Chris & Glen embark upon their first look back at Patrick McGoohan's 1967-8 British sci-fi series The Prisoner in many years and hope that the show's ethos — "militant and individualistic," in the expression of one of The Village's ever-changing Number Twos — will turn out to be something more generous than it seems. Also, will Number Six ever be nice to a woman?

Number Six attempts to escape The Village with the help of a newcomer named Nadia and a "basically primitive" abstract art project with a hard-to-overlook nautical vibe. He also finds out where The Village is.

Unequivocally.

Indisputably.

Maybe.

Featuring the first of the great Leo McKern's appearances as Number Two!

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Chris and Glen revisit the first of The Prisoner's nonessential episodes. It features Peter Bowles telling Patrick McGoohan “I want you,” a classic John McClane-style air-shaft constitutional, some dodgy fisticuffs, the plot of the 2010 Christopher Nolan film Inception, and a milk-drinking Colin Gordon as a Number Two menaced by an alarmingly erotic red phone. Nonessential, you say?

Will we ever hear about Number Fourteen's Wonder Drug or this dream-viewing technology again? Perhaps, dear listenter. Perhaps.

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It's election time in The Village and Number Six is the frontrunner! Eric Portman, this episode's Number Two, greets him thus: "Good morning, good morning! Any complaints?" And of course Six has complaints. He's like Portnoy: famed for his complaints.

Featuring the lovely Rachel Herbert as Number Fifty-Eight, his irrepressibly enthusiastic and enthusiastically unintelligible driver/assistant/etc. Or is she?

This is the episode in which our dearth of a title song with lyrics gets well and truly solved. And in which a voicemail from a listener sparks a discussion of Number Six's... likability.

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Our song: "A Degree Absolute!"

Number Six comes face-to-immobile-face with the only opponent who can truly make him doubt his resolve: Himself!

It's the The Parent Trap episode. It's "Mirror, Mirror" episode. It's the Double Impact episode. It's the if-I'm-not-me-who-da-hell-am-I-episode. It's the episode that teaches us that fingering an electric socket may on rare occasions be quite necessary, despite what your parents and teachers would have you believe.

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Our song: "A Degree Absolute!"

Glen is under the influence of digital vermouth and under the spell of John Castle in our dissection of "The General." Wherein Number Six gets anger-cruised and Kirks a computer, and Colin Gordon "returns" as Number Two from "A.B. & C." — an episode obviously intended to follow this one, but which was broadcast before — apparently having survived his encounter with a tumescent scarlet telephone handset and the unheard but clearly menacing voice on the other end of that line.

One hundred percent entry; one hundred percent pass!

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"A Degree Absolute!"

Music and Lyrics by Chris Klimek

Arranged by Casey Erin Clark and Jonathan Clark

Vocals and Keyboards by Casey Erin Clark

Guitar, Percussion, Mixing by Jonathan Clark

Bass by Marcus Newstead

SPOILERS AHOY for the entirety of the 54-year-old television series The Prisoner! You've been warned! Save this episode for later if you haven't yet seen the whole series! Lifelong Prisoner fan Alex Cox joins Chris to talk about his 2017 book I Am Not a Number: Decoding the Prisoner, and What It's All About.

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Our song: "A Degree Absolute!"

The first half of this episode is dialogue-free! This episode of The Prisoner, that is, not this episode of A Degree Absolute!, though that's the sort of formal experimentation we'd be game to try. Anywho, Number Six awakens in an inexplicably raptured Village and opts for the seaborne escape route, where starvation, pirates, and intrigue await. As does Georgina Cookson, on whom Glen has developed a serious crush.

PLUS: Listener mail!

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Our song: "A Degree Absolute!"