Alpha and Omega: Writer Bill Gallagher Discusses the End of AMC's "The Prisoner"
Ubiquitous
Wondering just what screenwriter Bill Gallagher intended with the ending
of AMC's six-hour miniseries The Prisoner, which wrapped its run last
night? You've come to the right place.
I caught up with Gallagher a few weeks back when I interviewed him for a
piece about The Prisoner and asked him some particular questions about
the ending to the series (which I won't reveal here lest you haven't
watched it yet).
What did Gallagher reveal about the ending of the reimagined Prisoner?
Just what was The Village? Read on...
Televisionary: The episode titles seem to sharply recall some of the
titles from the original series. What attracted you to the episodes you
reference? (The western-themed "Living in Harmony" or the
Doppelganger-oriented "The Schizoid Man" for instance?)
Bill Gallagher: Well, to be honest about that, that wasn�t my idea and
that came really late in the process. It came when we were cutting the
episodes and someone said, wouldn�t it be fun to pick up on the titles
of [the original]? I hadn�t given each episode a title; I had just
numbered them. So that came at a late hour. I thought it was lovely, it
was a really nice idea and in fact the episodes do fit with those
titles. That wasn�t my idea and it came late in the process. It wasn�t
something I set out to do, that�s what I�m saying.
Televisionary: One major departure from the original--among several
other notable examples--is that Number Two is played by one individual,
rather than multiple actors. Was this a conscious decision made during
the script process or in terms of the production itself?
Gallagher: Do you know, that was one of the first decisions I made. One
of the things I love about the original is that it was a series driven
by ideas. Each episode was driven by a big concept and the whole idea of
a new Number Two every week and the drama of the repeated battle between
Number Six and Number Two. Each week, Six peels off the new Number Two
and, because that series was about an invisible system that governs
people and that system bringing a new Number Two each week, that was all
great. I didn�t want to repeat what they did. And my approach with
writing anything has always been to start with character and moral
dilemmas.
So I knew very early on that I wanted a Number Two and this Number Two
would do battle with Number Six across the whole series and then given
that then I start to ask, who is this Number Two? What is the moral
quicksand in his life? What brought him here? And I wanted the whole
thing to have stakes for him, to matter to him, not just at the level of
a conflict but at the level of a man and his soul. So I gave him a
family and part of his story is that his son doesn�t understand the
nature of The Village. One of the strands of the series is Two�s family
coming to terms with the nature of the world that they live in. My
approach to story is not to build but to dig. So I wanted to create this
man that was interesting, that we were intrigued by, and then keep
digging for more.
Televisionary: Can you speak about some of the larger issues you were
interested in exploring, such as knowledge, truth and self-awareness?
Were you influenced at all by Plato�s Allegory of the Cave?
Gallagher: It�s interesting you say that. I wasn�t consciously going for
that but I can see why you say that. I don�t sit down in that way and
try to consciously say that I am going to make some meaningful
reference. I start with the character, I start with the story, and
ultimately what I did was split it into episodes and I wanted to do an
episode about love, about education, an episode about family, and
episode where Number Six�s brother turns up so is it his real brother?
Is it not? Is it something that they�ve done to him?
Those are things that I wanted to address episodically. I like to start
small. I wanted to write a story about the family for Six so rather than
immediately setting a path for myself for some great mechanical,
thematic approach, I just gave him a brother. So I start small and I go
looking for where this takes me and then within the story of a man and
his brother�is it my brother? Is it not my brother?�I then go looking
for the things I like. They might interest you or they might interest my
neighbor or be of interest to anyone who watches it and then through
that... That�s my approach to universality. It�s to start small and then
go looking rather than to start with Plato. Because if I started with
Plato, I wouldn�t write a word; it would scare me to death.
Televisionary: How did you envision the ongoing struggle between Six and
Two in your version of The Prisoner? Does it come down to obedience and
resistance?
Gallagher: Absolutely. The word I use for it is assimilation. You know
that the objective of The Village is to assimilate Number Six into
becoming a villager. His objective is to resist but in resisting he is
convinced that he alone knows the truth. Everyone around him tells him
that there is The Village and only The Village, he only claims to know
the existence of our world, another world, another place, as they call
it in the series.
But I am immediately interested in doubt. The given is, of course,
Number Two is going to try to crush Number Six and of course Number Six
is going to fight back but what if each of them doubts themselves and
what if that doubt creeps into the series? It would be really simple to
give Number Six conviction and to stick with it but what if he starts to
doubt himself? What if he�s wrong? And what if, bit by bit, the evidence
starts to stack up against him. I thought that would be really
interesting to write that and that�s where I started and that�s where I
went. I think any political or ideological or philosophical argument is
for me much more interesting when the protagonists doubt themselves. So
that became a major driving force in writing in the series for me,
giving those doubts.
Number Two rules this world, created this world, and what if he doubts
himself? Why does he doubt himself? What is it that would make this man
begin to wonder about his own morality? And without giving anything way
that doubting has in it the resolution of the series. And where we get
to at the end of the series begins with that doubt. If that makes sense.
Televisionary: Should we view the ending as a sense that the road to
hell is paved with good intentions and that if we don�t learn from our
own history, we�re doomed to repeat the same mistakes? After all, 313�s
tear seems to indicate that Six will make the same errors that Two
did...
Gallagher: The decision that Two makes at the end about the sort of
inheritance of The Village comes from the beginnings of his doubts, what
he�s been doing to his wife, and why he�s doing it. Am I right to be
doing this? And the cost of it all. It�s a story about family and a
man�s own conscience and for me that�s the politics of the series.
Televisionary: It�s at its heart about moral relativism; Two honestly
believes what he�s doing is helping these people though there�s an
undercurrent of nihilism and darkness.
Gallagher: ...If we can sympathize with Number Two, if we can see him
struggling, if we can at times believe that this man thinks what he is
doing is utterly for the good, then for me that has tension in it and
drama in it. And is much more interesting to me than a two-dimensional
ogre who rules by violence and terror.
In one sense, all saviors believe that they are the only bearer of the
common good and on the other side what if there genuinely is something
within them that has the impetus to do something for others? It�s about
finding where the drama is. If Two is evil and that�s where his
decisions are made, then the drama is over. The drama begins if (A) we
ourselves are complicit in that and (B) if the man doubts and struggles.
That�s what�s interesting to me to write.
Televisionary: The towers that the Dreamers see in the desert do seem to
bear an eerie resemblance to the Twin Towers; was this intentional and
is it intended to invoke a 9/11 reference?
Gallagher: It wasn�t. I honestly didn�t sit down and say let me make
that reference. It came more from mythology and the passages through
mythological journeys and the gates that you pass through and those
images. This is mythological image in the distance which is the way out
of here. Having said that, as I writer, I would be kidding myself if I
put two towers in a series and then pretended that it didn�t have a
reference. I can honestly say that I didn�t intentionally invoke that
but, having done it, it�s kind of unavoidable...
Televisionary: How was Helen able to tap into people�s subconscious? Did
they drug their victims with a biochemical compound?
Gallagher: Yes, I came across this thing that Carl Jung said which I had
in my head for ages about levels of consciousness. Jung said we commonly
accept nowadays the idea of the unconscious, we commonly accept that
there are two levels of consciousness, so if we accept that there are
two levels of consciousness, why can�t there be more? And that
fascinated me because then The Village is a layer of consciousness... In
turning that layer of consciousness into a story, how do we do this? It
was always a combination of chemical compounds. You have that scene
where 11-12, the son, takes the pills to be examined at the Clinic and
the contents are unknown and some are not known and some are chemical
compounds that have not yet been invented. That was just a simple sci-fi
notion to get us to this Jungian idea of layers of consciousness. You
asked me a very simple question and I gave you twenty minutes of answer;
that�s a very Bill Gallagher moment right there.
Televisionary: Given the fact that The Prisoner is only six episodes,
did you feel any pressure to create something as symbolic or open-ended
as the original series� ending (�Fall Out") or did you want to tie up
the central mysteries somewhat neatly?
Gallagher: ...I thought what could be the most dramatic thing is that
Number Six inherits The Village and takes on the mantle of [Two];
everything he�s fought against, he now becomes. He says, we could do it
differently. I found it to be such a difficult and painful place to get
to and ambiguous, even. So I set out to get there and the final episode
itself did morph and change. I had other ideas in there but that place
that we finally get to, that was something I was clear about from early
on. How we get there, I had to work on. But where we got to, I always
had a sense of.
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.
