In Today's Issue: Absolutely No Politics Because Nobody Continues to Know Anything.
Instead, my heart was a little captured by the new Prisoner, and I feel the need to talk about it. For the sake of tidiness, the new series will be referred to in capital letters. So Number Six and SIX, Two and TWO, Village and VILLAGE.
No era does not need The Prisoner. That's the thought that swung me from righteous-fan-anger to theoretical support of this year's reboot of a TV classic. The questions it asks - as far as we can tell - have never gone away: surveillance, control, society, worrying global conflicts. Here's Patrick McGoohan in 1977, a proto-Tyler Durden:
For one thing, it is very close textually to the original. Each episode is semi-named after an original episode; the title sequence is an exciting shot-for-shot update. SIX's entry to the VILLAGE is the product of close viewings of the original, complete with a futile attempt to buy a map and chumming up with a taxi driver. From little touches, like a cup of tea trembling as its table is bashed, to huge ones like Rover. Rover, the inexplicable white balloon guarddog, might even have been on my "to-cut" list!
But of course, faithfulness is not a necessarily good quality. Yet it's not just a visual synchronicity; they seem to have their ideas in the right place, hitting the right points. In short, I feel it has been written by someone who loved the original. The new ideas, such as VILLAGER'S total denial of the outside world, or SIX'S amnesia, slip right beside. With such high level of respect, I've even dignified it as semi-canon: it confirms many theories of mine left over from the original.
There are criticisms to be made: the script is notably dull. And where McGoohan was endlessly watcheable, Cazviel has a fatal lack of charisma. He speaks in a monotone, and he is hard to like except through sheer "Monte Cristo" factor: What Is Happening To You Is So Horrible I Can't Help But Pity You. One wonders how he would fare if, as in the original, SIX was the only recurring character with dialogue.
In a broader sense, McGoohan's Prisoner had this steely inner strength to him which Cazviel almost inevitably lacks. My dad complains a lot about feminised men on the telly, and I agree to an extent. The problem is, good drama requires characters to be exaggerated in their emotional vulnerability. They don't have to be wimps, but we as an audience need to recognise what they are feeling. And the more transparently wrecked they are, the better the show. You can find evidence in any cop show whose hero has marriage problems and a drug habit. Most writers and showrunners are still male, so unlike (say) slashfic, it's not a case of women authors/viewers emasculating them - it just makes for better television. Satyajit Ray noted:
Unlike his plywood performance, this is not such a problem. It merely reflects modern concerns, and modern production strategies. So far what it loses as an intellectual workout, it gains in emotion. It is less surreal, less stylised. The VILLAGE has a group of regular characters, which makes it seem more of a real place and less of a dreamscape. So far, we have seen them decieved, drugged and scared, and TWO is fallible and seemingly on the point of losing control. The Village, on the other hand, was "proved" to be in three seperate locations, people would appear and disappear out of nowhere and they were controlled like Sims - with Number Six totally isolated from anyone.
Blame time: a similar comment can be made about Doctor Who. It's no exaggeration to say that the first 30 years of the show did plot and not character, whereas nowadays it does character and not plot. Of course there was emotion in the Classic series, just as there was in The Prisoner,
but it was created by the actors and plumbing their tortured souls was a byproduct of delivering three act structures. And nowadays, a Doctor Who finale is expected to prioritise a strong emotional beat over a narrative one:
One is not intrinsically better than the other, it's merely a matter of changing decades. Although I think the classic model is better. Sometimes, emotional scenes are so strong that you can suspend your logic - personally, I'd include them talking Bracewell out of exploding, and Last of the Timelords in this category. But actors can't make sense of basically nonsensical material, in the same way they can make the thinnest script powerful. I'd definitely include Turlough in the latter class, who steals scenes on the basis the writers didn't give him any.
Of course, the perfect show model is Blake's 7, who had master-plotter Terry Nation doing thorough, exciting outlines, which were then polished by Chris Boucher's gift for character: a bit of both. But that's another tangent altogether:
So far, PRISONER is hitting emotional beats like crazy, although arguably it cares as damn-all for making sense as the original.
