When watching The Prisoner remake on AMC, it was hard to not think about how much better the McGoohan series is, because the remake did everything it could to remind you of the original. Not only are there countless visual references (I picked out a few while watching, see bottom of post) but plots were lifted as well. The fifth episode combined the plots of It’s Your Funeral, where No.6 stops one No.2 from assassinating another No.2, and The Schizoid Man, where No.2 imports a No.6 lookalike named No.12 to confuse No.6. In the remake, 6′s id ‘two times six’ goes Mr. Hyde on him, causes lots of trouble around the Village, and 6 must eventually stop ‘two times six’ from killing 2. Someone, probably a more devout fan than I, could go for days sifting out all the allusions to the original–those that last for a frame and those that last for an episode, or through all the episodes. But I’m not going to do that, at least no more than I already have and I’m making an effort to limit my criticisms here, or else I’d go on for far too long about how Jim Caviezel sucks.
I was wrong on a few points in my earlier post. I anticipated a drawn out narrative arc that ignored the discrete episode-specific narratives of the original. The remake more-or-less had these. Generally speaking, each episode 2 (not No.2 or No.6 as far as AMC is concerned) attempts to assimilate, not extract information from, 6 into the Village with some new method that is not always direct. Take the above plot of episode five as an example. In other episodes he tries to give 6 a job, a brother, and a wife.
There are drawn out plot points that do not resemble the ’67 Prisoner. 6 has a love interest throughout the miniseries, actually two; one inside the Village (a redhead known as 313) and one outside (a brunette) that eventually comes inside sans her eyesight, creating a complex little love triangle whose complexity is exacerbated by the fact that 313 is the doctor injecting 6 with love potion so he falls for the brunette now that’s she’s in the Village. Got it? don’t worry, the brunette jumps into an abyss anyway and the point is that even in Danger Man McGoohan was vehemently opposed to all plots that involved romance. With the remake, we see these little love stories dragged throughout the whole miniseries. We also get the development of these two female characters across all six episodes, as well as those of taxi driver and his family. 2 doesn’t change, so we get this character, along with his wife and son.
In the ’67 series there was no character development outside of individual episodes except for No.6. This changes the entire tone of the series, because with all these secondary characters and side plots, the show deviates from its crux. Tossing the discrete narratives aside and focussing on the series itself, the ’67 Prisoner was about No.6 and the Village and it became, in many ways, about No.6 versus himself. In this remake 6 doesn’t really have all of our attention, as we’re regularly distracted by 2 and the Village, 2 and his son, 2′s wife and the Village, 2 and 313, 6 and 313, and so on.
It would seem that original ingredients simply weren’t enough for AMC and the series just had to be ‘updated’ with romances, a troubled relationship between 2 and his son, and other plot elements including Lost-style flashbacks, so that it could hold an audience for consecutive three nights. With its bad eerie music, choppy editing, general aesthetic confusion, and mixed time lines; the remake relishes in ambiguity, trying to come off as mysterious when it’s really just acting as silly as Caviezel is. What was great about the ’67 series was how matter of fact everything was, even McGoohan’s acting, where every gesture and line seems so deliberate and certain and concrete. Just compare the two title sequences.
You see what I mean? The original tells you exactly what’s going on, while leaving the series’ larger questions unanswered, even at its finale. The remake only seeks to confuse and disorient and continually distract us until the end, where it does offer up some answers to those larger questions, i.e. what the hell is the Village and why is 6 there? I won’t get into the ending here, but I think it shows how disappointing resolution can be and how much, despite people’s frustration back in 1968, it would have failed the original series. What if Godot had shown up?
