A ‘Prisoner’ With New Questions
Ubiquitous
Ian McKellen had already read the script of a new version of the
late-1960s cult television series �The Prisoner� when he met the author,
Bill Gallagher, last year at a London restaurant to discuss the project.
As Mr. Gallagher recalls their first encounter, Mr. McKellen hugged him,
then gently patted him on the head and asked, �What goes on in that mind
of yours, Bill?�
Don�t be surprised if television viewers have a similar reaction when
the resulting six-part mini-series, �The Prisoner,� begins on Sunday on
AMC. Led by Mr. Gallagher�s reimagining of themes and characters, the
new production offers a thoroughly revamped take on one of the most
enduring television artifacts of the counterculture era.
�The challenge of doing this show was to pay homage and yet be
different,� Mr. Gallagher said. As a 12-year-old, he added, �I remember
being mesmerized and beguiled by the mystery and menace of �The
Prisoner,� disturbed in ways that I couldn�t explain then. For me, �The
Prisoner� is in the tradition of Kafka and Beckett,� as well as a
template for later series and films like �Twin Peaks,� �Lost,� �The
X-Files� and �The Truman Show.�
The original version of �The Prisoner,� first broadcast in Britain in
1967 and in the United States in 1968, was a mixture of science fiction,
psychological drama and cold war thriller, with Patrick McGoohan, coming
off the hit James Bond-inspired series �Secret Agent,� in the title
role. McGoohan played a British spy who resigns in disgust from
undercover service, is kidnapped by his own handlers and held at a
peculiar seaside resort called the Village, from which he constantly
tries to escape.
In the Village, McGoohan�s character is stripped of his name and forced
to take a new identity, that of No. 6. �I am not a number, I am a free
man!� No. 6 bellows at the start of each of the 17 episodes, a phrase
that made the original series a favorite of young iconoclasts on both
sides of the Atlantic.
�To tease the audience with the relationship between the two pieces and
keep anchoring back into the original,� Mr. Gallagher said, other
expressions � like the creepily cheery sendoff �Be seeing you� and the
robotic taxi drivers� advisory �local destinations only� � have been
retained. So have the Rovers, the giant, possibly sentient white globes
that block any attempt to escape.
But much that was fundamental has been changed. No. 6 speaks with an
American, not British, accent. He works not for a government
intelligence service, but a giant data-gathering corporation called
Summakor. McGoohan�s character was strait-laced and rebuffed the
advances of women, but the new No. 6 becomes the fulcrum of a love
triangle.
Viewers also learn what No. 6�s name was before he was brought to the
Village, which has been given a more ominous atmosphere. Rather than
return to the North Wales location of the original, the producers found
Swakopmund, a Bavarian-style resort in Namibia that is surrounded by
desert and has an eerily striking collection of pastel A-frame cottages.
Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in �The Passion of the Christ� and also
appeared in �The Count of Monte Cristo� and �The Thin Red Line,� is cast
as No. 6. He still has not seen the original version of �The Prisoner�
for fear of absorbing too much of McGoohan�s bravura performance.
But he said he liked Mr. Gallagher�s contemporary spin, especially the
tension between the desire �to live in this safe, secure environment�
and the resulting sacrifice of personal freedoms and privacy.
�I feel this project stands on its own,� Mr. Caviezel said. �There�s a
huge allegorical piece in the background, but there�s a lot of eye candy
as well. It�s definitely a commentary on right here and right now.�
British members of the cast, for example, repeatedly cited the
surveillance cameras installed all over London as a reference point for
their performances. �We�re being watched everywhere, but who is doing
the watching and for what purpose?� asked Ruth Wilson, who plays 313, a
doctor who falls in love with No. 6.
Mr. McGoohan�s version ended on an ambiguous, undecipherable note, as
frustrating to viewers then as the unresolved finale of �The Sopranos�
was much later. Mr. Gallagher not only ties things up in the final hour
of the new version, but also does it in a way that appears to reaffirm
the importance of community.
�The original says we must assert our individuality: �I am a free man,�
� he said. �But one thing that interests me is that perhaps we have
become too individualistic.�
The biggest alterations, however, have to do with No. 2, the all-seeing
boss of the Village who from the start is No. 6�s main adversary. In the
original series, No. 2, played by different actors from one episode to
the next, was clearly a villain, the embodiment of nameless bureaucratic
evil. In the new version he has a wife, a troubled teenage son, a
complicated interior life and probably as many lines as No. 6.
Though McGoohan, who died in January at 80, had expressed interest in
playing No. 2 in the new production, Mr. McKellen was cast early on in
that role. Mr. McKellen, 70, is one of the few cast members old enough
to remember the original series, about which he has mixed feelings.
�I thought it was camp, frivolous, something without substance, an
entertainment without any weight or bottom to it,� he said. �I thought
McGoohan was tremendous. He was terribly good at playing enigmatic,
clearly angst-ridden and suffering, edgy and sexy too. It was all
designed to intrigue and delight. But what was under the surface? Was
there something?�
Mr. McKellen added that he �wouldn�t have wanted to play the original,
because it would just be playing a caricature, an idea, a symbol.�
�But here I felt I was playing a real person,� he continued, �who had
just as many personal problems as No. 6. In fact, a few more, actually,
because 6 has only got one problem,� which is how to get out of the
Village.
Mr. Caviezel seemed comfortable with that assessment, speaking of a kind
of kinship between 6 and 2. �Though they are opponents,� he said, �what
I came to find was that there�s more of a father-son relationship as the
story evolves, a sort of admiration� that emerges gradually and almost
surreptitiously.
�I guess it�s up to the viewer to decide whose story it is,� Mr.
Caviezel added. �I think and hope that people will generally stay on the
side of 6 and go on a journey with him. But some people will look at 2
and say he�s clearly the hero. I�m telling you, people are going to come
out on different sides on this.�
--
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.
Ignis Fatuus
wrote:
>
>The original version of �The Prisoner,� first broadcast in Britain in
>1967 and in the United States in 1968, was a mixture of science fiction,
>psychological drama and cold war thriller, with Patrick McGoohan, coming
>off the hit James Bond-inspired series �Secret Agent,� in the title
>role. McGoohan played a British spy who resigns in disgust from
>undercover service, is kidnapped by his own handlers and held at a
>peculiar seaside resort called the Village, from which he constantly
>tries to escape.
It's less than astonishing to see that 'foreign' audiences
persistently fail to grasp even the basics of The Prisoner. it is,
above all, a British show aimed at a British audience. They have no
concept whatsoever of the context from which it emerged, and to which
it is relevant; and they have no inclination whatsoever to either
explore or understand that context.
Brian Watson
> It's less than astonishing to see that 'foreign' audiences
> persistently fail to grasp even the basics of The Prisoner. it is,
> above all, a British show aimed at a British audience. They have no
> concept whatsoever of the context from which it emerged, and to which
> it is relevant; and they have no inclination whatsoever to either
> explore or understand that context.
Absolute rubbish (and I'm born and bred in England).
It was made to be so good that it was saleable anywhere.
McGoohan knew the market and I'm sure he knew Lew Grade would sell it all
over the world and that a percentage of the audience everywhere would "get
it"
--
Brian
"Fight like the Devil, die like a gentleman."
www.imagebus.co.uk/shop
steve march
"Brian Watson" <Br...@imagebus.co.uk> wrote in message
news:a62dnafwm9vXT2LX...@bt.com...
> Ignis Fatuus wrote:
>
>> It's less than astonishing to see that 'foreign' audiences
>> persistently fail to grasp even the basics of The Prisoner. it is,
>> above all, a British show aimed at a British audience. They have no
>> concept whatsoever of the context from which it emerged, and to which
>> it is relevant; and they have no inclination whatsoever to either
>> explore or understand that context.
>
> Absolute rubbish (and I'm born and bred in England).
>
> It was made to be so good that it was saleable anywhere.
