus.