Be Seeing You...Again! - The Prisoner Returns

[Bad-example]

Yes, AMC is remaking the '60's classic show The Prisoner. Sir Ian McKellan is cast as Number 2. I loved the original, even the mindfuck ending. Really curious to see what they come up with.

AMC » Future of Classic has several interviews and a brief preview.

[thesloppy]

I heard about this a couple months ago, and my interest was piqued as well. I love what AMC has done recently with "mad men" and "breaking bad" but certainly 'the Prisoner' is a challenge on an entirely different level.

[Bad-example]

A couple weeks until this starts. The original show has been airing on IFC and is also available on the AMC web site.

[samifan24]

I'm really excited about this. I hope the remake is good and yet faithful to the original. I watched the entire series a few summers ago and really got into it. The show was on about 20 years before I was born and yet I couldn't believe how ahead of its time it was.

[Bad-example]

Tonight, 8-10 and repeats 10-12. Also 2 episodes airing on Monday and Tuesday, same times.

Yes, six(!) episodes in the first three days.

[DaddyTorgo]

thanks for the bump i had forgotten to set the dvr

[Bad-example]

Turns out this is a 6-hour miniseries. Tim Goodman has both good and bad stuff to say about this.:

There is probably no winning for the AMC remake of "The Prisoner," which starts Sunday with the first of three two-hour segments. Where the original 1967 series - considered a cult classic - ran 17 episodes and redefined the possibilities of nonlinear (and possibly nonsensical) storytelling on television, the remade version is a miniseries with a concrete conclusion come Tuesday night.

The problem will be making it there. Those fans who can still remember the original (it was shown in the United States starting in 1968) probably won't bother. New-generation lovers of cult television who rediscovered the trippy original probably won't like the remake, because ultimately it's more of a reimagining. Any time you change a classic, you lose. AMC must have had the bravado to overlook that or the foolishness to continue despite such reservations.

And yet, beyond the unflattering comparisons, there are two other major problems with this shiny new "Prisoner." First, because the original allowed a new generation of writers to tear up convention, American television viewers have seen everything from "Twin Peaks" to "Lost," "The X-Files" and all kinds of science fiction series up to "Battlestar Galactica." The notion that being vague and ominous and weird can be all that it takes to bring viewers on a ride is simply outdated. People have already seen that. They need a payoff. They need answers.

Which brings us to the last problem, which might be the biggest: "The Prisoner" is not compelling. It rambles too much. Its vagaries are not interesting, its unorthodox storytelling not special enough. And, in the sixth hour, when viewers do get some kind of definitive resolution to the story (which they didn't get in the original), the first question out of their mouths might be, "I watched six hours for that?"

Anyone who has seen "The Truman Show" or, let's not kid ourselves, watered-down versions of the same idea (alternate universes that are not real, the freaking out of those who land there and sense that something's not right) will be stifling yawns long before Tuesday.

In fairness, the new "Prisoner" is not without some winning twists. Ian McKellen as No. 2 (the only No. 2) is always fascinating, even when the dialogue he's speaking is not. There are some moments - though not many in the first two hours - that keep you slogging through, and that crisply update the notions of the original (mostly psychological gamesmanship and the idea that some higher power (a data-mining organization, perhaps?) just might overstep its bounds to the detriment of society).

An argument can be made that if you've never seen the original, this "Prisoner" might be fresh (and not many people have seen all of the original). But even then there's not enough dramatic intrigue here to keep fans dedicated over three nights. British actor Patrick McGoohan conceived of the original after he left the hit spy series "Secret Agent." In his original "Prisoner," McGoohan was again a spy, this time disillusioned to the point of quitting. He's kidnapped and forced to live in the Village, a bizarre resort where nobody has a name, just a number (he's No. 6), and secrets and hidden motivations mix into mind games, paranoia and escapist thrills. Decades of thesis papers have been churned out on what it all meant, whether it was nihilistic or hopeful, anti-government or pro-personal freedom. Years removed, it's an artifact of its time.

But if AMC really wanted to revolutionize it, the cable network would have needed to make the new "Prisoner" exponentially more frightening - psychologically and with personal menace afoot at the Village. As it is, our new No. 6, actor Jim Caviezel, just has a lot of hazy flashbacks to New York (and his ominous day job collecting data about people and searching for "a pattern"). He never seems in very much peril in his alternate, sandy Village. Even incorporating elements from the original - catchphrases and freaky sci-fi trickery - fails to blow up the jigsaw puzzle of our brains as it did for those who watched the original.

Times have changed. Political and corporate and even personal menace have been covered endlessly. The original "Prisoner" opened the door to decades of innovative television. Remaking it now seems pointless. Failing to breathe life into it is just disappointing, if not entirely unexpected.

TV review: 'Prisoner' remake captive of past