Trivia / The Prisoner E14 "Living in Harmony"

• Banned in China: This episode was rejected for initial transmission in the US. There are conflicting reports as to why this was. Among the suggestions:
  • It was just too much of a Bizarro Episode and executives were scared that audiences would be confused.
  • US executives considered that the references to the use of hallucinogenic drugs to create Number Six's illusion of being in a Western setting were more explicit than usual and in breach of Standards and Practices rules about the depiction of drug use.
  • US executives considered that the episode's explicitly pacifist message was too politically controversial during the Vietnam War. (This is generally accepted to be the most likely explanation, and the "hallucinogenic drugs" reason given above was a cover story for this.)
  • The climax to the Western plot, in which Number Six's character shoots the Kid, has killer and victim in the same shot when the gun is fired. Contemporary Standards and Practices rules decreed that such deaths should only be depicted by cutting from one to the other.
• Creator's Favourite Episode: This is the episode that Patrick McGoohan most enjoyed making. It also took the shortest time to write.
• Fake Brit: American actor David Bauer uses his natural accent when playing the Judge. When the hallucination ends and it is revealed that the Judge is in fact Number Two, Bauer adopts an upper class English accent.
• Missing Episode: The episode was not broadcast in its original American run on CBS for featuring Six rejecting a call to arms, not a message the network wanted to send during an active draft. (The official explanation at the time characterized the call to arms as a "walking hallucination" – read: mind-altering drugs.) All later runs show this episode in its correct place.
• What Could Have Been: The Kid originally had lines in the script but it was decided to make him a mute so that he would appear more menacing.
• Write What You Know: Head writer for this episode, Ian L. Rakoff, drew upon his experience as part of a Leftist movement in South Africa, and modelled the leadership of Harmony after the practices of the Apartheid regime.

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