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AMC's 'Prisoner' is cruel, unusual punishment
Photo from AMC
Critic Walt Belcher calls the remake of "Prisoner," starring Ian McKellan, left, and Jim Caviezel an "incomprehensible mess."
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Published: November 11, 2009
Updated: 11/11/2009 04:07 pm
TAMPA - In what has to be one of the biggest disappointments of this TV season, AMC's ambitious and heavily-hyped remake of "The Prisoner" is an incomprehensible mess.
Arriving Sunday night at 8, the six-part, three-night remake of Patrick McGoohan's fascinating 1967-68 British TV series has been updated.
Sadly, the new "Prisoner" is a surreal, disjointed and confusing story about surveillance, paranoia, loss of identity and losing one's grip on reality.
British Writer Bill Gallagher, best known for writing BBC miniseries and costume dramas, has said the theme of original "Prisoner" is dated. So he wanted to deal with our current "obsession with self."
But the new "Prisoner" is so self-absorbed that it becomes almost impossible to follow. It also lacks the wit of the original. And when it isn't confusing, it's boring.
At least, the original was entertaining.
McGoohan wrote, directed and starred as a British spy who resigns in anger and is kidnapped that night. He wakes up in The Village, a pleasant-looking burg where everyone has been given a number.
They are under constant surveillance and can't leave what appears to be an island (actually it was North Wales).
The Prisoner refuses to accept No. 6 as his new identity. And he refuses to accept his new life. He won't blend in with the other seemingly complacent Villagers (he discovers some of secretly want to rebel).
"I am not a number, I am a free man!'' is his defiant battle cry as he never buckles under and always tries to escape. He also is able to outwit several Village leaders, each known only as No. 2.
The new No. 6 played by Jim Caviezel is a wimpy whiner who lacks conviction when he says "I am not a number." And apparently he can't outwit anyone.
Acclaimed British actor Ian McKellan steals the drama as the manipulative No. 2 who has been given an ailing wife and a grown son.
McGoohan's "Prisoner" championed fighting for individuality in a culture that demands conformity.
Gallagher says the new "Prisoner" is about "mass individualism" whatever that means.
The new Village is stuck in the middle of a desert and is populated by thousands of people who apparently believe that this is all there is to existence.
They appear to have no knowledge of any previous life in the outside world. They don't even acknowledge that there is an outside world. The youngest of them have been trained from childhood to spy on each other.
At times the Village appears to be a surreal fantasy land where unexplained things happen that defy logic. For example, an ocean appears and then later disappears.
Some things are retained from the original such as the Village greeting "Be seeing you" and a menacing big white balloon that chases down and absorbs those who try to escape.
McGoohan, who died in January at age 80, was offered a small part in this remake but he turned it down because he wanted to play No. 2.
His original series ran only 17 episodes. In most of the episodes No. 6 would try to escape only to be thwarted. He also wanted to find out who was responsible for The Village and why the inhabitants being held there.
These questions were never answered because after the decision was made to cancel the series, McGoohan had only a week to write a finale. He whipped out a mind-bending, surrealistic last episode
called "Fall Out."
The finale incorporates The Beatles "All You Need Is Love" and the old gospel spiritual "Dem Bone, Dry Bones" as No. 6 finally gets to meet No.1. Or does he? At one point, he is offered a chance to become No. 1, and at another it is suggested that he was No. 1 all along.
The chaotic finale includes a strange surreal courtroom scene during which "The President" (an English Judge) offers No. 6 freedom or a chance to rule the island. There are rockets blowing up, a character wearing a gorilla mask, several wild chase sequences and a lot of things that don't make sense.
Some felt McGoohan didn't have an ending and so he threw in a lot of silly ideas just to thumb his nose at the network.
Others find symbolism in the bizarre finale but most fans were disappointed. For years McGoohan was hounded by angry "Prisoner" fans.
The appallingly bizarre "Fall Out" remains the most controversial finale in TV history.
Reporter Walt Belcher can be reached at (81)3 259-7654.
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