Number Six: "I am not a number. I am a free man."
Number Two: "You only think you're free. Be seeing you."
Number Two: "You only think you're free. Be seeing you."
AMC have released a nine-minute trailer for their upcoming six-part remake of The Prisoner, starring Jim Caviezel and Sir Ian McKellen. It looks very good, actually. I'm certain this is going to be an interesting production and a worthy reinvention of the '60s classic, although it appears to lack the idioscyncratic surrealism of Patrick McGoohan's original in favour of something a tad straighter and palatable for the mainstream. The Village looks suitably peculiar, but essentially more like a holiday resort than Portmeirion, while they've wisely kept the design of the "Rovers" (but inflated them to three times the size.) I don't get a sense that Caviezel will equal McGoohan's performance for pure stubborn intelligence, but McKellen is absolute perfection in his white suit and panama hat. What do you think? Does this meet with your approval? Will the series manage to surprise us, in an age where similar tales are regularly told (The Truman Show, Dark City, The Matrix)?
The Prisoner premieres on AMC this November and ITV early next year.