>
> McGoohan knew the market and I'm sure he knew Lew Grade would sell it all
> over the world and that a percentage of the audience everywhere would "get
> it"
I never saw the original. When I saw the AMC promo it caught my interest.
So I googled the original and somehow that turned me off of seeing the
remake.
Why? Although it may have been a phenomena in its day I suspect the remake
will be an attempt to do another 'Lost' with annoyingly silly plot devices
pulled out of thin air.
however I may give it a look with lowered expectations.
Moor Larkin
The Prisoner in 1967/68 was noted as selling well in every significant
TV market-place in the world, even finding a niche in the emerging
market of Japan as well as Latin America. The earliest USA reviews of
Tyhe Prisoner more than *got it*. They were all complimentary about
the show and after just episode 1 were reflecting upon it's 1984-ish
themes, rather than its Bondish themes, and *none* of them even
mentioned John Drake, other than in the past tense and then only in
relation to McGoohan's acting career, not his character's
origins........... :-))))))))).
Michael Black
Of course, it was a very different time for tv. It wasn't uncommon for
"foreign" tv to appear on US network tv, nobody really made any big
thing about it. There were shows like "Rat Patrol" that were not only
about a relatively obscure bit of history from WWII, but took place in a
foreign country. Yes, there were loads of westerns and then loads of spy
series, but there was also a lot more variety of situations and settings
for tv shows. The whole world was a possibility for US tv, while it's
gradually shrunk so even when something is filmed outside of the US, it
has to be disguised as taking place in the US.
Michael
Enid Friend
> I never saw the original. When I saw the AMC promo it caught my interest.
>So I googled the original and somehow that turned me off of seeing the
>remake.
>
> Why? Although it may have been a phenomena in its day I suspect the remake
>will be an attempt to do another 'Lost' with annoyingly silly plot devices
>pulled out of thin air.
>
> however I may give it a look with lowered expectations.
The fact that the original Prisoner was very much Patrick McGoohan's brainchild.
You could definitely call it a vanity project (IMO, without the negative
implications of that term). He wrote many of the episodes, directed some, found
the location for the whole show, came up with the concept... it was very much
HIS.
Regardless of the reboot's quality, remaking it without him or (as far as I know)
any creative input from anyone involved in the original show could be said to be
a lost cause from the start, in the same way that Bea Arthur vehicle Amanda's
wasn't going to work without input from the folks from Fawlty Towers.
The original Prisoner also had a strong, strong Cold War subtext running through
it -- at first, anyway, whose 'side' the Village was on mattered very deeply (I
won't spoil later episodes, but will only say that it eventually didn't matter).
In a global society, the new Prisoner couldn't possibly address a Cold War plot.
In today's society, you also don't have the Mod influences that the original had;
there's no real definable style that this reboot could possibly have.
I haven't seen the original Battlestar: Galactica or V, but neither of them seem
to be such a product of their time as the original Prisoner was, so were/are
probably 'easier' reboots thanks to that. Not to demean the new Prisoner any more
than intended, but the Avengers remake was doomed for similar reasons.
If I were in charge of this project, I'm not sure how I would have addressed the
vanity project/product of its time aspects, but I do know they should have been
addressed somehow, and don't feel that they were.
John W Kennedy
> Regardless of the reboot's quality, remaking it without him or (as far as I know)
> any creative input from anyone involved in the original show could be said to be
> a lost cause from the start, in the same way that Bea Arthur vehicle Amanda's
> wasn't going to work without input from the folks from Fawlty Towers.
Taken as a general principle, that would pretty much damn nearly every
play of Shakespeare's.
--
John W. Kennedy
If Bill Gates believes in "intelligent design", why can't he apply it to
Windows?
Invid Fan
<jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> Enid Friend wrote:
> > Regardless of the reboot's quality, remaking it without him or (as far as I
> > know)
> > any creative input from anyone involved in the original show could be said
> > to be
> > a lost cause from the start, in the same way that Bea Arthur vehicle
> > Amanda's
> > wasn't going to work without input from the folks from Fawlty Towers.
>
> Taken as a general principle, that would pretty much damn nearly every
> play of Shakespeare's.