Graeme
> Televisionary: The episode titles seem to sharply recall some of the
> titles from the original series.
Not just recall. Every episode title is based on an original series
title but with a different story. It reminded me of those tongue-in-
cheek Jonathan Morris Prisoner reviews that thought every episode had
the wrong title. Living in Harmony was a Western so it should have
been called Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling. Dance of the Dead should
have been called The Girl Who Was Death, after Mary Morris. The Girl
Who Was Death should have been called Once Upon a Time because it
features a bedtime story, and so on.
> Televisionary: It’s at its heart about moral relativism; Two honestly
> believes what he’s doing is helping these people though there’s an
> undercurrent of nihilism and darkness.
>
> Gallagher: ...If we can sympathize with Number Two, if we can see him
> struggling, if we can at times believe that this man thinks what he is
> doing is utterly for the good, then for me that has tension in it and
> drama in it. And is much more interesting to me than a two-dimensional
> ogre who rules by violence and terror.
Televisionary doesn't seem to get it here. Gallagher keeps talking
about Two thinking h e's doing right while at the same time doubing
it. TV interprets that as moral relativism, which is the exact
opposite. If there is no real right and wrong and it's all relative,
then there's nothing to doubt, as it's impossible to do wrong whatever
you do. It's impossible to do right either, so there's nothing to
doubt.
> In one sense, all saviors believe that they are the only bearer of the
> common good
Kind of a cliched answer in this case. If the Village is a force for
good, then Two really is the only bearer of it, inasmuch as he was the
only one capable of generating it.
> You asked me a very simple question and I gave you twenty minutes of answer;
> that’s a very Bill Gallagher moment right there.
The question ("How was Helen able to tap into people's
subconscious?"), was NOT simple, and despite twenty minutes, he didn't
really answer it. I have a feeling that that's a very Bill Gallagher
moment too.
> Gallagher: ...I thought what could be the most dramatic thing is that
> Number Six inherits The Village and takes on the mantle of [Two];
> everything he’s fought against, he now becomes. He says, we could do it
> differently.
Actually, that was one of the parts I liked the best, and is where I
thought they were going in Fall Out, but never quite got there. The
idea of letting Number 6 lead them with his pure and noble form of
revolt must have been an appeal to his ego, with the idea being that
he'd accept and show that he could do it all better and make a real
utopia of the place. Of course it wouldn't have worked that way. As
in real life, I think a lot of politicians get into the business
genuinely intending to make things better, but spend so much time
playing the game to get to the top that they no longer have the will
to change the game once they're there.
David Trimboli
> of the things I love about the original is that it was a series driven
> by ideas. Each episode was driven by a big concept and the whole idea of
> a new Number Two every week and the drama of the repeated battle between
> Number Six and Number Two. Each week, Six peels off the new Number Two
> and, because that series was about an invisible system that governs
> people and that system bringing a new Number Two each week, that was all
If he didn't want to repeat what someone else did, why on Earth did he
want to do a remake in the first place?!
--
David Trimboli
http://www.trimboli.name/
Graeme
> If he didn't want to repeat what someone else did, why on Earth did he
> want to do a remake in the first place?!
So that viewers would think it was The Prisoner, and watch it.
redcat
LOL, he tells us something he found tremendous about the Original
Prisoner and then delivers his hog wash.
It seems to me the new Prisoner was a patched-together sci-fi story with
some things copied from The Prisoner (the Original and only)thrown into
the mix.
I hope everyone who helped put this recent series together sees that it
just was not satisfactory. I cannot blame the actors for taking their
roles, it's not easy getting work nowadays. But, you know, the Original
read like Shakespeare -- not in Elizabethan English, of course, but in
that the language was precise, concise, to the point and poetic. There
was only one line that disappointed me in the entire original. It rang
so false, that I don't know why PMG put it in.
The dialog in the new one was boring as heck. There wasn't one clever
turn of phrase, not one moment of piercing humor.
I should stop spending time thinking about it. But, I can't help
wondering how on earth, with 40 years to do it, the rights were sold for
the sake of manufacturing such a shoddy piece of merchandise.
rc
Graeme
> It seems to me the new Prisoner was a patched-together sci-fi story with
> some things copied from The Prisoner (the Original and only)thrown into
> the mix.
It was. Which is a shame, in a way. There were original elements in
this that could have been turned into a good story in its own right.
