Having downloaded the PDF for The Prisoner comic, an 8-page comic made available at the San Diego Comic Con that sets up the events of AMC’s 6-hour miniseries in November 2009 (starring Sir Ian McKellan and Jim Caviezel), I feel decidedly underwhelmed.
I will say that I recognize the comic as a piece of promotional material. A teaser meant to whet the appetite, which in itself is no better and, let’s hope, no worse than that “Last Supper” business NBC Universal and the people behind Battlestar Galactica shoved down our throats.
Without spoiling it for you, the comic denotes a completely different direction from its original source material, which… might be a severe mistake. The penultimate fait accompli of this remake, if you will.
The point of the series is this: an extremely valuable unnamed intelligence agent with a promising career suddenly, and without warning or any apparent rationale, suddenly resigns. After resigning, he is abducted and finds himself in a place called “The Village,” where he is subjected to various attempts to extract the reason for his sudden resignation, which he doesn’t care to disclose. There is also the question of which side “The Village” operates for and, while very much a prison of sorts, it is impossible to tell who are the prisoners and who are the wardens. Also, everyone The Village has a number. The unnamed prisoner, the protagonist of the story, is called Number 6. (To answer your question: Yes, this was the origin for the name of that blonde number with the glowing spine from that television show with the ship that looked like a cross between a ribbed prophylactic and an alligator on skis.) More often than not, the antagonist is a person referred to as Number Two, who apparently runs The Village. In the original 1967 series, the Number Two would often be a different person, mostly a man, and sometimes a woman.
Now, in the series, 6′s mental faculties are undamaged, despite repeated attempts to warp his mind. However, in the new mini-series, it appears that The Prisoner has experienced memory loss, which is (according to one report, anyway) deliberate.
At the risk of sounding alarmist, this changes the entire concept of The Prisoner. The fact that Number 6 knows who he is, what he did, and why he did it was vital to the show, as he actively fought to protect his sense of identity through sheer force of will power and belief in himself. To have Number 6 deprived of the knowledge of who he is, and (if I’m reading it correctly) rediscover who he is in an enemy camp, means that the entire premise of the show has been changed.
While I will admit that there are various episodes episode of the original series where Number 6 is tricked into believing that he is, in fact, someone else (or retrained with a new personality during the “Ultimate Test”), the people who ran The Village were very careful to avoid actually damaging his intellect. After all, were his brain or intellect damaged, then they may never actually find out the answer to the question of why he resigned.
So, the question remains… is this new Prisoner a mere “prison break” story with some psychological contrivances and good actors, or will it actually follow the footsteps of its original source material and provide us with an innovative television series that dares to have us question our culture and our society?
I’ll be waiting for an answer to that question, hoping that it will arrive in November.
From an e-mail forwarded to me just a few minutes ago. Original author unknown, otherwise I’d credit them. Honestly.
The AMA on the Economic Stimulus
Apparently the American Medical Association has weighed in on the new economic stimulus package.
The Allergists voted to scratch it, but the Dermatologists advised not
to make any rash moves. The Gastroenterologists had sort of a gut
feeling about it but the Neurologists thought the Administration had a
lot of nerve.
The Obstetricians felt they were all labouring under a misconception.
Ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted. Pathologists yelled, “Over my dead body!” while the Pediatricians said, ‘Oh, Grow up!’ The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while the Radiologists could see right through it. Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing. The Internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow, and the Plastic Surgeons said, “This puts a whole new face on the matter.”
The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists were
pissed off at the whole idea. The Anesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas and the Cardiologists didn’t have the heart to say no.
In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up
to the assholes in Washington.
Real Time with Bill Maher returned last night. While I had hoped that Michael Jackson would not have been a subject brought up during this show (RTwBM was on hiatus for the past three weeks), it was brought up in such a way that makes you wonder why no one else made the following comparison: America is Michael Jackson.
Before you balk at that statement, just watch the video.
I cannot disagree with any of Bill Maher’s talking points, because our society has become too complacent over our accomplishments and late 20th century prosperity. Particularly my generation, which has grown up in an age of connectedness never seen before, thanks to telecommunications and the Internet. And, while we toy with our iPhones and Twitter the events of our day to our circles of friends, are we really escaping into the world of the now (of the world of “me, me, you kinda, and, oh, me?”) , instead of work on the world of tomorrow?
