Remaking The Prisoner

Regular readers will know that I am not the world’s biggest fan of the remake as a concept. Either something is being remade because it was really good/influential, and as a result the remake struggles to live up to what went before, or it is being remade because the makers can’t think of anything else to do. And so they end up trying to polish a turd. Which, let’s be honest, never goes tremendously well.

There was something inevitable about a remake of The Prisoner. The original was, well, influential – people remember it, but if you actually sit down and watch it, the quality is variable. In fact, the show moved from intriguing to largely unwatchable over the course of 17 episodes. But people still talk about it, and remember it fondly. So there is a natural, ready-made audience for it.

I gave the remake a go. It is recognisably the same series, but with a couple of flaws. First of all, all of the character of the original setting is lost. Instead, it is set in a desert which is a pretty boring setting once the initial novelty wears off. And that happens within the first five minutes. But in a sense the boredom of the desert is perfect for this version of The Prisoner, because it is boring. It is really, really boring. It is so boring that I would happily sit in a dark room in silence rather than watch another episode of it. At least the silence of the dark room would be more interesting that the The Prisoner.

For all of its glaring problems, at least the original version of The Prisoner was never boring. It was often poorly acted nonsense, with no sense of plot, but at least it was diverting. The same cannot be said for the remake. It is beyond dull. The new Number 6 lacks anything even approaching charisma. The original Number 6 had no end of ways to demonstrate his rage at being imprisoned – scowling, gurning, shouting, stomping, being rude and laughing in a way that was simultaneously derisive and slightly constipated. The new Number 6 just appears a bit put out by his imprisonment, and if there was something good on the TV he’d probably just forget about it. Furthermore, Ian McKellen – as Number 2 – is a bit, well, number two. He’s phoning in his performance, clearly hoping that the shoot ends sooner rather than later so he can get back to real acting work. And as for the other people in the show, well, I can’t remember them. They were instantly forgettable.

Part of the problem, I suppose, is that The Prisoner was novel in the 1960s. Nowadays, there is no shortage of high concept shows being aired on TV. And a lot of these are built around an enigma – of putting interesting characters in crazy scenarios surrounded by mystery. I mean, that’s the basic premise of Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes. However, those two shows realise that it is not enough to just create a mysterious scenario – you need to have interesting characters and great plots as well. That’s where the remake of The Prisoner falls own, and why it falls down so badly – it is a concept in search of a plot, characters, and also in search of something to make you want to watch week after week.

Of course, I only watched two and a half episodes (I fell asleep watching the third episode) so it is possible that the series suddenly got a lot better. But I doubt it somehow. Remaking a show that ended up just going through the motions is never going to work if you go through the motions from the first minute of episode one. There is a scope for a re-imagining of The Prisoner that takes the premise of the show and does something interesting with it – much as the remake of Battlestar Galactica did with its unpromising source material. Unfortunately, this version took the premise of the show and made it really dull.

They really shouldn’t have bothered.

The Prisoner: FAIL

See, I'd meant to watch The Prisoner for ages. But I never got around to it. Actually, scratch that. The DVDs were just too expensive. £70 for a boxed set? Do me a favour. But then I managed to get a bargain on both the DVD and a companion book. Great, I thought. Finally a chance to see a classic TV series... Except, it isn't a classic. In fact, it isn't that good. 

Don't get me wrong, there are some wonderful - and frightening - images in the first few episodes of the series. The obscure, OTT environment of The Village - combined with the apparent impossibility of a successful escape - makes for an initially very edgy TV programme. The paranoia and the heightened atmosphere make it an unsettling piece. It also looks expensive, and a programme that the makers truly cared about. And finally, there are some wonderful Libertarian rants in there, none more so that the famous and effective slogan of "I am not a number! I'm a free man!"

Against that, you have two colossal flaws with the series. Namely that the protagonist is a knob, and that the production team gave up on the show and handed it over to McGoohan. Who turned it into a vanity exercise. And a shitty vanity exercise at that.

The Prisoner is a Cock

Seriously, the Prisoner is a cock. He is a massive cock. He is a wanker of the very highest order. 

Take an episode of the Prisoner. It can be any episode. And watch how the Prisoner behaves. He is petulant, he is angry, he is sulky. He behaves like a grounded teenager. And when he rages, it isn't the rage of an intimidating foe. It is the raging of a silly little man who cannot help but sound constipated when he is shouting. And he does a lot of shouting. 

