"Checkmate" is one of The Prisoner's most iconic and revered episodes, originally intended to be the second episode following "The Arrival". If you especially enjoy The Prisoner's surrealism and allegorical sensibilities, this is one of its finest hours. Number Six (Patrick McGoohan) wakes up to find various Villagers participating in a life-size game of chess, assuming the roles of various pieces, to be ordered about by two players with megaphones perched on high chairs...
During the game, a rebellious Rook (Ronald Radd) is taken away to be evaluated at the Village hospital after he makes a move of his own, and the official Chess Master confides in Six about how you can tell which Villager is a "prisoner" and which is a "guardian" by noting "the moves they make". Later, Number Two (Peter Wyngarde) takes Six to observe the "rehabilitation" of Rook, who is being reprogrammed to conform to orders by being dehydrated, then given electric shocks if he reaches for water without permission. Afterwards, Six forms an alliance with the Rook and together they start amassing a resistance against Number One by recruiting insubordinate Villagers.
This episode extols the "chess = life" metaphor that's long been a cliché, but buoys it with many other interesting elements, such as issues of conformity and the power of peer pressure. "Checkmate" has parallels with famous real-world psychological experiments, too -- such as the Milgram experiment (where subjects were willing to administer fatal levels of electric shocks if they were assured someone else had responsibility for their actions), the Stanford prison experiment (where people assumed fictional roles of "prisoner" and "convict" and the expectations of those roles came to dominate their attitudes and behaviour), and the Asch conformity experiment (that showed how people will agree to a blatantly wrong statement, if only to fit in with a group that shares a different opinion -- referred to as "normative influence.") Number Six is subjected to similar techniques throughout this story, which makes it possibly the best episode for anyone who enjoys how The Prisoner cleverly reflects societal issues and demonstrates how a person's free will can be subverted from within that rigid structure.
Overall, it's easy to see why this is a favoured story of most fans; it's a story that rattles along as a thrilling "prison escape" everyone can enjoy on a basic level, but shows hidden depths of subtext and psychological trickery for people of an intellectual persuasion. "Checkmate" is everything people like about The Prisoner distilled into one neat hour-long package: Number Six finds an apparent ally (who is inevitably proven to be an instrument of Number Two), a smitten cohort in a hypnotized Number 8, and we come to appreciate why escape from this Village is so damned difficult. The prisoners may outnumber their jailors, but the Village is so rife with paranoia, suspicion and mistrust that a collaborative effort to escape is always doomed from the start.
written by: Gerald Kelsey directed by: Don Chaffey starring: Patrick McGoohan (Number Six), Peter Wyngarde (Number Two), Angelo Muscat (The Butler), Romo Gorrara (Second Tower Guard), Rosalie Crutchley (The Queen), Patricia Jessel (First Psychiatrist), Ronald Radd (Rook), George Coulouris (Man With The Stick), Bee Duffell (Second Psychiatrist), Joe Dunne (First Tower Guard), Terence Donovan (Sailor), Geoffrey Reed (Skipper), Shivaun O'Casey (Nurse), Victor Platt (Asst. Supervisor), Denis Shaw (Shopkeeper), Danvers Walker (Painter) & Basil Dignam (Supervisor) / original airdate: 3 December 1967
