A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode twenty-one — McG on Columbo

Director and guest star Patty MG pulls Peter Falk’s strings in the 1975 Columbo episode “Identity Crisis.”

DID YOU KNOW that Columbophiles are properly nomenclatured Columboheads or Trenchcoatheads?

DID YOU KNOW that fans who divide their sympathies equally among Patrick McGoohan and Peter Falk are formally designated McGalks?

The source of these incontrovertible revelations, the great Linda Holmes, joins us to investigate Patty McG’s historic run as a four-time Columbo killer / five-time Columbo director. Brandon Routh, the George Lazenby of Supermen despite being admirably heighted to the role, also gets a surprising quotient of airtime on this typically tangent-tolerant episode of our private, personal, by-hand, punchcard-driven podcast!

Read Linda's November 2020 essay on her pandemic discovery of Columbo here. And follow her on Twitter, obviously.

A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode twenty-one — "LOST" in America with Jen Chaney

Vulture TV critic and noted Lindelofologist Jen Chaney joins us to examine the influence of The Prisoner on subsequent stranded-by-the-seaside puzzle-box shows like LOST. Plus we once again pop The Hatch on the mailbag.

Read Jen's definitive oral history of the LOST finale here! Follow her on Twitter here!

A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode nineteen — Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling (the band, the filmmakers, the supertalented PRISONER superfans)

I have always thought The Prisoner is a show with a particular appeal to creative people, and I love to be proven right. 

Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling is a Prisoner-inspired punk duo comprised of filmmakers/musicians/writers/creators/etc. Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein. When we saw their video for "Arrival" — a meticulous, two-years-in-the making recreation of The Prisoner's opening title sequence — we knew we had to meet them. From this wildly ambitious and improbably successful short film, they graduated to making features, as they tell us in a conversation that reaches far beyond The Prisoner to address the joys and the confines of fandom.

Plus, I learned a new word.

A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode eighteen — Once Upon a Time

Shot in December 1966 under the title "Degree Absolute" and not broadcast until more than a year later when it became The Prisoner's penultimate — and, we agree, ultimate — episode, "Once Upon a Time" is the real thing. A bottle episode that locks GOAT Number Two Leo McKern and Number Six in the black-box "Embryo Room" and compels them to reenact the Seven Ages of Man that that glover's son from Stratford wrote about, shooting it almost killed McKern. And talking about it almost killed us! Our private, personal, by-hand, punchcard-driven discursive dissection of this epistemological epic is more tangent-tolerant than ever! Get comfortable, because Second Childishness & Mere Oblivion await!

"Once Upon a Time"

Written and directed by Patrick McGoohan 

Original airdate January 25, 1968

A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode sixteen — The Girl Who Was Death

Number Six must elude the tender embrace of a lady who probably uses pseudonyms at least as often as he does in a late-in-the-run-but-lavish filler episode that sends up the spy genre circa ’67 & burns plenty of Sir Lew Grade’s money. (He refused to finance a floated 90-minute version.)

Justine Lord and Kenneth Griffiths are your magnificent guest stars, and Patty McG appears to be having a grand old time in the relatively few scenes where he's onscreen. Apparently he was called back to Los Angeles for a few more weeks of shooting on Ice Station Zebra late in 1967, resulting in an episode that relies heavily on doubles, particularly in the location footage shot at the Kursaal Fun Fair at Southend.

"The Girl Who Was Death"

Written by Vincent Feeley from an idea by David Tomblin

Directed by David Tomblin 

Original airdate January 18, 1968

A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode thirteen — A Change of Mind

Number Six's Public Enemy Number Six act is getting tired — and what is alternately referred to within a single scene as The Committee, The Council, and The Commission will tolerate it for only so long before they decree that their prize captive must undergo Instant Social Conversion. It's a procedure so chilling that Number Eighty-Six (the marvelous Angela Browne) must narrate it step-by-step, and very, very slowly, so as not to induce panic. John Sharpe is our unctuous, openly misogynistic Number Two. Happily, we get to see Six's homebuilt crossfit gym in the woods once again.

"A Change of Mind"

Written by Roger Parkes

Directed by Joseph Serf (Patty McG)

Original airdate December 15, 1967

A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode fourteen — Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling

It seems Patty McG had softened his "don't call it television because television cuts corners and we'll never ever do that" position by the time of The Prisoner's much-abbreviated second and final season, because for most of the production of this week's episode he decided his time would be better spent in Los Angeles co-starring in John Sturges' unmemorable 1968 thriller Ice Station Zebra with Rock Hudson, Ernest "Resistance Is Futile" Borgnine, and Jim Brown.

"Chimes of Big Ben" screenwriter Vincent Tilsey got the unenviable job of coming up with a Prisoner story that would require neither the show's star nor its key location, Portmerion in North Wales. He came up with a brain-swapping scenario that would allow hardworking actor Nigel Stock to play Number Six. Upon his return from the States, McGoohan demanded extensive changes to the show that had been made in his absence. But he did not demand that Stock un-kiss Six's left-behind fiancee Janet (Zena Walker), who was never mentioned prior to this episode and shall never be again. Also, the head of MI6 was going to be SIx's father-in-law, apparently. Script editor George Markstein was long gone by this point and no one was minding the store.

The mailbag overfloweth this week, so we moved the listener mail segment to the back half of the episode. Thank you for your correspondence.

"Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling"

Written by Vincent Tilsley

Directed by Pat Jackson

Original airdate December 22, 1967