Nothing is going to replace my love of the original, but in a sense it doesn't need to. It is a show designed for it's era, flashbacking on the back of Lost, with a hero cast in the mould of Fight Club man*. It is, in it's purest sense, a modern version - sprung from the same source but flavoured for a new audience. I wonder whether the "towers" that represent escape are meant to resemble the Twin Towers? It wouldn't surprise me if that was significant if only visually.
I particularly enjoyed the creepy twin shrinks, and the Village TV show (rather like Twin Peaks "Invitation to Love") - which I am sure is the basis for some form of hypnosis. I am enjoying it immensely, and am particularly psyched for the ending. It can't be anything but downbeat (or can it, in a world where studio after studio would only support Watchmen if that chapter was removed?), and could yet be too keen to explain away its mysteries. In particular, the possibility that the Village was an imagined construct excused any lunacy the original had to offer: THE PRISONER is going to provide a compelling reason why THE VILLAGE exists, and why everyone is there, in keeping with it's more realistic tone. But for now, I'm having as close as I can to the experience of watching the original for the first time.
Which was a crazy few months. After the exhausting penultimate episode, which was so intense to film one of the actors had a breakdown, I had a vivid dream of "the final episode" in which Number 6 finally escaped. The dream, that is, not the episode; that's still a moot point. And one of the first things that happened when he did escape was - as my mind-camera panned on his ear - he heard the chimes of Big Ben. When I did see Fall Out, I was unnerved to note that was exactly what did happen. It was a strange occurence, for a show which always plumbed close to dreams. It remains to be seen whether I'll be that nightmarishly involved in four episodes time.
What would McGoohan made of it all? You can see the hole where he was supposed to cameo, heartbreakingly filled by somebody else. When the production team asked for his involvement, his response was perfect: "I want to play Number 2".
*Homo Decuriae Pugantae?
P.S. I remain critical of the new Doctor Who series. I hate it. Being critical, that is. I still have hopes - but we are suprisingly far through, and I'm yet to be wholly sold on the New Administration. Smith'n'Gillen are beyond reproach. Eleven can confidently take his place in my top ten favourite Doctors (curses - I can't make that joke any more...), the dialogue has been consistantly fab, and I like what it's doing with the mythology. But there has been something very mechanical about the series so far, a collection of ideas not a coherent narrative. Behind the Sofa put its finger on my disquiet:
My customary optimism is flagging every single week, and it's very disappointing. Having said that, the boys on the internet think they have spotted a very, very, very exciting thing from the future. I'd noticed the odd oddity, but they've confirmed my hunch by connecting it to something brilliant, so my eyes will be peeled from now on. Geeks are good at overanalysis.
It's so likely to be true, that I class it as a spoiler and can't wait to see you all watching with open, awe-struck mouths. Something very clever is going on. And it's gonna be fantastic!
Instead, my heart was a little captured by the new Prisoner, and I feel the need to talk about it. For the sake of tidiness, the new series will be referred to in capital letters. So Number Six and SIX, Two and TWO, Village and VILLAGE.
No era does not need The Prisoner. That's the thought that swung me from righteous-fan-anger to theoretical support of this year's reboot of a TV classic. The questions it asks - as far as we can tell - have never gone away: surveillance, control, society, worrying global conflicts. Here's Patrick McGoohan in 1977, a proto-Tyler Durden:
The need for intelligent shows which scream never goes away. Of course, you also want good art. I'm surprised, but pleased, to see my faith in the new series has not been misplaced.
We're run by the Pentagon, we're run by Madison Avenue, we're run by television,
and as long as we accept those things and don't revolt we'll have to go along with the stream to the eventual avalanche. Buying the product, to excess. As long as we go out and buy stuff, we're at their mercy. We're at the mercy of the advertiser and of course there are certain things that we need, but a lot of the stuff that is bought is not needed. We all live in a little Village. Your village may be different from other people's villages but we are all prisoners.
