‘The Prisoner’ disappoints
by TV
Get me outta here! (Click.)
Whaaa?
That’s what I’m thinking after watching the first two hours of AMC’s remake of “The Prisoner.” That, along with “Couldn’t I have found a better way to waste two hours?”
I’m really disappointed. I’ve never seen the original series, but I’ve always heard raves about it. Its themes of alienation, identity, free will and paranoia served as inspiration for great modern series: “Twin Peaks,” “The X-Files,” “Alias,” “Lost” and “Battlestar Galactcica,” to name a few. But in this reimagining, those themes – or any coherent messages, really – are so muddied that they’re impossible to grasp ahold of.
“The Prisoner” fails on so many levels. Disjointed, choppy editing destroys the flow. I’m all for nonlinear, challenging storytelling, but this is just a jumble and more often than not makes no sense. The acting isn’t great – Jim Caviezel gives too many blank looks, and his one-note sense of desperation never really comes across as compelling. And speaking of compelling, the plot simply isn’t. Slow and plodding, meandering here and there but never following potentially interesting storylines for too long, it’s absolutely maddening. Characters have no depth, and at the end, I found myself not caring about anyone. Overall, it’s just not that interesting.
It’s too bad. The post 9/11 world has breathed new life into allegorical storytelling on TV. The world we once knew is not the same. Paranoia, terrorism, totalitarianism, surveillance and evil, all-powerful corporations are rich subjects to mine. But where it could have been a politically charged, thought-provoking statement on freedom, “The Prisoner”gives us a rambling, frustrating mess.
With “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad,” AMC made a name for itself by creating the smartest series on TV. “The Prisoner” shows that the network isn’t perfect.
As a kid, Mike Murphy wanted to jump cars and shoot dynamite arrows like on “The Dukes of Hazzard.” Now that he’s a grown-up, he’d be satisfied with running “The Amazing Race.” Click on over for the musings, rants and occasional bits of useful news from a certified TV addict. E-mail your TV questions to mike[dot]murphy[at]pressdemocrat.com.
you owe it to yourself to see at least some of the episodes of the original prisoner………
i saw the original when it first came out …….i still watch episodes of it occasionally………
ian mclellan yes revised version no
by Michael Patrick
There’s some intriguing ideas in the new Prisoner series, but while the original series sparkled and roared like a brilliant fireworks display, this just plods along like drying paint. And Jim Caviezel is no match for Patrick McGoohan for acting, tightly bottled rage or charisma.
Watch the original or be branded as “unmutual”. Be seeing you!
by Chris from Santa Rosa
Yeah, I should track the original down on DVD or On Demand. I have a feeling that if I did, I’d be even angrier at the new version.
by TV
I strongly recommend watching the original. It is quite easy to find. I am quite dismayed that they even bothered to make a new version of the Prisoner. They didn’t wait too long after Patrick McGoohan was in the ground before coming out with this, did they? He must be rolling over in his grave. I can’t see the point in remaking the classic, an icon of 60s British culture and television. In part, this is because there is no Patrick McGoohan and the entire show was his brainchild, and one which he barely let out of his brain into the public. The show was an idiosyncratic artistic-entertainment exercise, the entire series “plot,” as it were, being essentially a single MacGuffin writ large. This, and the shows obvious eccentricities and total lack of explanation for who anyone was, what they were actually doing, or why they were doing it allowing a largely clean slate for each show’s own events, without giving viewers any basis for predicting anything that might happen next whilst at the same time providing an engrossing plot thread and veneer of continuity. The final episode shows all this, and the pointlessness of a remake, best of all. WAccording to what I have read, when asked by execs, weary for a conclusion, to wrap things up nicely in a final episode and explain everything, McGoohan, not pleased with the pressure, stayed up all night and hammered out what is arguably the most confusing episode in the show, tying up nothing, providing what appears to be a conclusion, yet giving now answer whatsoever and instead creating numerous new questions.
by Wulfstan