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The Prisoner To Be Remade On U.K. TV
An anonymous reader writes "Various UK news sites are reporting that Sky One is to commission a remake of the cult 60s UK TV series, The Prisoner. See u.tv and This is London." From the This Is London story: "The series, which made its debut 1967, is today credited by its fans as being ahead of its time. Featuring McGoohan as a former secret agent trapped in an isolated seaside village, it was shown in more than 60 countries. The new version will not be placed in the original setting, the north Wales village of Portmeirion, or have the arty, 'pop' feel of the original, according to the magazine Broadcast. Damien Timmer, who has been lined up to executive produce the show, told the television and radio industry magazine that the new series 'takes liberties with the original'."
And what exactly do they mean by "take liberties with the original." That is probably code for "when we got done with this bitch it will be damn near unrecognizable."
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Battlestar Galactica is about the only good remake to come in a long line of them.
I can see maybe another series LIKE the Prisoner, but not a complete remake of the series.
Interesting. You complain about the rash of remakes, single out the single remake that dared to be different from the original for praise, and then complain that the Prisoner remake should be like the original.
Don't you have that backwards? If the remake is nothing more than the original, there's no point in making it, and the remakes you complain about confirm that. However, a new spin on a classic can be worthwhile, as your praise of Battlestar Galactica indicates. Surely that reasoning concludes that this remake should go in new directions rather than remain the same as the old series?
I can understand that they may not be able to reuse the old setting, but I hope that they can recreate some place for the "Prison" that has a similar feel of idyllic ordinariness to contrast with the surreal psychological drama.
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As a child, I still recall the "WTF Is This?" nature of the show with the dealings and double dealings in the plot and settings. "You're not Number 6, your THE Number 6!" And of course, nightmares of being chased by those damn white bubbles...
But as an adult, I get the dissapointment of seeing two idiots on a rotating teeter-totter in the control room while some other lackys wave their arms at some edge-lit plexiglas as if it were somehow important. Atmosphere yes, but now very stale.
This is where Battlestar Glactica shines. It updates the cardboard and blinky lights to something more credible which in turn supports and embellishes the plot and the writing. I've heard it said that ST:TOS and (older) Doctor Who were crap, but they were Glorious Crap! The writing and (sort-of) acting overcame the environmental and special-effects cheese factor. The Prisoner was head and shoulders above this. Bring the enviroment up to date, and the original writing will shine through again! With competent acting, of course... One hopes.
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And I sure hope they won't put together a half-baked end chapter where they blame the CIA or the Nazis or involve an alien conspiracy.
C'mon, guys, grow a spine.
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There was going to be a Prisoner movie, did it go away? There's no mention of it in IMDB anymore even. Here's something at least: http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hp&cf=prev&id=18084 05507
Why? It's not as if the original is going to be "deleted" and "replaced" by any remake! The original is always there, and if by watching the remake you feel that the original was better, you will enjoy the original more than you did the first time around. If the remake is better, again you win. So, why complain and push for blocking remakes?
A one-season hit that was inexplicably cancelled, "Nowhere Man" combined elements of "The Prisoner" and "The Fugitive". Some of the scripts were weak, but the show as a whole was brilliant.
And the theme music Kicked Ass.
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> Seriously. The Prisoner is a classic.
Agreed! The Prisoner (minus the last two incomprehensible and silly episodes) was an incredible show. I remember it came on one night late on PBS (after Red Dwarf), and I recognized it from the description on The Straight Dope.
We were all set to make fun of it (hey, look! a campy 1960s era show!), but we quickly became engrossed in the plot (it was one of the better episodes -- The Schizoid Man). I was actually quite surprised how much I enjoyed it.
I ended up buying the A&E boxed set, and I was amazed at McGoohan's understanding of how society tries to mold its citizens. Plus the whole "spy versus spy" part was an intriguing bonus (particularly "Hammer and Anvil").
This is a show that doesn't need to be remade. Today, they'd have to cut it in half, make Number 6 run around shooting people with a machine gun, and have a hooter babe leading woman.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I'm a huge Prisoner fan, and at first glance was very interested to see it being remade. But after more thought-it's considered one of the best sci-fi shows of all time. How to do you even hope to improve on that? Create a new CGI animated Rover? Write a more surreal and confusing final episode? Replace number EVERY week, instead of every other?
Sorry, just don't see it happening...
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There ARE other stories to tell, though, based on the series. What of the agent who faked his death in the first episode? How did he break in the end? Several Number 2s admitted to being prisoners themselves - was there a natural progression going on from prisoner to guard to authoritarian figure? How did The Village start in the first place and when? There were several prisoners under threat of death that Number 6 tried to save - were they really in danger and how did they resist so much as to be placed there?
There are all the events prior to The Prisoner. For that matter, assuming no other prisoners excaped, there are all the events that occured to the evacuees afterwards. Was a new Village founded? Number 6's house had the automatic door - does this indicate that he was merely on parole from The Village? Or maybe that their techniques had improved so much that a physical prison was no longer required - a psychological one being quite sufficient.
Oh, there is no shortage of things they COULD do, based on the series. So what do they do? Remake the episodes that have already been done, only minus all of the social context that made them meaningful in the first place. The biggest intellectual challenge here is to guess which versions they'll use. (There are at least two versions of the second episode and reputedly different versions of the first and third as well.)
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Probably one of my favourite shows too. Though, I'm probably one of the only ones of my generation to truly admire it, which is a pity, considering it really has that same lasting appeal that say, Clockwork Orange has. I still wear my "I will not be pushed, stamped.." shirt with pride when I'm out and about.
As a family we stayed in Portmeirion every year, often in different houses, and to be fair, if you take that out of the equation, it ceases to become The Prisoner. The location was perfect: completely out of odds with what you'd expect, a beautiful mediterranean village in the middle of nowhere in North Wales. Let me tell you, the weather is often quite beautiful there, as well. It was surreal, unusual, and contributed to the feel of the entire series, the eccentricity of it all, the removal from any kind of current social context, making it equally applicable throughout the ages (again, see Clockwork Orange).
And besides, the entire point of remaking the series in a modern context is entirely contrary to the point of the Prisoner: you remake it and you cheapen it, you make it become a fad or a brand rather than a unique point of history (let's face it, the second episode makes a reference to the fact man hadn't landed on the moon yet!). If you want to preserve the legacy, make your own drama rather than ruining another.
To quote the series itself, "my life is my own".
I've got the spirit, lose the feeling.
"McGoohan was so zealously independent and iconoclastic that The Prisoner remains accessible to any individual feeling at odds with a totalist environment, whether that environment is liberal, conservative commercial or whatever."
Does "liberal" have a different meaning in the US than it does in the rest of the world? Surely a liberal environment cannot be totalitarian, simply by definition.