Retro-Blog 2009 (age 46): Comparative Review: The Prisoner 1968 vs. 2009

 Regarding potential "spoilers" here, it all depends on what you consider a spoiler.  I give virtually no detail of the actual events of the plot, concentrating more on the broader themes explored by these programs.  Still, some who have not seen one or both programs may wish to skip the final paragraph, even though it, too, is only very broadly descriptive and cannot begin to convey the experience of watching either show.  If you simply want to form your own opinions before reading mine, that would be reason enough to put this aside until you have seen both programs in full.

Both series involve a main character who resigns from employment involving some manner of espionage and is subsequently abducted to a self-contained community called "The Village", which is in an undisclosed location, where every person is assigned a number rather than a name, and from which escape is seemingly impossible.  In both cases, the main character is assigned the number "6", and his primary antagonist is assigned the number "2".  "6" is subjected to an escalating series of psychological tortures at direction of "2", ostensibly to extract information regarding the reason "6" resigned, and presumably whatever other valuable and sensitive information he may have learned in the course of his work.  It is obvious, however, that the information itself is secondary to the battle between individualistic freedom and a monolithic authoritarian regime, which may make claims at some form of collectivism. Beyond that, the two programs have very little in common, yet each relate to their differing contemporary cultural contexts in surprisingly similar ways, and are both, of course, hyperbolic paranoid fantasy.

There are many sources available online for descriptive details which may be omitted from my analysis.  I recommend imdb.com and wikipedia.org as good starting points.

The original series (17 episodes 1967-1968, starring Patrick McGoohan as Number 6) is set in the context of The Cold War, although it relates to this context in a very unique way.  Which "side" might be behind The Village is deliberately left undefined in the series.  While the show had many superficial similarities to espionage thrillers of the Cold War period, the refusal to "take sides" virtually turned the genre on it's head, and was arguably a brave choice at the time on the part of all involved.  As a point of trivia, this program is the direct descendant of McGoohan's previous Danger Man series, which was a much more conventional spy vs. spy drama.  Essentially, McGoohan grew bored of the formula and wanted to give it a new twist, and the other production people were kind enough to indulge him.

The new series (6 episodes, 2009, starring Jim Caviezel as 6) is set in the context of the current global cultural conflicts, sometimes referred to as "The War on Terror", although I'm sure there are parties to these conflicts who describe it in differing terms.  Beyond the coincidence of being produced while these conflicts are in progress, the show reflects and places itself within that context in a number of ways.  Instead of resigning from the espionage agency of a national government, this 6 resigns from a corporate contractor of services including surveillance, analysis, and probably much more.  The Village is set in the midst of a vast desert,  ridged by jagged rocky mountains, very reminiscent of the current primary battlefields involving western forces.  

In a very un-subtle visual metaphor, twin crystalline towers rise impossibly high in the seemingly unreachable distance as seen from The Village.   Much as the mushroom cloud and expanding sphere of devastation became virtually omnipresent in Japanese Anime and Manga, as an expression of the deep wound in the collective consciousness of the Japanese people, it seems that this Prisoner cowers under the ever-present shadow of the twin towers which haunt the collective consciousness of the western world.

While the original Prisoner program refused to take sides, this new Prisoner subtly highlights, through it's visual vocabulary rather than any overt dialog or action,  the pervasive fear and confusion regarding how the current conflicts cannot be simplified into such traditional terms.  

What remains consistent in both is the conflict between the individualist and what can broadly be called "the powers that be".   While the original 6 didn't know which Nation held him captive, the new 6 has far more to worry about than national governments, in today's world where international corporations, with loyalty to no nation, exercise more real power at every level.

Perhaps the most potentially controversial message I get from both programs is the suggestion that the international conflicts in which which these dramas are framed are, while real, a distraction from the true motives of "the powers that be".  Perhaps these conflicts are more a means to control the general population through fear, nationalism and religion.  Perhaps these conflicts are an excuse to abridge personal liberty in the interest of "the greater good".  It is somewhat ironic that the great experiment of representative government has been so closely tied to unbridled capitalism, yet it appears that as capitalist enterprises grow larger, they function internally more as authoritarian states, with a lot of quasi-communistic "teamwork" window dressing to motivate the rank-and-file towards that greater good of profit.  These are not new insights, but they are certainly surprisingly subversive messages to find barely hidden behind the surreal facade of these programs.