What have we accomplished in the past 40 years? Sure, the Cold War is over, Nixon went to China, we have a space station, we’re all better connected and we receive… well, I don’t know if we can really call what we receive useful information, since most of the information is garbage data… we have the Internet in all its wonders and horror, and we have something for all of our ills. Prozac for the kids with emotional problems, gaming systems to shut up the kiddies so the adults can do their thing, cell phones to keep our kids connected so we know where they are at all times (here’s an idea—ankle bracelets with GPS), and InstantTV. Heaven forbid should we miss the newest episode of Lost, so let us just download that into our iPods, play it on Hulu, or play it on our DVR when we get home from work or that oh-so-important hedonistic social event.
Perhaps we should take the opportunity to look at the death of MJ and what’s happening in America over the past decade as a sign that we, should we truly want to better ourselves as a people, take a good hard look at ourselves and ask whether or not we like what we see in the mirror. Further, we need to take a good hard look at the world around us and ask the question that John Fitzgerald Kennedy once asked of the American people:
“[M]y fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”
In addition, let me also add this:
“Further, ask not what others can do for you, but what you can do for yourself and others without merely being a user.”
For, after all, change comes from within—and while change may not be always be good, change may be an imperative that we have no choice but to execute.
There is no sense in writing what I think about my own personal philosophy on life when Harlan Ellison, one of the greatest writers in American history, summarized his philosophy as thus:
“My philosophy of life is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration and ignoble deaths; that there is security in personal strength; that you CAN fight City Hall and WIN; that any action is better than no action, even if it’s the wrong action; that you never reach glory or self-fulfillment unless you’re willing to risk everything, dare anything, put yourself dead on the line every time; and that once one becomes strong or rich or potent or powerful it is the responsibility of the strong to help the weak BECOME strong.” — The Harlan Ellison Hornbook, Aug. 9, 1973
And with that in mind, here’s a clip from one of my favorite movies that sums up my feelings on life, as they presently are:
In the effort to organize my life, I’ve begun going through and purging all the crap I’ve come to collect over my 25+ years of life on this planet. During this endeavor, which I am still undertaking, I discovered the results of a test I took back in November 2005.
After my promotion to media supervisor at the Vero Beach Best Buy (Store #816, the “Vero Beach Vipers”—Vipers? Yep. Vipers.) one of the things that I had to take was a test to determine my “signature themes.” This would determine what my top 5 out of a possible 34 strengths were, as Best Buy is a “Strength Based Organization (SBO).”
I found this document to be completely enlightening at the time, and its rediscovery nearly four years later makes me realize that, yes, those strengths that were identified back then are still true. They’re a part of who I am, and I did forget about them here and there. This document’s rediscovery has energized me in a way I’ve never believed possible; it is a testament of my strengths in word form.
So in the interest of keeping it around for a reminder, and to let you kind (and faithful? faithless?) readers of this blog know exactly what I am all about, I’ve scanned this in PDF format and uploaded it.
Oh, and the coffee stain on page one is authentic. I don’t remember where that came from. The scanning lamp made it more vibrant than I had thought! Also, for some reason, it printed in landscape instead of portrait. Go figure.
I have to admit that I bought into the Two Minutes [Plusdoublegood] Decades hate for the Boy Wonder, a.k.a. Wesley “Wes” Crusher, when I watched TNG. In retrospect, I no longer hate Wesley, since Wesley did have some redeeming characteristics (see: “The First Duty“) despite the bad writing on part of writers who didn’t know how to write a teenager.
And what prompted this blog was the following:
O'rly?
And with the line about Ashley Judd, I have resumed my hatred for Wesley Crusher. The damn bastard kissed Ashley Judd. I can forgive him saving the ship when trained Starfleet monkeys or the freaking Tin Man couldn’t do it, I can forgive him for wreaking havoc with his pet science projects, but the bastard swapped spit with Ashley Judd. Frakker.
And could we have possibly procured a more goofier picture of Wes Crusher in the striped sweater? Thank the Gods he didn’t have a scarf to go with that ensemble.
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