Although his plays were designed to be performed by different actors
and with different directors. This could be more in line with turning
Romeo and Juliet into West Side Story.
--
Chris Mack *quote under construction*
'Invid Fan'
Graeme
> The fact that the original Prisoner was very much Patrick McGoohan's brainchild.
Or Markstein's, at least.
> Regardless of the reboot's quality, remaking it without him or (as far as I know)
> any creative input from anyone involved in the original show could be said to be
> a lost cause from the start, in the same way that Bea Arthur vehicle Amanda's
> wasn't going to work without input from the folks from Fawlty Towers.
I don't quite agree. I'm quite willing to look at it as its own
project, inspired by The Prisoner, but very definitely NOT The
Prisoner, despite the name. The problem is that judging it by its own
merits, it's just not that good. The situation, so very similar to
the originals, is intriguing (guy stuck in isolated location for
reasons unknown, wanting out), but they just don't do much with it.
Long, long scenes of people sitting around, staring off into space,
walking down corridors, talking without saying anything. And when
things do happen, they're just not very interesting. The biggest
theme so far is "Six convinces somebody that there's a world outside
the Village, at which point that somebody is bumped off." Eh. So
what?
In the original, at least the initial situation was clear. Spy who
knows too much is kidnapped by his own side when he tries to quit,
rather than being allowed to leave and possibly blab classified
information down the pub. Also, to try to figure out why the heck he
resigned, because they're heavily into behaviorism and predicting
people's actions, but can't figure out why they didn't see this
coming. All that is spelled out pretty clearly in the first episode
and all the future shenanigans, whether they seem to make sense or
not, are a part of that game.
But what's going on here? Six works for some company, he recommends
investigating somebody that his higher ups don't want investigated.
So he quits in a fit of pique, and gets picked up. But why? He
hadn't really learned anything. Maybe they thought he had. But they
don't seem to be too interested in getting information out of him,
only to stop him rabble rousing about a world outside the village.
(Which they could easily do just by killing him. He doesn't seem to
have any really valuable information that they want, like McGoohan
did.) Half the intrigue in the original was trying to tell prisoners
from warders. Everyone knew there was a world outside, they were just
afraid to talk about it. Here, nobody seems to know, so not much
happens.
Snit
73b3b14f-fdd4-4e51...@a21g2000yqc.googlegroups.com on
11/17/09 10:22 AM:
> On Nov 16, 5:21�pm, "Enid Friend" <loomanch...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The fact that the original Prisoner was very much Patrick McGoohan's
>> brainchild.
>
> Or Markstein's, at least.
>
>
>> Regardless of the reboot's quality, remaking it without him or (as far as I
>> know) any creative input from anyone involved in the original show could be
>> said to be a lost cause from the start, in the same way that Bea Arthur
>> vehicle Amanda's wasn't going to work without input from the folks from
>> Fawlty Towers.
>>
> I don't quite agree. I'm quite willing to look at it as its own project,
> inspired by The Prisoner, but very definitely NOT The Prisoner, despite the
> name. The problem is that judging it by its own merits, it's just not that
> good. The situation, so very similar to the originals, is intriguing (guy
> stuck in isolated location for reasons unknown, wanting out), but they just
> don't do much with it. Long, long scenes of people sitting around, staring
> off into space, walking down corridors, talking without saying anything. And
> when things do happen, they're just not very interesting. The biggest theme
> so far is "Six convinces somebody that there's a world outside the Village, at
> which point that somebody is bumped off." Eh. So what?
I thought the first two episodes were entertaining. The second two...
meaningless drivel that bored me. Maybe I just did not "get it"... anyone
care to explain?
> In the original, at least the initial situation was clear. Spy who knows too
> much is kidnapped by his own side when he tries to quit, rather than being
> allowed to leave and possibly blab classified information down the pub. Also,
> to try to figure out why the heck he resigned, because they're heavily into
> behaviorism and predicting people's actions, but can't figure out why they
> didn't see this coming. All that is spelled out pretty clearly in the first
> episode and all the future shenanigans, whether they seem to make sense or
> not, are a part of that game.
