I had high hopes for AMC’s reboot of The Prisoner. In hindsight, I guess it’s a bit silly to call this a “reboot” and not something else, since it only took up six hours of my life and didn’t attempt to keep the story going beyond that. I’m going to try to save a bunch of you from wasting any more hours on this mini-series, because it’s just not worth it.
Like I said from the start, it’s just not fair at all to compare this series to the original Prisoner. It bares little resemblance, and really stands on its own, right up to the end. Well, I guess one way in which it doesn’t stand on its own is it’s another complete “Why The Face” through and through, including an ending that, for most, is completely unsatisfying.
After watching the third and fourth hours of The Prisoner last night I popped in the DVD with the final two hours, hoping things would start to make more sense and help strike this series as being one for the books. Well, it did that alright, only the books it made it into aren’t the good ones. I can’t begin to fathom why this series sounded like a good idea when the entire script was presented to … anyone. Did Caviezel and McKellan see anything beyond the first couple of episodes before committing to do the series?
What really felt odd about how this series went down was how each hour really did feel like an episode, and not like another hour of a long TV movie. In fact, at times I thought the show would have done better to have consisted of more hours, in order to establish the story a bit more and make more sense out of it, give us a reason to want to see it through other than thinking, “I’ve seen two hours so far, with four more to go. It would be a waste not to see it through now.” The Prisoner is making you a prisoner to watching the whole thing!
It’s quite possible that this series was simply completely beyond me, and called for a lot deeper contemplation and analysis than I’m able and willing to give. That’s a shame, because I really, really wanted AMC to hit this one out of the park. The fact that the buzz for the series strangely died down after its first announcement makes me wonder if the people at AMC thought, “Wow, this is just not going to be good. Quick, tone back the promotion so we can save some face before it’s too late!”
Let me know what you think if you decide to make the full commitment and sit through all six hours of this series. I’d love to hear from anyone who disagrees with me, along with what good you got out of it. Maybe it’ll trigger more contemplation out of me. Oh, who am I kidding?… This was painful and I’m glad it’s over.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Nov 17, 2009 @ 10:32 EST5EDT
I — against my will — enjoyed the 1st 2 episodes. I was pleasantly surprised. Then I got the “why the face” ness during episode 3 and then I was done. Maybe Keith will tell me all about the ending and I’ll want to watch the rest?
*POST AUTHOR*
The thing is, I don’t know how I’d even begin to explain the ending. Not that it’s up to any interesting interpretation, just that it … ends.
I don’t know Debbie and Keith, I’m almost done with hour four and I’ve said to myself at least 3x: “This is not for me”, “I don’t get”, and “I get it, I’m so smart”.
I neeeeeed to know how it ends.
*POST AUTHOR*
Slight spoiler for you: that image attached to this post is the final scene of the last episode.
I tweeted last night asking that anyone please tell me what the hell its supposed to be about. It was interesting, but with this review I don’t know that I’ll finish. I’ve only watched the first two hours so far, as I was a day behind in my recording.
If you have a post ready for the end of the show, and have any tidbits to share about what it all means, email me. I would prefer to have the end handed to me on a silver platter than waste four more hours. :-)
*POST AUTHOR*
I’m not planning on writing up anything more about the show beyond this post.
Really, it’s confusing as hell. Not sure how I’d explain it. Or if there’s anything to explain.
The only thing I can gleen from the photo is that he’s dressed kinda two-ey, and the gal kinda looks zoned out like Two’s wife.
I hope I’m not right. I guess we’ll see.
I watched the first tow hours and frankly didn’t really care what was going on.
I have it DVR’d… should I toss?
Thinking I will.
I would not toss, but I would watch in stages when you have a grueling sit down task, like making Christmas ornaments for all of your husband’s ungrateful co-workers.
I completely agree with this comment. Don’t go out of your way to finish it because it’s very unsatisfying, but put it on in the background when you’re reading your mail or catching up on magazines or something.
I can’t agree: you’ll get absolutely nothing out of it while backgrounded. It’s one of those shows that requires one’s full attention to even hope to understand what’s going on.
While the series itself meandered between boring and captivating bits, I thought it was a perfectly lovely and suitable ending. Proper, yet melancholy.
While I understood the broad strokes, some of the details eluded me. It’s one of the rare times in watching science fiction that I felt it was my intelligence, and not the level of the writing that fell short (like the first time I watched Aronofsky’s The Fountain, though I’m not daring to compare this series to that work).
Since Keith won’t be writing any more on the subject, I think it would not be inappropriate to link to the conclusion review on the other site. I didn’t find the review itself very insightful, but commenter Mike explains in #13 the nuances in the show as I understood them very eloquently.
Keith – This is totally outside my wheelhouse, but I have four hours sitting on my DVR box after reading some of your earlier posts on The Prisoner. Dump them?
*POST AUTHOR*
Aryeh — Your tastes aren’t always in line with mine, so I’m not sure what to tell you. :)
If you can get through hour #3 and are totally enthralled, just finish it up.
Still working on the final hour. I know now that I was right about the picture, but I can’t help feeling that if I was just a bit smarter the whole thing would coalesce in my brain better.