See, he's upset. He's upset about being a Prisoner. So he refuses to participate in the community. Instead, he rallies against everyone and everything. Like a moody teenager, who believes the world is against him and the best way to deal with that is ignoring the world in the hope that it goes away. He does nothing to help himself. And his behaviour is so aloof, so patronising and so pointless that at times you want those running the Village to get out the electrodes, attached them to the Prisoner's balls and get the secret of his resignation from him that way. 

But there is more to it than just that. Either the Prisoner likes the attention of the Village, or he is really dumb. Sometimes, he seems to actively flirt with the Village and their Number 2s (a title that sounds quite dodgy these days, but there we go) and their schemes. But he is also exceptionally dumb, in that he falls for just about every half-baked load of bollocks that his warders dream up to make him confess. Hell, in one episode - when he is actually set free - he is so arrogant, so obtuse and so stupid that he allows a stranger to fly him back to the Village. And guess what happens? It is obvious, to everyone bar our protagonist. The stupid, grumpy wanker that he is. 

I understand he is an individual, but he is an individual who refuses to engage with anything other than his own rampant ego. As a figurehead, he is useless for just about every group in this world. He has an ironclad belief in his won brilliance, yet does nothing to illustrate why he is so great. As a Libertarian icon, he fails. Because he won't take responsibility for his own - albeit unfair - predicament. 

And that is a punishing flaw for the protagonist in any TV series. He is an unlikable person who refuses to help himself. And he's supposed to be our hero. 

The Decline in the Quality of the Episodes is Alarming and Disappointing

Nonetheless, a certain cocksure arrogance is no bad thing in a supposed superspy. After all, Daniel Craig's Bond has more than a little of the wanker about him, and he is the most acclaimed thing since... well, since something that was really acclaimed. And during the early episodes (ie, those filmed on location that look a bit expensive) the stories, combined with the ingenuity of the premise, make the show enjoyable despite our stilted yet raging moron of a hero. 

Which means it is a real shame when the stories just become crap as well. 

The show loses its way. Which is no mean feat, given there aren't even twenty episodes of the original. It ceases to be an edgy, paranoid chiller. Instead, it becomes an amateurish waste of time. A vanity exercise for the star - who also writes, produces and directs by the end of it. The departure of George Markstein was probably the death knell of quality within The Prisoner. And it is impossible to hide the fact that the last few episodes are beyond bullshit. Wanky, amateurish bullshit at that. 

The final two episodes show this most clearly. They are wonderfully reviewed here and here. Once Upon A Time is painful to watch. It features two talented actors shrieking at each other in a playroom, whilst one of them pretends to be a child, whilst the other is a school teacher. If you ever wanted to watch two men shout at each other about a secret that you are never going to know the answer to inbetween them riding around on fucking go-karts, then this is the piece for you. And you also want your head fucking see to, because it is dreadful. 

And then we have Fall Out - an episode of The Prisoner that some seem to laud just because it was slightly unexpected. Well, it was unexpected. Mainly because it is the worst ending episode of a TV series I have ever seen. Smug, complacent, so sure of its own brilliance - it would be fine, if it wasn't such crap. It reminds me of The Trial of a Time Lord. Except it too Doctor Who 23 years to reach that big old bag of bollocks. It took The Prisoner just 17 episodes to become unwatchable tripe. 

But what about that twist, I hear you ask. What about the idea that Number 1 was also Number 6? Well, smashing. But the revelation is poorly directed. It doesn't actually appear to mean anything. Yeah, yeah, I know what it is meant to mean - that we are made prisoners by society, and that we are complicit in our own imprisonment. But Jesus Christ, couldn't the production team (aka the star and no-one else) have been a little clearer with that message? Or at least give it time to sink before moving onto the sub-Monkees shenanigans that ends the series? 

Just imagine, if you will, what it would be like if The Prisoner had ended with the revelation that Number 1 was also Number 6. After a bitter struggle to reach the centre of the village, you would have that final revelation that all along, Number 6 has been chasing his own tail. Then it ends. How much more effective would that have been than a final episode consisting of the "hero" sitting on a throne, then realising he is boss, before larking around with a fat man, an irritating man and a midget? Before finally going for a drive in his crappy fucking car?

The Prisoner posed many questions. In the final analysis, it failed to answer any of them convincingly. Mainly because it couldn't be arsed. It became an elongated ego trip for the star. A terrible waste of an original, interesting idea. 

Here's hoping that the reboot of The Prisoner is a lot like the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. In that an over-rated, bollocks TV programme from yesteryear is turned into something gripping and actually worth watching all the way through.