EPISODE REVIEW: The Prisoner (Remake): “Arrival” (Episode 1)
“The Prisoner” is, in my mind, the best science fiction show ever made, possibly the best one ever made. A full list of its honors and inspirations could easily block out the sun, but suffice to say that not only it the apex of the Spy-Fi subgenre of Science Fiction, it’s also the first miniseries, a blueprint for paranoia, a treatis on the rights of the individual, a lament on the death of privacy, a precursor to the concept of Virtual Reality, a study on the different kinds of rebellion in society and a value judgment on same, a deliberate Christian allegory indicting the political world, and an homage to Kafka.
Among other things.
The show is an allegory, and as such lends itself to multiple explanations, many valid, many ludicrous, but still fun as it refuses to sit still for a completely literal interpretation. It is the pinnacle of SF on TV that has never been exceeded, nor even equaled, nor even come close to. It was a groundbreaker, and it’s still, forty years on, in the avant garde intellectually.
So the obvious question is, “Why the hell would you want to remake it?” It’s a masterpiece as it is. Why would anyone want to risk defacing its memory? What could someone possibly have to add to the concept that would come across as anything other than simply drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa?
In truth, I don’t know.
Now, I could bitch and moan about the disrespect inherent in the project, but, you know, Mel Gibson actually talked Patrick McGoohan in to revisiting it in the 90s in a movie format that was evidently going to be a sequel to the original series. The project fell apart over Mel’s insistence that McGoohan direct (The studio didn’t want him), and that was that, but if Mel came up with a concept that intrigued McGoohan, or if McGoohan had one or two undeveloped ideas that occurred to him during the decades of retrospect, it implies that there *IS* more to do with it, and I’m just too stupid to perceive it. This is entirely possible. I’m not the shiniest penny in the fountain, so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume there’s a reason for doing what they’re doing, something new they’re bringing to the party that justifies its existence. I’m going to go in to this positive, assuming the best.
For those of you who’ve not seen the original show, you may wish to re-aquaint yourself with it through Zack Handlen’s really great reviews of it at the AV Club here http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/tvshow/the-prisoner,84/ and for those of you who’ve led empty, sad, Prisoner-free lives bereft of meaning, or are simply too cheap to buy the DVDs, you can actually watch the entire series here online http://www.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner-1960s-series/
Now, let’s get to it…
PLAY BY PLAY
Our protagonist wakes up in the mountains in a desert, confused. He sees an old man wandering around being chased by gunmen and wearing the old 1960s-style village uniform. The protagonist rescues him, and gets him to a cave. The man’s in a bad way, and tells the protagonist to find 455 and tell her that he made it out. Then he dies. The protagonist buries him in the desert, and then wanders around trying to figure
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27 June 2009
6 hours 6 min
A quote from the bad guy in ‘Enemy of the State’ is that the only truly private place left is in one’s own mind and maybe that enough. In the Prisoner they don’t even want a person to have that.
The torture scene in 1984 when they are holding up three fingers and insisting that it’s four is about that type of control.
27 December 2008
5 min 43 sec
I agree with you. They clearly know. They don't believe him, or they simply bristle at the notion of some matter of concience that he refuses to name because that implies some private little part of his soul that they can't see. We see again and again that the Village is unwilling to tolerate any privacy, even within a person's own mind.
24 July 2009
1 day 11 hours
Well, as I said on Threedonia -- my opinion is that the Village minders in fact do know why the Prisoner resigned. See Number Two's comment in the opening episode of the original:
****
NUMBER TWO: A lot of people are curious about what lies behind your resignation. You had a brilliant career. Your record is impeccable. They want to know why you suddenly left.
PRISONER: What "people"?
NUMBER TWO: Now, personally, I believe your story. I do think it was a matter of principle. But what I think doesn't really count, does it? One has to be sure about these things.
PRISONER: And that gives you the right to poke your nose into my private business?
NUMBER TWO: Now, please. It's my job to check your motives.
PRISONER: I've been checked!
NUMBER TWO: Of course, but when a man knows as much as you do, a double check does no harm. A few details may have been missed.
****
They know, you see, that it was a matter of conscience. The problem is that they believe there was more to it than that, when a simple look at the Prisoner would be enough to convince one that it really was just that simple. He doesn't NEED any more complicated reason. And besides, the only reason they want to dig down behind this statement -- which they see as merely an excuse -- is that they want a prextext to lean on him and force him to fit into the Village. If they can't get him to bend, they may get him to break -- and what better way than by hammering relentlessly at a specific question to which you may already know the answer?
27 December 2008
5 min 43 sec
I agree. This is one of those rare cases where good caracterization is actually bad for the story as a whole.
27 June 2009
6 hours 6 min
In the original you knew all you needed to know. That long title sequence told a story of a man that was angry and resigned on principle the details did not matter you knew where he was coming from. Patrick McGoohan played the character with an energy that grabbed you and made you be on his side. Also they did not hide the purpose of the village just who ran it.
Another thing they did was most of the time only number six and number two seemed to be real people everyone else were like mindless props this heighted the feeling that the whole world was trying to force six to conform. When a fuller person appeared it always was a con job to trick six.
This new version is flat and lifeless and the reasons are hidden. I think they missed the whole point of the original show and have gone off on some sort of post modern rant on reality that is so obscure that it is boring.
27 December 2008
5 min 43 sec
I can't imagine what kids could have done to warrant being imprisoned, for instance.
The (old) village was for people like six who knew too much,a nd simply couldn't be trusted to go free as they might spill the beans.
27 June 2009
6 hours 6 min
Ok I have watched it and well this is not the Prisoner it is something else. Instead of a show about fighting conformity and the oppression of the individual by society and the state we have some sort of Purgatory.
I mean Purgatory in the Catholic sense a place where the damned go but are not bad enough for the pit and still have a chance to find God’s grace. That is the feel I got from this show and it is not what the original was about.
Now I could be wrong on this interpretation of the show but it is what came to mind as I watched it. In the original it was made plain that the village was run by men to find out secrets from people. This show does not seem to care about what people know since their minds have been wiped of all knowledge of their old life.
If I am wrong then this show is pointless and has no meaning that I can see. If I am right then it should have been called something else and not tried to get viewers using a bait and switch.
27 June 2009
6 hours 6 min
It has not aired in my time zone yet and I am recording so I will watch it tonight or tomorrow. That said the reviews I have seen so far say stay away at all costs and from your description it sounds like a big fail in progress.
I loved the original show when I was a kid even though it was years later that I understood some of it. One of the things that this remake misses out on is that Patrick McGoohan was in a spy show before the Prisoner called Danger Man and he played number six as if it was the same person.
Another thing I have read was that the producers wanted of this new one a feel of the village as being a nice gitmo which sounds totally lame to me. I would think that if they are not trying to find out why six resigned then the whole idea behind the village has no point. And if six does not know what is going on and does not remember the outside world then what’s the point if the power behind the village wanted to make sure six did not talk would it not be easier just to kill him.