>
> But what's going on here? Six works for some company, he recommends
> investigating somebody that his higher ups don't want investigated. So he
> quits in a fit of pique, and gets picked up. But why? He hadn't really
> learned anything. Maybe they thought he had. But they don't seem to be too
> interested in getting information out of him, only to stop him rabble rousing
> about a world outside the village. (Which they could easily do just by killing
> him. He doesn't seem to have any really valuable information that they want,
> like McGoohan did.) Half the intrigue in the original was trying to tell
> prisoners from warders. Everyone knew there was a world outside, they were
> just afraid to talk about it. Here, nobody seems to know, so not much
> happens.
The focus here is more on what The Village is for and why people are here...
or what it means to live in The Village. Or something. After day two I am
not sure.
--
[INSERT .SIG HERE]
Graeme
> I thought the first two episodes were entertaining. The second two...
> meaningless drivel that bored me. Maybe I just did not "get it"... anyone
> care to explain?
I did think that the first two were better than the next two, yes. In
the first two, things did move, albeit slowly. But either the next
two were worse, or my eyes were just glazing over so much that I
couldn't must up as much attention.
I will give them some pops for originality. Two of the plots (Try to
convince Number Six he's an amnesia case who has forgotten his family,
and Inject Number Six with a love potion) certainly aren't rehashes of
anything from the original show. The bit about Number 93 also having
known that there was a world outside and trying to find out what he
knew was a good setup too. The problems seem mainly in the execution
and the amount of padding.
> The focus here is more on what The Village is for and why people are here...
> or what it means to live in The Village. Or something. After day two I am
> not sure.
I'm not either. Maybe they'll tie it all together tonight. The
ending is their best bet of doing something that improves on the
original. It better be good though, because I really don't care about
the new Number Six for his own sake. Maybe I'll care about the
situation. Maybe the Village exists in the distant future so there's
*really* nowhere to escape TO. That drawing of the Statue of Liberty
made me think heavily of Planet of the Apes. And no passing boat left
that anchor there *recently*, that's for sure.
My problems with Fall Out are not that it was too obscure, but that it
was too clear. Also goofy and not presented well.
Fall Out is too much of a rehash. They try to break Number 6 with an
identical double (as in Schizoid Man). Also by trying to make him
leader of the Village (as in Free For All). But this time they do
both things simultaneously, after first disorientating him with the
absurd Degree Absolute process (I call it absurd because according to
the rules as I understood them, the loser of the test dies. That
means if they successfully break Number Six, they also kill him, which
is the one thing they've been trying to avoid for the whole series).
So they bring him underground with the idea of getting him to accept a
position of authority. Seeing a "Number One" with his own face, I
take it, is supposed to finally break him (without breaking him so
badly that he's no use to them, which is pretty delicate). But
instead of breaking, he shrugs it off once more (which they didn't
seem to anticipate), and takes advantage of the suddenly incredibly
lax Village security to break out at last, revealing that the Village
(or at least THIS Village; I think there are a couple of identical
copies elsewhere), was in England, all along. Number Two, having
suffered an offscreen Change of Heart (not to be confused with a
Change of Mind) heads to Parliament to blow the lid on the whole
thing, while Number 6 trustingly goes back to his old home, hoping
against hope not to be picked up again.
If all that weren't bad enough, the last act is played out
voicelessly, and the first three acts are taken up with an
interminable lecture on rebellion. I got the fact that Number 48 was
a "Rebel Without a Clue" (though that might have been more effective
if we'd ever seen him before). But somehow, although Number Two and
Number Six both turned their backs on their superiors, somehow Leo was
"biting the hand that fed him" (maybe because that hand also killed
him. Ya think?), while Number 6's revolt was somehow "pure" (in some
unexplained way). This ideas were much more interesting when they
were weaving them into the plots rather than standing around giving
lectures about them.
If the AMC series can't improve on THAT, I'm going to be pretty mad.