For one thing, it is very close textually to the original. Each episode is semi-named after an original episode; the title sequence is an exciting shot-for-shot update. SIX's entry to the VILLAGE is the product of close viewings of the original, complete with a futile attempt to buy a map and chumming up with a taxi driver. From little touches, like a cup of tea trembling as its table is bashed, to huge ones like Rover. Rover, the inexplicable white balloon guarddog, might even have been on my "to-cut" list!
But of course, faithfulness is not a necessarily good quality. Yet it's not just a visual synchronicity; they seem to have their ideas in the right place, hitting the right points. In short, I feel it has been written by someone who loved the original. The new ideas, such as VILLAGER'S total denial of the outside world, or SIX'S amnesia, slip right beside. With such high level of respect, I've even dignified it as semi-canon: it confirms many theories of mine left over from the original.
There are criticisms to be made: the script is notably dull. And where McGoohan was endlessly watcheable, Cazviel has a fatal lack of charisma. He speaks in a monotone, and he is hard to like except through sheer "Monte Cristo" factor: What Is Happening To You Is So Horrible I Can't Help But Pity You. One wonders how he would fare if, as in the original, SIX was the only recurring character with dialogue.
In a broader sense, McGoohan's Prisoner had this steely inner strength to him which Cazviel almost inevitably lacks. My dad complains a lot about feminised men on the telly, and I agree to an extent. The problem is, good drama requires characters to be exaggerated in their emotional vulnerability. They don't have to be wimps, but we as an audience need to recognise what they are feeling. And the more transparently wrecked they are, the better the show. You can find evidence in any cop show whose hero has marriage problems and a drug habit. Most writers and showrunners are still male, so unlike (say) slashfic, it's not a case of women authors/viewers emasculating them - it just makes for better television. Satyajit Ray noted:
I obviously disagree; repressed British cinema is more powerful for what it's not saying. But of course, Patrick McGoohan was thoroughly of this British school and way before heroes who cry on television. Whereas Cazaviel is all method, and SIX already seems creakier if only because the shows are made in very different. One is not necessarily more valid than the other, but it changes the atmosphere. The Prisoner was a series about rebellion, and McGoohan was the man who could not be broken: the more the Village slammed him down, the angrier he got and harder he fought back. THE PRISONER already seems more hopeless, because SIX was broken to begin with.
"the camera forces one to face facts, to probe, to reveal, to get close to people and things; while the British nature inclines to the opposite; to stay aloof, to cloak harsh truths with innuendoes. You cannot make great films if you suffer from constricting inhibitions of this sort."
Unlike his plywood performance, this is not such a problem. It merely reflects modern concerns, and modern production strategies. So far what it loses as an intellectual workout, it gains in emotion. It is less surreal, less stylised. The VILLAGE has a group of regular characters, which makes it seem more of a real place and less of a dreamscape. So far, we have seen them decieved, drugged and scared, and TWO is fallible and seemingly on the point of losing control. The Village, on the other hand, was "proved" to be in three seperate locations, people would appear and disappear out of nowhere and they were controlled like Sims - with Number Six totally isolated from anyone.
Blame time: a similar comment can be made about Doctor Who. It's no exaggeration to say that the first 30 years of the show did plot and not character, whereas nowadays it does character and not plot. Of course there was emotion in the Classic series, just as there was in The Prisoner,
but it was created by the actors and plumbing their tortured souls was a byproduct of delivering three act structures. And nowadays, a Doctor Who finale is expected to prioritise a strong emotional beat over a narrative one:
One is not intrinsically better than the other, it's merely a matter of changing decades. Although I think the classic model is better. Sometimes, emotional scenes are so strong that you can suspend your logic - personally, I'd include them talking Bracewell out of exploding, and Last of the Timelords in this category. But actors can't make sense of basically nonsensical material, in the same way they can make the thinnest script powerful. I'd definitely include Turlough in the latter class, who steals scenes on the basis the writers didn't give him any.
