Escaping from The Prisoner
So someone thought it would be a good idea to remake Patrick McGoohan’s 1960s classic The Prisoner. Why? My current favorite candidate for a reason is that Hollywood hates creativity. They also remade V, after all and that was a show that was crying out to be forgotten (while the remake – which I’ve stopped watching – performed the amazing and unforgivable feat of making Morena Baccarin boring).
I could criticize the casting of The Prisoner but what would be the point? Jim Caviezel seems to be a competent enough actor but no where near Patrick McGoohan’s caliber. But then, who is there alive today who is of that caliber? But my problem with the show isn’t with the acting. It’s with the entire show.
Did I mention they’ve also canceled Dollhouse? (See here and here) This was a somewhat creative show that had all the interesting stuff leached out of most of the first season and all of the second season that had aired before its cancellation. The rumor is that the creator of the show, the brilliant and always interesting Joss Whedon, was not allowed by the network to do the show the way he wanted except for a few (brilliant) episodes in the first season. Whether this is true of not, the resulting show was dull. It’s a shame to lose a show with such an interesting premise (programmable people) but the execution was so poor, I guess it’s no great loss.
The Prisoner didn’t have the advantages of a brilliantly creative creator or an interesting new premise. It’s had a lot of hype, though, and of course Ian McKellen. And it has lots of feelings.
As I’m writing this, Jim Caviezel’s character just willed his evil twin to go away, giving Ian McKellen an excuse to smile an evil smug little smile. The evil twin plot is an old old old science fiction type plot that almost every such show tries at one time or another. Or one time AND another. It’s a classic head game and these days head games are what Hollywood likes best.
This is getting to the heart of my problem with this and lots of other shows. Science fiction is about ideas. Remember that rule. It’s so important, I think I’ll repeat it: Science fiction is about ideas.
How people respond to those ideas, how they order their lives around them and within them, are things that can make great stories. But in today’s Hollywood, there are few ideas. There are people talking about their feelings. There is Number 6 of The Prisoner, standing at the gate of Number 2’s house, shouting, “I’ll make you feel!” As if this is somehow a dramatic moment, rather than a merely self-important and pointless one. Anyone can see that 2 feels. He feels contempt. He feels amusement. He feels like screwing with 6’s head.
Is there an idea behind all this? The Village seems to be some sort of matrix (as in The Matrix) and Number 6 is Neo (though, thankfully, played by a better actor than Keanu Reeves, a man who has made a career swimming against the Hollywood grain by putting absolutely no feeling into the majority of what he does).
The new show Stargate: Universe has taken a similar tack. The original Stargate series was basically action adventure. The idea was that other worlds were opened up for humans before we were ready and survival was going to take a lot of new discoveries and desperate fighting for a long time to come. The premise allowed a lot of other ideas to be tossed in at will (sometimes without much sense, but at least with a sense of fun), like time travel, alternate worlds, and unstoppable killer robots. Well, at least it was fun.
The next Stargate show, Stargate Atlantis, was mostly based on the same ideas as the original only with less fun. And now the newest show has almost completely abandoned the ideas except as a backdrop for pseudo poignant pretend recorded discussions of the character’s feelings. “I worry about my mom.” “I never meant to hurt you.” “I always wanted to act in a soap opera.” Even by TV standards, this show is boring.
There are many successful soap operas. Hey, I even used to watch one, long ago (Dark Shadows). So I guess I can’t say that they aren’t entertaining or that they have no place in the world.
But that ain’t science fiction. I’m not going to watch the rest of The Prisoner. Or Stargate: Universe. In fact, there’s so little on that’s worth watching, I may have to start reading again. Now if I can just find some new science fiction books that don’t have a TV or movie tie-in …
Update
I seem to have accidentally watched the rest of The Prisoner while finishing this post. I wish I hadn’t. I enjoyed making fun of the show more than the show itself. I wonder if I could get funding to start a parody channel?
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I agree with you. I’m tired of Hollywood rehashing the same old, tired ideas and doing remakes non-stop. I want some creativity, some originality. Is that too much to ask? I can’t say I’ve watched The Prisoner, but after reading this, I certainly won’t waste my time. I did happen to watch what was — in my opinion — one of the worst movies I have ever seen over the weekend: Mission to Mars with Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins and Don Cheadle. Despite a nice cast, the writing / dialogue was not very good, and you never really got to know the characters or felt any emotional attachment towards them. And parts of it were just plain silly, especially at the end.
I would even accept a remake that was competently done. The Prisoner was not that. Battlestar Galactica, on the other hand, had moments of real genius. True, you had to suffer through episode after episode of over-the-top awful soap opera to get to those moments but at least that show made some effort to be interesting.
Not many shows try for interesting these days (or maybe ever. I admit to being younger than television and lots younger than movies). Maybe they just make things to fill in slots on a resume. My boss wouldn’t buy it, but maybe in Hollywood people can get away with saying, “This doesn’t count. It’s just something I do to bring in a check, so don’t expect me to try very hard.”
Thanks for your blog, it is so good, I really like it! Its exactly what I was looking for when i searched for stargate universe – I’ll be a regular visitor from now on!