And if they find a rocket underneath the Village tonight, they're
getting hate mail from me.
Anim8rFSK
<73b3b14f-fdd4-4e51...@a21g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,
Graeme <graem...@aol.com> wrote:
The whole 'there is nothing but the Village' conceit doesn't hold up for
a minute. They might have the repair facilities to keep their vehicles
running, but they clearly don't have the manufacturing facilities to
build them in the first place, or create most of the replacement parts
they need. And I don't see any oil rigs or refineries. Where are the
endless field of wheat or corn they need to make all those wraps? Not
only did most of the Village have to come from outside, it's having to
be continuously resupplied. Pharmaceuticals? Cathode Ray Tubes? Give
me a break.
Now, Portmerian, you could almost believe the public areas could be run
without electricity. But this Village? Not a chance. Speaking of
which, where the hell does the power come from? Or the water? The
zippers for the clothing?
When I first saw the previews, I thought they were going to try to
convince 6 that there had been an apocalypse or something, and that this
was all that was left. I'd have *almost* bought that. But for this to
be all there is or apparently ever was?
BTW, have we seen anybody that didn't speak English yet?
--
Stargate Universe SGU: It puts the "U" in "SUCKS"!
It's the show 'Defiling Gravity' would be if DG had more regulars,
fewer abortions, worse writers, and no budget for lighting.
Remember, you can't spell "disgust" without SGU!
KOB
> The whole 'there is nothing but the Village' conceit doesn't hold up for
> a minute. They might have the repair facilities to keep their vehicles
> running, but they clearly don't have the manufacturing facilities to
> build them in the first place, or create most of the replacement parts
> they need. And I don't see any oil rigs or refineries. Where are the
> endless field of wheat or corn they need to make all those wraps? Not
> only did most of the Village have to come from outside, it's having to
> be continuously resupplied. Pharmaceuticals? Cathode Ray Tubes? Give
> me a break.
>
> Now, Portmerian, you could almost believe the public areas could be run
> without electricity. But this Village? Not a chance. Speaking of
> which, where the hell does the power come from? Or the water? The
> zippers for the clothing?
>
> When I first saw the previews, I thought they were going to try to
> convince 6 that there had been an apocalypse or something, and that this
> was all that was left. I'd have *almost* bought that. But for this to
> be all there is or apparently ever was?
>
> BTW, have we seen anybody that didn't speak English yet?
Finally, someone else is asking the same type of questions that I asked,
even back in 1968! The purists will tell you that if you dwell on those
kind of details, then you don't "get it"! Check out the town of
Swakopmund, that is where the "Village" is located. Used to be German
SW Africa before and during WWI.
Arthur Lipscomb
"John W Kennedy" <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:4b01ff45$0$4982$607e...@cv.net...
> Enid Friend wrote:
>> Regardless of the reboot's quality, remaking it without him or (as far as
>> I know) any creative input from anyone involved in the original show
>> could be said to be a lost cause from the start, in the same way that Bea
>> Arthur vehicle Amanda's wasn't going to work without input from the folks
>> from Fawlty Towers.
>
> Taken as a general principle, that would pretty much damn nearly every
> play of Shakespeare's.
>
>
Funny, I had the exact same thought.
Graeme
> Finally, someone else is asking the same type of questions that I asked,
> even back in 1968! The purists will tell you that if you dwell on those
> kind of details, then you don't "get it"!
The answer to that is that if even somebody who does get it can't
explain it, maybe it's not really there.
But in the original show, they acknowledged the existence of an
outside world even if they didn't talk about it much. Wasn't one of
Number 6's campaign promises that "our exports will be seen in every
corner of the globe"? Everybody knew they'd come from the outside, it
just wasn't a healthy subject to discuss. But Number Two discussed it
quite openly in Arrival. "Remember that time you went to Germany to
meet Chambers?", et cetera. And of course, in The General, even
regular villagers are chattering about The Treaty of Adrianople and
19th century European history. Number Six tells kids about saving
London from the mad scientist without having to explain what London
is. In It's Your Funeral, Number Two publicly leaves the Village. He
doesn't explain where he's going, because nobody seems to care. They
didn't claim the Village was the only place there was, just the only
place that mattered. And EVERYBODY saw the helicopter that brought
people in and out.