Unfortunately it had a lot of things thrown in from The Prisoner that
didn't really belong there, but had to be put in to justify it being
CALLED "The Prisoner". That and that the story is really badly and
choppily written. Too many extended sequences where nothing happens.
Too many scenes that end in mid-scene and jump to a completely
different time and place, sometimes with the same characters, too many
plot elements that they failed to explain.
The idea of a "Village" made for broken people to live normal lives
has got some promise, but if they wanted to base it on a pre-existing
work, it shouldn't have been The Prisoner, it should have been the old
Chris Reeves movie, Somewhere in Time. Or even the Leo McKern
vehicle, Ladyhawke. You've got a love story involving 2 people who
can't really be together because they can't exist normally in each
other's worlds. That was the angle to have built this around.
> There
> was only one line that disappointed me in the entire original. It rang
> so false, that I don't know why PMG put it in.
Which was that?
> The dialog in the new one was boring as heck. There wasn't one clever
> turn of phrase, not one moment of piercing humor.
I sort of liked the bit where they explained the soap opera plot with
numbers instead of names. "32 is having 64's baby, but he's secretly
having it off with 128." I thought that was cute.
redcat
> On Nov 20, 12:15 pm, redcat <red...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> It seems to me the new Prisoner was a patched-together sci-fi story with
>> some things copied from The Prisoner (the Original and only)thrown into
>> the mix.
>
> It was. Which is a shame, in a way. There were original elements in
> this that could have been turned into a good story in its own right.
> Unfortunately it had a lot of things thrown in from The Prisoner that
> didn't really belong there, but had to be put in to justify it being
> CALLED "The Prisoner". That and that the story is really badly and
> choppily written. Too many extended sequences where nothing happens.
> Too many scenes that end in mid-scene and jump to a completely
> different time and place, sometimes with the same characters, too many
> plot elements that they failed to explain.
>
> The idea of a "Village" made for broken people to live normal lives
> has got some promise, but if they wanted to base it on a pre-existing
> work, it shouldn't have been The Prisoner, it should have been the old
> Chris Reeves movie, Somewhere in Time. Or even the Leo McKern
> vehicle, Ladyhawke. You've got a love story involving 2 people who
> can't really be together because they can't exist normally in each
> other's worlds. That was the angle to have built this around.
Ah, so "Time Traveller's Wife" author stole it from here.
>
>
>> There
>> was only one line that disappointed me in the entire original. It rang
>> so false, that I don't know why PMG put it in.
>
> Which was that?
"Never trust a woman. Not even a four-legged one." Not a good message
from a free man.
>
>> The dialog in the new one was boring as heck. There wasn't one clever
>> turn of phrase, not one moment of piercing humor.
>
> I sort of liked the bit where they explained the soap opera plot with
> numbers instead of names. "32 is having 64's baby, but he's secretly
> having it off with 128." I thought that was cute.
You're right. That did raise a smile. :-)
rc
Moor Larkin
> It was. Which is a shame, in a way. There were original elements in
> this that could have been turned into a good story in its own right.
> Unfortunately it had a lot of things thrown in from The Prisoner that
> didn't really belong there, but had to be put in to justify it being
> CALLED "The Prisoner". That and that the story is really badly and
> choppily written. Too many extended sequences where nothing happens.
> Too many scenes that end in mid-scene and jump to a completely
> different time and place, sometimes with the same characters, too many
> plot elements that they failed to explain.
Just for the sake of talking about WHY?...............
I've read a forensic blog that blames poor Bill the script-writer, big-
time and says it is all his fault, but the time this package spent
post-production makes me wonder if this apparent sorry mess [I won't
get to see it until 2010 due to ITV's budgetary difficulties] is more
due to too many people fiddling with the initial concept. I even
wonder if Bill even recognised his script when he watched the
show.... :-))))
According to the blog, stuff that was in that original 9-minute
trailer never actually got to the show itself !!.... I've also read
that the original director got fired.... ;-)))
Jim and Ian both said the intial two scripts sucked them into this
project immediately they read them, so are they both so dumb ? I
noticed there was not only a script editor, but also a Script
Executive!!... ye Gods!!
http://ebooktest.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/amcs-the-prisoner-the-problem-is-in-bill-gallaghers-mind/
redcat
What you say, Moor? "Jim and Ian both said the initial two scripts sucked"?
