January 12, 2010 | Reactions to the New Prisoner

Most viewers wanted to do this after watching all six hours... Nom nom grenade nom nom—boom!

I’ve wanted to react to the perversion that was AMC’s “remake” of The Prisoner, however I didn’t want to come across as a whinging fuckard who didn’t like it.

But I said to hell with it.

Without a shred of doubt, it has placed itself on my personal list as one of the worst remakes I have ever seen since Lost in Space. Lost in Space had Gary Oldman. The Prisoner had Sir Ian McKellen. Proving yet again that good actors can be cast in shit.

Indeed, the whole six hour miniseries was a waste of time; time that I shall never be able to reclaim. For that feat alone, and for this piece of “art” to so brazenly defecate on its “source material” (and I use these terms very loosely, ergo the quotation marks), it should earn a Razzie, a faux Academy Award purchased from Spencer’s Gifts, and a burning pile of fecal matter in a brown paper lunch baggie.

I’m not going to make detailed comparisons between this abomination and Patrick McGoohan’s libertarian, counterculture masterpiece. I’ve thought about that approach and summarily dismissed it, as I haven’t the will to do it. The commitment to actually go and do a figurative venn diagram for either myself or all two of you is nonexistent.

The reason for this, you see, stems from the abhorrent fact that this new Prisoner is an exercise in blatant stupidity. It is from someone who apparently likes the series (or the general idea), but never grokked it. It’s an exercise from writers who apparently have written horrendous fiction, are interested in twists and turns with no true substance (see Lost), and haven’t plotted out the story. Hence the fairly languid pace, the actors desperately trying to polish the turd script-cum-toilet-paper, and the mishmash of topics and subjects that are supposed to push our “social” buttons (a homophobic father, drugged members of society, the pervasiveness of electronic surveillance, terrorism, et al). Sadly, in pushing those buttons, they failed to realize that buttons need to be pressed in a certain sequence to form compositions. Whether you are manipulating the keys of a keyboard to compose sentences, or the keys to a piano to play music, there is a discipline and order that needs to be understood. Otherwise, you are performing an act that has this technical term.

Today’s kids call it “keysmash.”

This abomination would have gone either unnoticed… or unfilmed… if it weren’t for its use of “nods” and themes to and from The Prisoner. Number Two. Number Six. The Village. Rover. Escape. The question of why Six resigned.

I believe this abomination is the result of the same thought process that went into the creation of New Coke. We all know how that went.

Beyond the use of names, general plot premises, and various bits of dialogue—”Local destinations only,” “Be seeing you,” etc.—this show needn’t have used The Prisoner. It’s not even the same thing. It’s basically trying to sell a car that looks like a Ferrari, but doesn’t have the mechanical aspects of it. The soul of the car isn’t there. It’s just branding a jalopy in the hopes of getting some sucker to buy it.

This interpretation—and I loathe to refer to it as thus—fails on its own merits and will be forgotten in the sands of time, since it ultimately doesn’t make you think. And, failing that, it’s not even entertaining. Mel Gibson’s Jesus Christ couldn’t carry the show as he bumbles around trying to find his character (as a glorified amnesiac, you’d think it’d be easy), and Sir Ian McKellen seems to have just said “fuck this” and go with the flow of the wacky nature of the story. Indeed, the only good parts to this “television event” were McKellen’s appearances as Number Two.

So here’s where I do the whole comparison thing. Out of necessity. I can’t avoid it, seeing as this abomination now shares the name of a perfectly good story!

McGoohan was able to act. He was able to create a character, the Prisoner, that was so strong and intelligent that he was a force to be reckoned with. He fenced with great adversarial Number Twos throughout the course of his imprisonment, played by various strong actors and actresses. Brilliant story telling. Brilliant dialogue. McGoohan tapped into the counterculture of the time, into the cultural zeitgeist like Trek was fabled to do in the sixties.

The point of The Prisoner is that it is a parable telling of an individual’s struggle against society, a society that attempts to force total conversion of a person so that they are socially acceptable. It does what any good science fiction has done since its inception: hold a mirror up to society and, in that crucible, force us to address some aspect of humanity that has otherwise gone unchallenged or unquestioned.

The other brave thing that the original Prisoner did was “Fall Out,” which resulted in McGoohan going into hiding due to the demands of all those members of society who declared that he must give them an answer to their question. However, I’ll cover that more in depth in the future; I don’t care to muddle the point amidst my utter hatred for this New Coke… ahem, Prisoner.

If anything can be salvaged from this horrendous remake, it is this: it helps introduce The Prisoner to a new generation, in another millennium, that never grew up with it. Even with this 21st century rotting turd masquerading as The Prisoner, it undoubtedly helped the series’ release in blu-ray, which itself is part of the testament to the legacy left behind by McGoohan, who passed in 2009. (Another reason why 2009 was a shitty year.) This brilliant bloke and visionary, who exposes Gene Roddenberry as the reincarnation of Antonio Salieri, is the inspiration for many writers and storytellers out there, including Ron Moore, creator of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.

Oh, and for all those future generations: If you’re going to remake The Prisoner, make sure the people at The Simpsons do it. Here’s why.