Hey, that's cool, man, consider the hatchet buried.

This clumsy, crappy Prisoner remake has us all on edge.

Honestly, after finishing the new show I *still* don't see Bill Gallagher as an 'authoritarian propagandist,' just a TV writer who can't properly organize his good ideas and is so bent on making something new out of something old that he just makes a big, expensive mess.

After finally seeing this I don't think he thought enough about it to consider that he was subverting anything. The relation that it bears to the McGoohan Prisoner isn't a subversion of it, its just simply not the same thing anymore at all. It's not as if he willfully tried to misuse McGoohan's ideas, he just dumbly wandered away from them. He didn't make something that, say, refuted the ideas in 'FallOut.' (that would've been *interesting.*) he made a pseudo-Matrix thing which had no relation to it at all-- Apples and toasters.

Rodney, I really wonder about that. The quote of Gallagher's you began this thread with more than suggests that his intentions from the start were to undermine the entire concept of the original series.

I don't know if that necessarily makes him an authoritarian propagandist, but consider this: Gallagher may or may not have "conspired" with others to concoct what we all agree is a travesty. But regardless, his "self" is not operating in a political vacuum. When he decided to go off half-cocked and intentionally subvert the original message (again, as he boldly states in that quote of his), he was necessarily drawing from concepts that are promulgated by Authoritarian Ideologists. That makes him an "Authoritarian Propagandist" however you slice the Cherry Cake.

>Gallagher may or may not have "conspired" with others to concoct what we all
>agree is a travesty. But regardless, his "self" is not operating in a political vacuum.

OK. Let's put it this way:

Let's say I'm from the powerful 'shadow government' which oversees western media and culture. In our shadow government meeting, we have decided that fans of Patrick McGoohan's original Prisoner are dangerous individualists, and that they need to be brought back to the mass culture 'community' with a re-envisioned Prisoner. So I hire Bill Gallagher to craft that narrative. I have charged him with the task of convincingly diluting and neutering the original concept.

After seeing the 2009 Prisoner, do you know what I, as evil shadow government guy would do? I would fire Bill Gallagher. I would make him the lowest script editor of the lousiest children's show on television, for the rest of his life. Because he *failed* to compellingly subvert anything.

Despite the first episode of the AMC Prisoner (which honestly still functions as a wonderful homage to the original show,) what he proceeded to write was something which bears no relation to 'The Prisoner' at all.

The thesis of McGoohan's show was evident in just about any 10 minute stretch of his 17 episodes. Gallagher's work is so muddled and confused as to have no thesis.

If it were an intelligent refutation or reorientation of McGoohan's Prisoner (as Gallagher claimed in interviews,) it would've been very, very interesting work. It is not.

You guys are giving this too much credit-- You are seeing as evil what is merely dumb.

Remakes anger as well as delight. Taking Gallagher on credit for making something like the Matrix with paranoia, kinda like 1984 well, I think a good job done. Same philosophy, I think the answer is no!

Still, your criticisms are valid Rodney. If anything I think it'll make people beg, borrow, buy or steal a copy of the original! Like Tarrintino's Inglorious B'studs which is pretty much lifted from some really BAD movies to make something different, well, that's what remakes do. They succeed like BattleStar Gallatica. But if flying bikes and no cyborg relations isn't your thing from the original then what do you expect?

As for media hype, I think Gallagher was using subvert to mean we're gonna rewrite this mofo :-D That's what he did. I think both shows have their great merits as well as failures. At least there's closure for this series [albeit a cool decision to say we made Matrix 1 AND we ought to have forgot making more movies].

The original had it's greatest failing with this part with the episode and aptly named "Fallout". I pay peanuts, expect monkey's, they paint my house and tell me who number 1 is.

If you're talking works of art, then we're saying I'd change nothing, or the imperfections make it perfect. heheeh... but both scripts have their flaws.

Take each for it's own merits...

Rodney, This new Prisoner series is counting on the fact that most young people today don't have a clue what the original series is all about. In other words, it wasn't "dumb", it was written for people who are "dumb", a new generation that doesn't have the same knowledge base, or outlook, of those raised in the 50s and 60s. Older Prisoner fans who lived in those times were certain to discount the New Prisoner as a piece of trash.

I don't think the new series was poorly done at all. I actually quite enjoyed it on it's own terms, despite my growing suspicions as to where it was going. I am not a "Purist" in the sense that I want a remake to slavishly mimic the original. If I wanted something just like the original, I'll watch the original. But I do expect it to at least keep the central Thesis intact.

The central Thesis of the new series (Fascism is Good for You) is quite clear by the time the series ends. Any "muddling" up to that point seems to be designed to string along older fans of the original and keep them on board for the ride.

I was a little suspicious by the casting of Caweasel...oops I mean Caviezel. But I was pleasantly going along with it myself until about 2/3s of the way through when McKellen's beautiful portrayal of #2 made him more and more of a sympathetic character. Had that complex and nuanced portrayal been in the context of the original Thesis of McGoohan's show, I would have said "More power to the writers, great stuff indeed".

But instead, we get "Oh what a sympathetic Father Figure. Who wouldn't want Gandalf to be our Dictator, who only has our best interests at heart, despite being a tad overbearing?"