Of course, the perfect show model is Blake's 7, who had master-plotter Terry Nation doing thorough, exciting outlines, which were then polished by Chris Boucher's gift for character: a bit of both. But that's another tangent altogether:
So far, PRISONER is hitting emotional beats like crazy, although arguably it cares as damn-all for making sense as the original.
Nothing is going to replace my love of the original, but in a sense it doesn't need to. It is a show designed for it's era, flashbacking on the back of Lost, with a hero cast in the mould of Fight Club man*. It is, in it's purest sense, a modern version - sprung from the same source but flavoured for a new audience. I wonder whether the "towers" that represent escape are meant to resemble the Twin Towers? It wouldn't surprise me if that was significant if only visually.
I particularly enjoyed the creepy twin shrinks, and the Village TV show (rather like Twin Peaks "Invitation to Love") - which I am sure is the basis for some form of hypnosis. I am enjoying it immensely, and am particularly psyched for the ending. It can't be anything but downbeat (or can it, in a world where studio after studio would only support Watchmen if that chapter was removed?), and could yet be too keen to explain away its mysteries. In particular, the possibility that the Village was an imagined construct excused any lunacy the original had to offer: THE PRISONER is going to provide a compelling reason why THE VILLAGE exists, and why everyone is there, in keeping with it's more realistic tone. But for now, I'm having as close as I can to the experience of watching the original for the first time.
Which was a crazy few months. After the exhausting penultimate episode, which was so intense to film one of the actors had a breakdown, I had a vivid dream of "the final episode" in which Number 6 finally escaped. The dream, that is, not the episode; that's still a moot point. And one of the first things that happened when he did escape was - as my mind-camera panned on his ear - he heard the chimes of Big Ben. When I did see Fall Out, I was unnerved to note that was exactly what did happen. It was a strange occurence, for a show which always plumbed close to dreams. It remains to be seen whether I'll be that nightmarishly involved in four episodes time.
What would McGoohan made of it all? You can see the hole where he was supposed to cameo, heartbreakingly filled by somebody else. When the production team asked for his involvement, his response was perfect: "I want to play Number 2".
*Homo Decuriae Pugantae?
P.S. I remain critical of the new Doctor Who series. I hate it. Being critical, that is. I still have hopes - but we are suprisingly far through, and I'm yet to be wholly sold on the New Administration. Smith'n'Gillen are beyond reproach. Eleven can confidently take his place in my top ten favourite Doctors (curses - I can't make that joke any more...), the dialogue has been consistantly fab, and I like what it's doing with the mythology. But there has been something very mechanical about the series so far, a collection of ideas not a coherent narrative. Behind the Sofa put its finger on my disquiet:
Throughout, it’s hard to escape the impression of Moffat coming up with the scares first and then working backwards to see how he can fit them into the story (“Why would the Doctor suddenly plunge an entire corridor full of advancing Angels into pitch blackness? Oh, I know! He needs to divert the power to the door!”). Poor old Amy suffers particularly badly from this tickbox terror approach: watching her subjected to various forms of torture across these 90 minutes feels a bit like watching a pre-watershed version of Saw. (“Let’s see, we’ll have her all alone in the middle of a forest full of Angels where the one thing you can’t do is blink… Nah, too easy, let’s also say she can’t open her eyes…” I’m surprised he didn’t tie her shoelaces together while he was at it.)Tickbox terror: wonderful phrase. I'd extend the same criticism to the-Starwhale-one, which felt like the rat end of five good episodes smushed together - it seemed to run out of ideas, yet also have no time to breathe at the same time.
My customary optimism is flagging every single week, and it's very disappointing. Having said that, the boys on the internet think they have spotted a very, very, very exciting thing from the future. I'd noticed the odd oddity, but they've confirmed my hunch by connecting it to something brilliant, so my eyes will be peeled from now on. Geeks are good at overanalysis.
It's so likely to be true, that I class it as a spoiler and can't wait to see you all watching with open, awe-struck mouths. Something very clever is going on. And it's gonna be fantastic!
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