But yeah, this Village on AMC was clearly not self-sustaining and
couldn't reasonably claim to be the only place there was.
Doug Elrod
have deliberately arranged it so that the world-as-we-know-it *might*
be "The Village" to "Something Else" (kind of like the penny-farthing
bicycle relationship). Spooky, eh? ;-)
Thought #2: Given the "meaning", why was The Village such a
"totalitarian state"? Did #2 really want it that way, or was that
just arranged so that #6 would have a desire to "improve" it?
-Doug Elrod (dr...@cornell.edu)
Gareth
wrote:
> "John W Kennedy" <jwke...@attglobal.net> wrote in messagenews:4b01ff45$0$4982$607e...@cv.net...
Only if you're reusing the original script, which, I gather, is not
the case (and may even be part of the problem for some) here.
Graeme
> Thought #2: Given the "meaning", why was The Village such a
> "totalitarian state"? Did #2 really want it that way, or was that
> just arranged so that #6 would have a desire to "improve" it?
It's a vestigial leftover from the original series, which hasn't been
altered, despite the fact that it makes little sense here. Same with
the fact that people have numbers instead of names. No real reason
for it except that it's copied from a completely different series.
Micky DuPree
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In article
<73b3b14f-fdd4-4e51...@a21g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,
Graeme <graem...@aol.com> writes:
: But what's going on here? Six works for some company, he recommends
: investigating somebody that his higher ups don't want investigated.
: So he quits in a fit of pique, and gets picked up. But why? He
: hadn't really learned anything. Maybe they thought he had. But they
: don't seem to be too interested in getting information out of him,
: only to stop him rabble rousing about a world outside the village.
The supreme value seems not to be information, but affirmation. Now
that the miniseries is over, it seems that the Village is a shared
reality. It requires the collective assent, support, and maintenance of
the Villagers, even though that cooperation is coerced. Since this is a
mental reality, challenges to it even by lone uninformed dissenters
really can undermine the reality, which visually manifests as holes.
: (Which they could easily do just by killing him. He doesn't seem to
: have any really valuable information that they want, like McGoohan
: did.)
McGoohan's warders weren't interested in any valuable information he
might have had. They were interested only in pursuing a theory of
defection that didn't admit of the possibility that No.6 wasn't
defecting after all. While I think the original _Prisoner_ was better
than the remake, I think it was a weakness in the original that No.6
wasn't heroically protecting any valuable information. He told them why
he resigned. They chose not to believe him. It reduced the story to
"Let's be mean to No.6."
: Half the intrigue in the original was trying to tell prisoners from
: warders.
They touched on that in the remake. A few characters said they didn't
know who was undercover and who wasn't.
: Everyone knew there was a world outside, they were just afraid to talk
: about it. Here, nobody seems to know, so not much happens.
Some people knew, or at least suspected, but breaking ranks with the
groupthink could result not only in punishment and reconditioning, but
also in the undermining of the things in the Village that they had
developed attachments to, such as families. In the extreme, breaking
conditioning completely could leave someone who was mentally ill, such
as Lucy, foundering in the real world, possibly even dangerous. I do
believe Lucy was the homeless woman with the oranges. What I'm not sure
of is whether she was the one responsible for the explosion in Michael's
apartment.
-Micky
Dano
If you can...go back and watch the woman who gets off the bus...last episode
I believe...with the new arrivals. Six approaches her and asks her about
them. Specifically where they came from, and she can't even recall. But
she is delighted to be there. That was absolutely the strange homeless
woman with the oranges. I thought the same thing when I saw her biting into
the orange and backed up the DVR and froze the picture. NOT the actress
that played Lucy...then later I immediately recognized her the instant she
got off the bus.
What remains my biggest question is, was Lucy really killed in the apt.
explosion? If so...I suppose that happened after her failure to win over
Six in the village?
