Several of the user reviews suggest that the word "allegory" might be misunderstood, or perhaps not understood at all, when evaluating "Living in Harmony," arguably the most distinctive "Prisoner" episode in what is in effect a 17-episode miniseries that series star and de facto showrunner Patrick McGoohan envisioned to be just seven episodes in the first place.
That would have been enough. The premise of "The Prisoner" is not only brilliant, it is timeless (barring the unavoidable period trappings), but premise does not always equal longevity. The 17 episodes extant fall into three broad categories: Number Six trying to escape the Village, the Village's interrogation attempts to learn why Number Six resigned, and various and sundry machinations within the Village that Number Six is either trying to foment or thwart.
Despite the array of potential variations and even combinations, repetition is inevitable. Moreover, "The Prisoner" itself is an overarching allegory, and too much familiarity destroys the symbolism, rendering the allegory mundane. Thus, McGoohan was right to make less mean more, although that still leaves us with what to do about "Living in Harmony."
As one of the (primarily) interrogation episodes, it is the most fully-blown, immersing viewers into the psychodrama from the start, and if viewers are disorientated by the lack of the opening credits sequence, shots of McGoohan in Western garb turning in his sheriff's badge and gun mimic that sequence while signaling that this is indeed an allegory. In fact, "Living in Harmony" can be seen as a summation of "The Prisoner" itself since subversion, evasion, and especially interrogation are all present.
Moreover, the Paris-based scenarios enacted in the earlier drug-induced interrogation episode "A., B. And C." should also signal that "Living in Harmony" has plunged Number Six into exploratory roleplay attempting to coax or coerce him into divulging the series' MacGuffin: why he had resigned from his presumably highly-placed, extremely sensitive, and, should he divulge secrets to the "other side," potentially devastating position in British intelligence.
Playing to his weakness is saloon girl Kathy (Valerie French), not as a honeytrap but as a damsel in distress who helps him escape from the "protective custody" into which the Judge (David Bauer) who runs Harmony has put him.
Hauled back to Harmony, Number Six discovers that he himself is not on trial; instead, it is Kathy who is on trial for facilitating his escape, not knowing he hadn't actually been arrested; it's a legal Catch-22 that coerces him into becoming the Judge's sheriff in order to keep Kathy, convicted by the Judge's kangaroo court, from jail. It also puts Number Six on a collision course with the Kid (Alexis Kanner), the Judge's mute but murderous gunslinger sweet on Kathy who scotched his relationship with Number Six right away by blasting to pieces his shot glass before he could even take the first sip.
Yes, "Living in Harmony" is filled with Western cliché; in fact, why David Tomblin, who produced, directed, and, with Ian L. Rakoff, co-wrote the episode, staged it as a Western is a curiosity since Number Six was a Brit and ostensibly wouldn't seem to have this quintessentially American heritage in his own experience. On the other hand, the American West has proved to have universal fascination, and McGoohan reputedly had expressed a desire to act in a Western. Furthermore, the theme of anti-violence, or at least anti-gun violence, echoes director George Stevens's landmark 1953 Western "Shane," in which Alan Ladd as the titular triggerman tries to renounce his sharpshooting ways.
Like its extended interrogation roleplay scenario, "Living in Harmony" itself does not explicitly tip its hand until the end, and that is indeed when the spell is broken. Several reviewers have astutely noted that the ending is not only rushed but heedlessly descends from moody melodrama to shrieking psychodrama very quickly and without adequate rationale (unless that's its maladroit point), needless sensationalism that undercuts the series' chilling faux civility.
And while reviewers have, again, correctly smelled desperation in the production staff to come up with new episodes, "Living in Harmony" nevertheless delivers a fresh, bracing perspective on Number Six's travails as a political prisoner by distancing them from the Village's claustrophobia and dressing them in new costuming as it keeps the essential parameters constant and showcases fine performances by Bauer, French, Kanner, and of course McGoohan.
This gives it the immediacy and, crucially, the credibility lacking from the other oddball episodes, the whimsical farce "The Girl Who Was Death" and the highly problematical sub-"Avengers" spy-fi of "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling." Intended as a stopgap, "Living in Harmony" instead becomes an allegorical triumph.
REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?
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