October 01 2009
The Prisoner Returns to US Screens
posted by Steven Shaw at 2:38 pm
The remake of Patrick McGoohan’s groundbreaking cult classic fantasy-drama The Prisoner is set to air in the USA across three nights from November 15. It’s a reinterpretation of the 1960s show, this time starring Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ) as Number Six and Sir Ian McKellen (you know who he is) as Number Two. Sounds good on paper, right? Highly anticipated, even? Only thing is, after seeing this lengthy trailer — which I presume is the teaser shown at Comic-Con — I’m not so sure about it.
For the uninitiated, The Prisoner is about a man (Jim Caviezel), who wakes up to find himself in a mysterious place called The Village, with no memory of how he arrived. The Village residents are known only by numbers and are under constant surveillance. The Village is controlled by Number Two (McKellen), who might as well be a Bond villain. The pair engage in battle of wits and wills, as Six tries to learn the truth behind it and get the hell out of there.
What this trailer doesn’t reveal is whether Six knows he’s a former spy — in the original he was kidnapped after handing in his resignation. And the village here isn’t a patch on the original (Portmeirion in Wales), but if you’re into A-frame housing, maybe you’ll dig it. Another oddity — a large weather balloon nicknamed Rover was the security system in the original series, simply because the supposedly amphibious VW they planned on using sank as soon as it hit the water. And they’ve used a bloody balloon again.
Take a look at the trailer and tell us what you think — but somehow I don’t think it’s worth firing up your Bittorrent come November…
October 7th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Very disappointing. Especially the setting. I can imagine this ‘village’ has a Starbucks and KFC…which sort of makes it less mysterious and more like a giant mall…
October 11th, 2009 at 2:45 am
I have to agree that putting the Village in the middle of a desert smacks too much of “Lost” An Island would have been too obvious I suppose. As to the trailer Number 6 or in this case just “6″ doesn’t show ant of the anger displayed by Patrick McGoohan’s Number 6. McGoohan’s Number 6 was angry as hell and wasn’t going to take it any more in spades. And he should have been. In the original series the first Number 2 says “They have taken liberties.” Damn right they have and NUmber 6 should be seriously miffed. Not so the new Number 6. He seems to be just confused. I see far less serious conflict in the new Prisoner. There was always a battle of wills in the original between Number 6 and the ‘new’ Number Two. Where is the conflict here? Let’s hope the new series lives up to it’s potential.