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San Francisco, 6:56 AM
Tue Nov 24
25 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/18/09
You might even say that was a Christ-like thing to do.
See? It's just like McGoohan and Danger Man, except it's Caviezel and The Passion. Same actor playing the same character on two different shows.
11/18/09
That's all. Carry on.
11/18/09
11/18/09
Stop The Damn Remakes and use your brains to invent new stuff.
11/18/09
11/19/09
11/19/09
(I'm still pretending to be an AMC executive. You know how they're all about coke parties and conspicuous consumption and high class call girls down there, it's like Wall Street during the 80's. or 90's. or 00's.)
#speakup
11/18/09
As for this new series -- it wasn't as bad as is could (and probably should) have been. The ending was okay, and crazy cake-eating #2 was pretty good, though they never quite decided whether his character was supposed to be more of a friendly oppressor Leo McKern or sadistic Patrick Cargill.
That said, I'm sorry, but this new Number 6 was a waste of space.
It was quite odd, since everybody in the Village tip-toed around him the same way they did in the original, but he did nothing to deserve it. Other than asking a few questions in the first episode, he spent his entire time running around in the desert, standing around looking confused, or telling #2 that he didn't trust him. He completely lacked McGoohan's force of personality and "question everything" nature, and only got directly into another character's face twice during the entire series.
Where was the man who "makes putting on his dressing gown appear as an act of defiance"?
I guess it's time to drag out the "Nowhere Man" DVD's if I want to see a Prisoner sequel done properly.
11/18/09
OTOH, I do own the DVDs of the original series. Could be time to get them out. My brain could use a good scrubbing.
11/18/09
I REALLY liked the ending, but the setup was just too much, and wasn't needed.
Excellent recap, though, as the whole thing was pretty damned confusing.
11/18/09
Dem bones dem bones gonna walk around, dem bones dem bones gonna walk around, now hear the word of the lord! (rings bell)
11/18/09
Oh, and actually, I'm a guy who really liked the "Dem Bones" song in the original. Like the most of the ending, it was metaphorical. It went from Number 46 singing crazily and exuberantly on his own and screwing up the machinery of the state, to the state co-opting his song and drowning him out with a crowd singing along to a more polished recording of it. It was about the nature of youthful rebellion, and how society has ways of controlling it. In the real world, All the hippies became disco dancers and then became stockbrokers who bought "Freedom Rock" albums. Think about it.
11/18/09
i'm also not convinced all the people in the village that were real people were actually all that damaged. 313 was an extream example of someone barely able to function in the real world who magically transforms into a completely sane, mostly normal doctor in the village. other real people, like 147 who, while not having custody of his kid, really didn't seem all that different from any other single father who doesn't have custody of their kid.
my impression of the opening in the desert was that 6 entered the village on accident while investigating summakor before he resigned and that it was entering the village that caused him to resign. he's out in the desert because that's where the doors to the real world were and he can only vaugly recall the real world because he's actually just one small part of the real world 6's mind. the fact that he was never really supposed to be there is laregly the source of his rejection of the environment in which he finds himself.
11/18/09
I strenuously disagree! (Literally, I'm typing from the floor so that I will have to strain to disagree, such is the extent of my commitment to my disagreement!)
I loved it. Loved the imagery. Loved the HD-ery. Loved the characters. Loved, loved the ending. Loved the extent to which the WTF-ery actually made sense in the context of the ending - seriously, how often does that happen?
Of course 6 was always walking the line between acceptance and rebellion. He was not a action hero or a guerrilla that was inexplicably not action-oriented or guerrilla style. He was a person who was an incredible egotist who was more interested in self-identifying as free than actually fighting for freedom.
He wanted to be unique, different, but not at any real cost. He was drawn to aspects of the village and hated that about himself. But not too much. Not enough to get too self-reflective. He was "human."
And 2 was more "human" because he actually believed he was doing good. (Of course, to me, this made him and his wife despicably evil!)
There were no black and white good guys or bad guys, just people. Lots of flawed, broken, often egotistical people.
Of course, I was also watching it as my Mad Men fill in, so I loved the pacing. Give me quiet and silence. Give me slow scenes and freeze on looks and make soft cutaways to hands.
Really, really enjoyed it. All the way through.
11/18/09
That was my main thought afterwards. This would actually have benefitted from being a longer series(different lead actor), cause aside from number 112, I didn't care about any of these characters needing to be there. The black guys daughter died so how is that better?
Oh, and the US-LOM ending was way better than this.
11/17/09
The only prisoner remake I was ever excited about was the one that was supposed to star Clive Owen several years ago. I think even McGoohan was cool with the idea, which surprised me.
Sadly, I think you can sum all six of those up under the single massive crime of "Not knowing exactly which direction to go, so attempting to find a middle ground on everything."
Watching these last 4 hours has been like watching a tug of war between one show that wants to remain faithful to the spirit of Patrick McGoohan, and one that wants to be Lost. The end result is a 'good idea one minute, terrible idea the next' trainwreck. #theprisoner
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