There is no excuse for this mess. It's like when the dry cleaner ruins
your sweater -- he says blame the manufacturer, the manufacturer says
blame the dry cleaner. So, why am I still thinking about it? LOL!
Anyway, regarding that linked blog above -- OK, good rant. But not
completely solid. People do dream they're dreaming, people do dream they
are eating as well as dreaming they are carrying out other biological
functions.
What I don't get about the series is this -- if it was all a dream, why
didn't the prisoners of the dream just fly out of there? Who has not
flown in her dream?
rc
Moor Larkin
> >> There was only one line that disappointed me in the entire original. It rang so false, that I don't know why PMG put it in.
>
> > Which was that?
>
> "Never trust a woman. Not even a four-legged one." Not a good message from a free man.
But perhaps curiously prescient...... :-)))))))
http://player.canalplus.fr/#/254295
Micky DuPree
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In article <4Y2dnUzMN9flaprW...@earthlink.com>, redcat
<red...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
:: On 20 Nov, 18:37, Graeme <graemec...@aol.com> wrote:
::: Too many scenes that end in mid-scene and jump to a completely
::: different time and place, sometimes with the same characters, too
::: many plot elements that they failed to explain.
While some of those scenes were set on different mental planes, I think
some of them were happening simultaneously in time. They intercut
between the different levels of consciousness to indicate that
Michael/Six was converging on the truth from both levels. Remember,
Michael never physically left New York.
: What I don't get about the series is this -- if it was all a dream,
: why didn't the prisoners of the dream just fly out of there? Who has
: not flown in her dream?
Most people do not dream lucidly. You may as well ask why anyone has a
nightmare when they can just choose to dream about something happy
instead. But even if you started to fly, you'd still run into Rover.
There was a shared aspect to this hypothetical level of consciousness.
The other Villagers contributed to the fabric of this reality,
particularly the catatonic Dreamer.
By the time Six was ready to assert his independent idea that the
Village was not all there was, regardless of what any of the other
Villagers thought, regardless of the consequences to him, and regardless
of the consequences to the Village, Two had convinced him that
destroying the Village would also destroy the productive lives that the
Villagers had come to lead in the real world, so it would be better if
Six managed the Village the right way rather than destroy it by
un-dreaming it.
-Micky
redcat
So... this was all a riff on Second Life.
rc
redcat
>>
>
> So... this was all a riff on Second Life.
>
> rc
Or -- my final thought -- this is the story of Michael, who was killed
on 9/11, and his journey from this world to the next.
rc
Micky DuPree
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redcat <red...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
: redcat wrote:
:: So... this was all a riff on Second Life.
More like a tale in which the Staunchest Believer can lose his faith and
opt out, while the Staunchest Rebel can be coopted by the system and
become its biggest booster. The story plays out in two realities
simultaneously, the physical world and a symbolic mental plane, but the
two threads run in parallel without direct communication between the two
realities save for input by Curtis and Helen, a.k.a. Mr. and Mrs. Two.
Only occasionally do glimpses from one reality bleed through to the
other for the rest of the characters.
: Or -- my final thought -- this is the story of Michael, who was killed
: on 9/11, and his journey from this world to the next.
Michael didn't die in the physical reality, and Six didn't die in the
mental reality. You could get fancy and say that there isn't really a
physical reality at all. Every reality is just another mental one. But
I saw no sign that the writer was going there. If you challenged the
system in the Village, holes would appear in that reality. If you
challenged the system in New York, people might suffer, but New York
endured.
-Micky
redcat
Of course New York endures! :-)
rc
Barbara J Pruett
But New Yorkers themselves also endure. They are the ones who make up
New York!
~consul
> has got some promise, but if they wanted to base it on a pre-existing
> work, it shouldn't have been The Prisoner, it should have been the old
> Chris Reeves movie, Somewhere in Time. Or even the Leo McKern
> vehicle, Ladyhawke. You've got a love story involving 2 people who
> can't really be together because they can't exist normally in each
> other's worlds. That was the angle to have built this around.
Wait a minute, Ladyhawke, the film with Matthew Broderick in it?
--
"... respect, all good works are not done by only good folk. For here, at the end of all things, we shall do what needs to be done."
--till next time, consul -x- <<poetry.dolphins-cove.com>>