So in the fall of 2009, a miniseries remake of Patrick McGoohan’s classic 60’s TV series The Prisoner was done by AMC. I finally (lame, I know) finished watching the last episode earlier today on my computer. Like the recent TRON update – I had mixed reactions.

On the positive side – the casting was generally pretty good. I liked Jim Caviezel as #6, and Ian McKellen plays a pretty sinister, mind-f #2 for the entire series. The rest of the supporting cast aren’t really given enough to do – but, I liked pretty much all of them.

The show was also obviously well made, and they didn’t skimp on the budget, which was nice. Given the recent reboot(s) of BSG and Firefly on the big screen (Serenity) – they really couldn’t be taken seriously had they cut corners, however.

I liked the iconic touches here and there – Rover of course (here ‘he’ is much huger than in the original series); the glimpse of the pennyfarthing bike in the (new) Village “nightclub” to name a couple. While set in the desert this time around (instead of a weird, baroque-style cloistered resort – the original onsite location was Portmeirion in Wales) the sense of isolation and fantasy-like disconnect from the rest of the world is still very effective.

On the other hand – I had several gripes, too.

One of the neat things about the original series is the constant back-and-forth between #6 and the continual replacement of #2 – because each time one ‘lost’ the battle of wits with #6 – he/she was replaced in the next episode (there are a couple exceptions to this but it was the general rule). So the dynamics kept on changing (along with the plot and whatever other escape scheme (6) or mind-control attempt (2) was happening in that episode. While 2 and 6 battle it out often here – it’s seemingly more subtle and definitely far less intense. Surely some of the original’s intensity is completely due to Patrick McGoohan himself – starting right at the opening sequence where he resigns and smashes a teacup on his bosses’ desk – but they could have ramped it up a bit more.

Second, I didn’t really like all the side plots (many of which tried to create additional storylines but IMHO failed and ultimately created too much distraction), especially that of 2’s son, 11-12. It could have been interesting – they seemed to hint early on that he’d ultimately become 6’s henchman – but I just think they didn’t have enough time to develop it and shouldn’t have really bothered.

Next – there were too many ‘draggy’ scenes. Scenes where the camera is (I think) trying to draw you into the conspiracy as one of the ‘watchers’ of both 2 and 6, depending on who’s at the center of the action. But while certainly there would be more onscreen ‘setup time’ in earlier episodes – I just felt later episodes, where presumably 6 would keep on trying harder and harder to escape – until he gets whacked by 2 or dies trying – just didn’t go that way and kept trying to be far too subtle. It was almost like they were trying to ‘out-clever’ the original series. IMHO to pull that off, you simply have to go in a fairly different direction than the original story – think Blade Runner or Minority Report vs. their original stories – and here there just wasn’t enough done to reinvent McGoohan’s original concept, in my view. It may have been a bit tougher given that the original was a TV series and not a book – thus I’m sure they felt obligated to play homage to elements of the original (most notably Rover) but that shouldn’t have limited the creativity otherwise? In a remote way, it’s similar to criticizing Star Trek ‘holodeck’ episodes – nearly every time they used that as a plot device, you had to cringe – it was SUCH an obvious ‘out’ for lame plots and lazy writing. Science Fiction can be about nearly ANYTHING – why would you need a holodeck to save your butt in writing an episode? Here, similar – given the advancements in CGI (and world events since – the original Prisoner was making all sorts of veiled and overt commentary on that along the way) there could have been far more of it here.

Finally, a ‘neutral’ comment – the original never really ‘tied things up’ by its end. Its final two-part episode is a real exercise in complete wackiness and may only have made sense to McGoohan in the end. So in doing a remake – do you take that plunge and build a real ‘ending’, do you leave it open-ended, or do something completely out there (as done before)? Here I think they realized a major flaw in the original and tried to wrap things up, but I can’t say I was completely satisifed with the explanation(s) provided. While there was no ‘james bond villain’ pulling all the strings behind the scenes (something McGoohan was trying his best, possibly too much, to avoid in the original) – here the explanation was more esoteric yet not explained enough (or I simply missed it – entirely possible).

So, glad I watched it – but not sure I have the patience to watch it all over anytime soon to catch nuances or plot stuff I missed? It’s on the computer though, I can watch it again anytime…..

candybowl

PS – no Prisoner-related review of any type would be complete without the Simpsons version…muhhahahah!