And it’s done. Finally, mercifully, it’s over. I’ve refrained from really judging this to see if they had some grand concept that would make it all pay off in the end. Did it work? Was it worth it? Find out in the observations below.
In the meantime, I found this on Wikipedia: “In May 2007 it was reported that Sky One had pulled out of the re-make due to a disagreement with their AMC. In August 2007, Richard Woolfe, head of Sky One, stated: The Prisoner is not happening. It's a very quintessentially British drama and there were too many creative differences trying to share it with an American partner. I didn't want to be responsible for taking something that is quintessentially British and adapting it in a way that I didn't feel was reflective of the way people would remember it and the way people would want it to be. So we called time on that.”
So the odds of them pulling it out in the end aren’t good, but there’s always a chance, right?
PLAY BY PLAY
“Michael” (AKA 2x6) attempts to sneak back in to Summakorp, but fails, so he goes to the “access guy,” who turns out to be the shopkeeper from The Village. The two of them sneak in to the forbidden floor and find a whole bunch of terminals monitoring people that Michael himself was monitoring. The Crazy Lady from the bus in Episode 2 turns up and tells him his car is waiting to take him to see the boss. At the car, he’s shocked to find that his chauffer is the cabbie from the village.
Two, meanwhile, is expanding the village, and Six suddenly gets sick. Turns out death certificates in the village are postdated, and he’s got a day or three to live. He starts wheezing and stuff. The Cabbie takes him to see a shaman or whatever, but Six gets mad and stomps off. Two’s son, meanwhile, decides to kill his mama to end the illusion. Two gets home from work in time to find his wife dead, and his son dead in the beloved nudie bar that he loved so much. He’s hung himself.
“Michael” discovers that the chauffer still has a daughter, and a violent criminal history, but for the last year or so, he’s getting better and better, life is good, and the judge says they might even let him see his little girl soon.
The Pretty Doctor asks the bereaved Two to let six live, and he agrees, but says it’ll cost her. She says she’s willing to pay the price. Two talks to the cabbie, and gives him instructions on what to do when the time is right. They prepare for Two’s son’s funeral. There’s holes opening up everywhere.
“Michael” meets the boss of Summakorp, and “Helen,” his twitchy, oblivious, schizophrenic wife. He explains that Helen is a biochemist who specializes on the brain. She reasoned that if there’s two levels of consciousness - conscious and subconscious - then why not more? So she engaged upon forbidden experiments to create one a’la the vastly superior (And rather disturbing) Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick. Helen was the first person in the vilalge (“Number One” ) and of course he was Number Two. They decided to have
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Comments
27 December 2008
20 min 36 sec
Yeah, the 60s was the peak of Anglophilia in the US. Thus I find British issues from the 60s to be instantly understandable, and more recent British Issues to be utterly incomprehensible
27 June 2009
17 min 13 sec
@R3 I think you right about the British influence on US culture in the late 60’s early 70’s. My friends and I mostly listened to British invasion bands (The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Cream etc.) We all watched the Prisoner, Dr Who and Monty Python on PBS and shows like the Avengers and the Saint were on regular TV. Even the movies we watched where mostly the Hammer horror films so that’s why I’m a head case.
27 December 2008
20 min 36 sec
The novel you're thinking of is "Time out of Joint." It's similar, but a bit different. The punchline is that Ragle Gumm is the only man who can save the world, but he cracks under pressure, so they create a fake town for him where he's the least important person, rather than the most important man in the world.
I do think the original was very distinclty british, but so much of 60s Brit culture splashed over the US that I don't think it matters. A lot of US culture of the late 60s was kinda' distinctly British, too.
I agree that this one was a turd that will soon, hopefully, be forgotten.
27 June 2009
17 min 13 sec
So I was right the producers of this show had no idea what the original was all about. I disagree with Sky One on the original being quintessentially British it translated to my young American mind easily when I watched it in the early 70’s on PBS.
There is a PKD story (which I can not remember the name right now) where the town this man is in is a total fake made just for him. It sounds like the producers took that idea and mashed it with a bunch of other sci fi ideas dealing with mind control and used the Prisoner name to get financing.
I can not see how they could go from the original’s ideas on conformity and the fight to retain one’s identity in the modern world to this thing that they farted out. It seems they were too clever by half and painted themselves into a corner and could not write their way out. The original is even more valid as a statement on modern life now than it was in the 60’s. This new Prisoner is destine to be forgotten and I only hope it does not put people off from watching the original.