TV Review: THE PRISONER

THE PRISONER was a cult classic TV show from the 1960s about a spy who knew just a little too much and was sent to a resort like prison called “The Village” after he resigned. We never knew his name, but he was designated as Number 6.

This time around he wave a much more surreal version of the story where The Village is in a desert filled with people of all walks of life. Everyone has a number, and everyone has a job. Nobody believes that there is anything outside of the Village, except for 6 (Jim Caviezel). In charge of everything is Number 2 (Ian McKellen), a very strange old man who seems to have some kind of scheme up his sleeve but we never really get a good glimpse as to what it is.

To be frank, I’m not a huge fan of the original series. It only lasted seventeen episodes and remains a cult classic, but it’s from decades before I was born. I understand why it’s loved, but I have no love for it myself. I say that because I need to state that I’m not some purist fan boy when I tell you that I absolutely HATE the new version of THE PRISONER.

My loathing for this convoluted, confusing, messy, boring, mini-series knows no bounds. The general structure of each episode of the series takes on the form of a regular TV show, but with the end coming only six episodes in, it all feels like a lot of time wasting. There are entire episodes dedicated to characters that die off and don’t matter at all, as well as plot lines that don’t affect the over arching story whatsoever. The episode about therapy made absolutely no sense and it’s narrative was sloppy and contrived, and didn’t matter in the long run at all, the same can be said about the episode where 6 starts teaching in a school.

Much of the first two episodes revolve around 6 not believing what he’s told and he keeps running out into the desert surrounding The Village in hopes of finding a way out. Over and over he does this, to the point that it got very boring. It’s like he can’t learn his lesson at all.

Maybe the worst factor of THE PRISONER is that 6 isn’t a character that’s easy to follow or care about. The first few episodes are judging whether or not 6 is really from The Village or if he had a life on the outside, some where else. This plot thread is dropped and instead we get a version of 6 that starts to just accept the world around him and stumble through it’s insane moments, and the episode where there are two versions of 6 battling it out in his mind make the last episode even more annoying when you learn the truth behind the entire village.

I won’t give away what the big twist is, but it’s akin to what every one was saying about LOST in the first season. It’s like some one saw LOST, saw the parallels to THE PRISONER (which was noted years ago when LOST started,) and thought that a reboot would be a good idea. They even go as far as to have flash backs to 6’s previous life before the village, but they only compound the confusing nature of the show, and make it’s story that much harder to follow.

THE PRISONER is a mess with an unsatisfying ending that wants to be the next Lost but ends up being annoyingly bad. Even Ian McKellen as 2 is just going through the motions here and plays a very uninteresting adversary for 6. Steer clear of this show at all costs. It gets a 1 out of 5.