The Prisoner

As as huge fan of the original 1960s television series The Prisoner I have been looking forward to the new version with Sir Ian McKellan as a white-suited Number 2. Was it worth the wait of over 40 years?
Sadly, not really. But it was never really going to capture the eccentricity of the original, set around the curious North Wales village of Portmeirian.
Watching the new version one realises how important design was to the original. The village was unusual, the villagers dressed very much the same in blazers, straw hats, capes, etc, and the props had the same type-face and branding.
The setting was very much a personality of its own.
By placing the new production in a desert setting - actually Namibia - it loses a lot of that personality.
The nearest it comes is with the triangular design of the residents' houses although the residents themselves dress as if living in modern day small town America in a variety of clothes. It lacks the unusual intimacy of the original.
That series first shown in 1967 had a bumpy start and many viewers did not understand what it was all about, a view many shared throughout all 17 episodes.
So I decided not to comment until I had seen at least two episodes of this new one. I am now beginning to "get" this one but that does not mean I am particularly enjoying it.
It lacks a theme tune, the background music is a sort of anonymous ambient electronic score which is quite irritating, the direction is all over the place with too many jump cuts backwards and forwards in time and the dialogue sounds like it has been dubbed on later with everyone whispering their lines.
As Number Six - the central character who wakes up in a village from which there is no escape and where everyone has a number- Jim Caviezel is no Patrick McGoohan, the actor who first played the role.
McGoohan who created The Prisoner was a bit of a blank canvas but he had passion and presence. Caviezel is just a blank canvas, mumbling his way through the dialogue and looking a little bored.
They seem to have given him a girlfriend this times, Number 313 played by English actress Ruth Wilson who has yet to register a distinct personality.
The saving grace is Sir Ian whose Number Two is delightfully menacing and would have easily graced the original. Instead of giving him a dumb butler he has a pretty boy son who rarely speaks and just stands watching his dad.
Back in the 1960s, each episode had a social theme, be it education, Big Brotherism, scientific progress or duplicity. So far, the new Prisoner is just about his desire to escape and discover what the hell is going on.
I will stay with it as there are only six episodes in this version and maybe it has a proper and understandable ending, something denied first time viewers.
Yes, I intend to give it the benefit of the doubt just as fans did for the original back in the 1960s.
I confess I did begin to warm to it a little more after the second episode but it remains a confusing mess artistically and the desert setting is already becoming a bore.
I will write on this subject again after further episodes.