The Prisoner (2009) – episodes 4 to 6

by Parsley on Sun, 2010/07/25 - 7:28pm Post to Twitter

PARSLEY’S COMMLOCK
TV Review: The Prisoner (2009) – episodes 4 to 6
After my review of the first 3 episodes I received other peoples’ thoughts and interest as to what I would make of the rest of the series. A gap of several weeks before watching the last 3 episodes hadn’t aided my understanding, and initially I found myself a bit lost.

To recap, 6 (James Caviezel) resigned from his job for a CCTV firm and has found himself in a strange village, questioning what’s going on. ‘Darling’, the fourth episode, developed the theme of ‘love’ in the village with 6 joining a highly suspicious dating agency and immediately finding himself obsessed with a woman whom he thought he knew as Lucy in his ‘prior’ life. We were living both stories, as he made love to her in his ‘real world’ life, and tried to explain to her why he was interested in her in his ‘village’ life.

The original Prisoner TV show was never like this in displaying romantic interest, but there were parallels in the old show where the ‘Queen’ character was hypnotised into being in love with 6, and in ‘A, B & C’ where he was drugged in his sleep.

As 6’s story unfolded, so did that of No.2’s son 11-12, who was trying to find out why his mother was drugged asleep in an upstairs bedroom. Meanwhile, holes the size of big white Prisoner balloons were appearing in the ground, and everyone was told that they were a weather condition, cured by keeping a pig. This surreal flash of humour was a definite echo of some of the more bizarre moments of the original, but also added to a ‘where-are-we-going-with-all-this?’ feeling.

I was definitely getting engaged, and again McKellen/his No. 2 character could take the credit, with a speech to ‘Doctor’ 313 (Ruth Wilson) asking her what higher purpose was there if we betrayed the people that we loved (in her case 6, who she was drugging into a love affair).

It was a shame that science is actually heading in the opposite direction to that used in the show. In reality women are supposed to be attracted to the smell of men from a different part of the gene pool, causing us to mix up, rather than purify, the genes. Here they were saying that 6 would be attracted to a woman who had his own genetic make up injected into her.

After ‘love’ we moved on to the televisual device of two characters looking the same. This was heavily used in the original Star Trek, where having Captain Kirk be his evil side from a parallel universe, or get split into his angry and compassionate sides, or have his body inhabited by a jealous woman, were all fair game for a thoughtful story. In ‘Schizoid’ 6 appeared to have a doppelgänger who was a mean-son-of-a-bitch-bastard and he wondered how anyone could have thought it was him. The twist here was that 2 announced that people were impersonating him, and promptly walked out his own front door removing any clothes that would have enabled him to confirm his true identity. His absence made it possible for 11-12 to wake up his mother and have a few tantalising conversations about what the hell was going on.

Again there was a twist away from McGoohan’s Prisoner, when a church appeared in the storyline. These almost appeared in the original on occasion, but somehow Roman Catholic McGoohan kept them out. McGoohan’s number 6 double was explained as another spy-like character confusing his sense of identity. Here the explanation was less clear as from moment to moment it seemed like there was no double, or maybe there was…

McKellen’s words were cryptic and I found myself feeling like I wanted to watch the show again with subtitles on so I could be clearer about what he was saying. ‘Re-mixing’ the original Prisoner was even more in evidence with ideas about No. 2 being assassinated, and the shopkeeper knowing more than he’s letting on.

Finally it was time for the last episode ‘Checkmate’. The end of the original series was an iconic moment in sixties television. Akron, Ohio band ‘Devo’ recreated parts of it for video and album pics. At my first concert ever I chose to re-enact a portion of it with fellow members of the band that I was in that eventually became known as Orson Blake. Could this new version of the show match that momentous episode with only a 5-episode build up?

At the time the original show evoked anger and frustration amongst the public, with people concluding that it didn’t make sense and they didn’t understand it. Whereas young fans of Gerry Anderson could subsequently grow up to wear costumes, do funny puppet walks and say ‘F-A-B’, Prisoner fans were a lot more serious lot. Theirs was a more nightmare vision of the world, from which violence, suicide or mental illness were possible ‘escapes’.

I don’t want to tell you how the new show ended, but I think it’s fair to say that it was a more clearly explained and altogether less ambiguous ending than its predecessor. In the original it may be allegory, it may be the deconstruction of the dramatic form, it may be the Prisoner destroying the Village and escaping, or it may be that the Prisoner finds out that he is the one running the Village anyway. Here you may find the ending a cop-out or just not as satisfying as the dramatic journey getting there.

For me I was struck by a powerful scene with 6, 2 and the mentally distraught 313 in the Church at the end. Whilst some may think that the resolution was not complete enough, I think that writer Bill Gallagher, who wrote all 6 episodes, was on to something with the way that he caught the fear and madness inherent in modern life, even when you can boil it down to its simple elements as ‘The Village’ does. Some of the ‘stream of consciousness’ editing of the show, snapping straight from one location/conversation to another in a confusing way, may have seemed weaker than the original’s tight and paranoid narrative, but for me there was a payoff that made me think and reflect. It makes me want to see the series again, and even visit the crazy place it was filmed, although I think I will honestly find that a bit scary.

I think the show was ultimately frightening in a ‘real’ cerebral way, rather than in a superficial obvious horror-and-violence way. I am moved to say ‘well done’ to the guys that got this together. It was the toughest act to follow, and this, in my opinion, was a decent thoughtful new take on it.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]