I count myself very fortunate to have seen the original series in the 1970's, not on CBS, but repeated later on Oregon Public Broadcasting, with opening and closing analytical commentary by a psychology professor from one of the state Universities.  In fact, I believe that watching the show in this form was part of a course that earned actual credit towards a degree.  I wonder if any tapes of those bumper segments still exist somewhere at OPB.  That sounds like an investigation I should pursue.

While both productions intentionally play with the audience's perception of what is real and unreal within the context of the program, the newer incarnation is by far more confusing and inconclusive.  Whether this is a success or a failure is a function of the intentions of the producers vs. the expectations of the audience.  While both programs leave me feeling I might understand them better with repeated viewing and further analysis, I regard the original series, while superficially more simplistic and formulaic,  to have more underlying complexity to uncover than the new production, which leaves the impression of being merely muddled and vague, style over substance.

Frankly, in the last couple of episodes of the new series, they could easily have let the continuity person go home, as the composition and editing is so disjointed, an actual continuity error would be virtually impossible to prove. I had the unique challenge of describing the action of this program to my blind wife, and often had to pause the show to try to catch up, only to eventually admit that I wasn't entirely sure what was going on, or even which characters were actually in the scene, and which were imagined, and by whom.

Regarding the character of 6, they could hardly be more different.  Few actors have embodied stubborn individualism and unbreakable resilience more thoroughly than did Patrick McGoohan as Number 6.  Further, in the plots of the original series episodes, while Number 6 did not defeat The Village itself, he almost invariably defeated and humiliated each Number 2 to the point that they resigned or were discharged and replaced by a new Number 2 for the next episode.

To be fair, I don't think the new series was attempting to re-produce the original Number 6 character, for which, despite his many skills and sympathetic characteristics, Jim Caveizel would be a very poor choice.   The new production, I believe, wanted 6 to be more of an "everyman", to whom the audience could directly relate, rather than a hero or super-man, to whom the audience could only aspire.  

If a more McGoohan-like Number 6 were to be desired for future re-imaginings, my short list would include Damian Lewis (also a shoe-in for a remake of "Bullit"), Tim Roth and Hugh Laurie.  Any number of fine action actors could carry the toughness, but would fail to convey the cleverness, of Number 6, although Gerard Butler might be worth an audition for the role.  If we expand our imagination beyond white males of the British Isles, Charlize Theron, Storm Large and Lawrence Fishburne are among those who could convey the spirit of the original Number 6 convincingly, and build on it in potentially interesting ways.

Looking over my list of potential actors for Number 6, I realize that any of them would also serve well as a Number 2.  While Ian McKellen is certainly a fine choice for a Number 2, one of the things I most miss from the original series is the variety of actors who successively tried their hand at the position of Number 2, each portraying a unique character with a unique approach towards breaking down Number 6.

I believe the most important function of both versions of the series is to challenge it's contemporary audience to find any meaningful difference between The Village and the real world in which they (we) live.  How much real freedom do we have?  How do we define what "freedom" means to ourselves?  How often, how casually, do we trade freedom for transitory convenience or comfort?  That's just a few for a start. The real danger we each face is not the focused personal persecution depicted in these programs, but rather the ever growing indifference of increasingly impersonal powers to the lives of entire populations, and our own apathy and cowardice.

One avid fan of the original series was disappointed that my first draft of this article failed to mention, and this might be considered a "spoiler", that the familiar Rover makes a few appearances in the new series.  This makes it all the more perplexing that the fugitive we see escaping in the first scene is being chased by men with guns and dogs, rather than a Rover.  I would need to go back to the original series to confirm this, but I do believe that there were situations when people, rather than Rover, were employed to apprehend 6 or other attempted escapees, if for no other reason, to give McGoohan a chance to indulge in some "Danger Man" hand-to-hand combat.

Finally, how each series ends is, while different, complete nonsense.  Pretty much by definition, there can be no satisfactory resolution to how the show is set-up, so this can hardly be considered a flaw in either case.  I can, however, fault the 2009 series for trying too hard to make it make sense, which is just embarrassing, and applaud the original series for successfully making it's final episode an avant-garde Dadaist celebration; the maddest of mad tea parties.  I'm pretty sure McGoohan was drunk and severely sleep-deprived as he wrote it.  At a future date I hope to contradict myself with a detailed analysis of the many layers of message and meaning in "Fall Out".