AMC's The Prisoner: Better Than You Might Think

AMC hit it out of the park with its first two dramas—Mad Men and Breaking Bad, respectively—so that fact alone warranted checking out The Prisoner, a 3-part, 6-hour mini-series it aired a week after the third season finale of Mad Men. But the reviews weren’t good and too many people were too attached to the original show—a 1967 British drama considered one of the greatest TV shows of all time—to let any of its flaw slide. Still, I tuned in. My thoughts? Yes, it’s just as dull as the reviewers said, completely lacking in charm and a sense of humor (I love surrealism... but I think it works better with a sense of fun). And yet... it’s actually about something – and for that reason alone I can’t entirely dismiss it.

Initially I just watched the first hour and gave up out of boredom. Despite how great Ian McKellan was and how good the series looked, with its expensive productive design and stylish editing and cinematography, it wasn't enough to make me want to invest another 5 hours into. I’ve thought Jim Caveizel affective in some of his movie work, but here he just wasn’t bringing anything to the table. He was the boring, exasperated leading man, made oddly all the worse by how... generically good-looking he is. And I didn’t plan on going back to watch the other 5 hours, but then I caught a good article about it Thursday morning. With the series over, HitFix’s Daniel Feinberg gave his spoiler-heavy thoughts on the finale. He called the series “very intriguing, if not wholly successful in its execution.”

Feinberg talks about the big reveal in the mini-series' final hour. He observes that the series’ mysterious setting—called The Village—was “a psych experiment which, we're told, left people feeling better.” The Village was “the ultimate placebo, but it's reflective of a society in which people prefer to handle their pain and emotional troubles in any way other than actually feeling that pain and facing those troubles.” Feinberg continues: “The Village is Second Life. The Village is World of Warcraft. The Village is Facebook or Twitter.” This intrigued me enough to give the show a second chance.

And while I ultimately don’t feel it was completely effective, it was much better than I originally thought. Yes, it still needs a sense of fun injected into it, but like I said, it’s actually about something and it’s completely original and completely relevant to our crazy, fast-paced, information-heavy world. I love the revelation that the New York scenes, which I guess we’re initially led to believe are flashbacks that pre-date the scenes that take place in The Village, are actually happening simultaneously with each other! That everyone in The Village is actually living their lives out in the real world, but just on another level of consciousness (how fucked up is that?). I love that The Village is inside real-world Ian McKellan’s wife’s head and that she lives in a constant rattled, sleep-like state. And I love the ending, with Caviezel’s dumbass decision and damaging sense of idealism. He takes over for #2 thinking that he’ll make The Village work, that he’ll do it better. But we know different. Feinberg talks about the final scene’s use of The Beach Boy’s “I Know There’s An Answer.” But this ending made me think of another song: The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

So for that I give the series a pass and declare it fully worth watching. Whether I'll ever go back to it, however, is another thing altogether. I don't know if my love for the series' final hour of crazyness makes up for the dull (though otherwise fine) first 5 hours.

Oh yeah, and I’m finally going to check out the original series. I’ve put it off for way too long...