And your point about the "shadow government overseeing Western media and culture" conjures up images of a Secret Centralized Politbureau where all is planned out, as in some of the more Fanciful and Right Wing Monolithic conspiracy theories. This then trivializes the notion that Wealthy Individuals and Corporate Lackeys might actually produce propaganda that supports their interests.

In Western Society, Propaganda isn't always directed from inside an Evil Government Bureaucracy, but rather from Golf-Courses, Business Lunches, Business Conferences, Board Meetings etc. The New Prisoner actually reflects that reality by making Big Brother Corporate. Had it followed that up by maintaining the Anti-Big Brother message of the original, I would have cheered that change.

I agree to some of your observations, but disagree that I am (we are) giving Gallagher too much credit.

The problem with your scenario is that it's too literal and simplistic (besides the fact that it paints the usual picture of those who think there's a "Shadow Gov." as simple-minded or wacko conspiracy theorists who have no sense of the complexity of socio-political machinations nor any sense of political nuance--but let's ignore this for the moment).

Media moguls and their lackies don't usually literally sign on to work with government propaganda connected with intelligence agencies dictating what to broadcast (unless they're Rupert Murdock of FOX, of course, as has recently been revealed). Nonetheless, ever since the Cold-War period certain attitudes that are propagandistic, especially those based in fear and repression (not to mention racial stereotypes) get relayed in the content of shows. (And in so-called TV "news," nobody from the government actually tells anchors what to report or not report--again, with certain exceptions. They don't have to; the news outlets are happy to censor themselves.) Need I point to those "family" TV shows before The Prisoner came out that could in no way be identified with propaganda, but nevertheless promoted certain "values" that every good American should subscribe too, even if these "values" smacked of social prejudices like paternalism, zenophobia, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and American exceptionalism (and, of course, consumerism)? Need I point out that no official government propaganda agency was directing these shows? (Is all so-called innocent "entertainment" in some way or other political propaganda?) Or, take another example. It's now clear to movie historians/critics that many of the early (50s) scifi movies about the invasion of aliens were symptomatic of the socio-political reality of the Cold War "Red Scare."

Again, it depends what you mean by "conspire." And, in reference to the original Prisoner series, McGoohan constantly demonstrated that the machinations of the secret/shadow government were more subtle than how you frame the scenario.

Now, as for the "dangerous individualists" that you hypothetically see as needing be "brought back to the mass culture 'community' with a re-envisioned Prisoner." I submit to you that these "dangerous individualists" are not so easily hoodwinked by this travesty (as these posts demonstrate. Of course, there will always be those well-meaning fans who become our Village Idiots). No, the problem is that a new generation of viewers, who have never seen the original series (but only maybe heard about it), will be tricked into thinking that this message is McGoohan's--a message, need I point out, that certainly fits the George Bush era and its legacy.

But you assert that Gallagher's new Prisoner series (except for the first episode) is "something which bears no relation to 'The Prisoner' at all." So, let me back my comment up by citing what's on the front page of this website:

Tim Goodman, San Francisco Chronicle: “In fairness, the new ‘Prisoner’ is not without some winning twists. . . . An argument can be made that if you’ve never seen the original, this ‘Prisoner’ might be fresh (and not many people have seen all of the original). But even then there’s not enough dramatic intrigue to keep fans dedicated over three nights.”

So it bears enough resemblance or "relation", according to TG, that it will even "keep fans dedicated over three nights." (Suffice to say that this fan is "dedicated" to calling this new Prisoner series what it is--a travesty. And I'm so happy to read we finally agree on this!) And, may I further point out (in response to your statement "Gallagher's work is so muddled and confused as to have no thesis" and that it isn't in any way an "intelligent refutation or reorientation") that muddled and confused propaganda is still effective--to muddled and confused Americans! So when you end your post with

"You guys are giving this too much credit-- You are seeing as evil what is merely dumb."

I must declare: indeed, EVIL CAN BE REALLY DUMB!

What I mean is that we've recently been living in an America where "muddled" and really "dumb" EVIL reigned (e.g. foreign policy decisions and certain domestic "false flag" operations) in the Bush administration (and now that they're out of office the die-hard Bush Republicans have made a media circus out of claiming really dumb but evil things, especially about the new president). Take the recent statements by Cheney defending torture, or a host of other Republican operatives who regularly give Jon Stewart of the Daily Sow a comic field day. (Glen Beck of Fox News is muddled, dumb, and EVIL.)

I want to make a final point. The woman who wrote the book on modern totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, is credited with the novel concept of the "banality of evil" in referring to the Eichmanns of the Nazi Party. I would now take that novel concept to its logical conclusion--the dumbness of evil.

Hegel (cited in previous post) remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. Marx (mentioned in previous post in regard to Sartre, the philosopher of rebellious individualism), commenting on Hegel quipped: He forgot to add: "the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." I say this goes for the presentation of The Prisoner series--the second time a FARCE.

Let me put it this way (since you are allowing yourself to imagine a certain scenario).

Let's say I'm directing a remake of a Prisoner episode. Let's say "Living in Harmony." I chose this because it seems to me to most allegorically reflect the Bush America. This time its a scenario more like the Mel Brook's (post-modern) comedy Blazing Saddles. There, if you remember, the town is beset by a gang of evil but bumbling villians. A new sherif is elected to clean up the town--a black sherif with a white sidekick. The generally racist but stupid townsfolk are divided; they what to get rid of the criminal gang in high places but are terrified that at any moment the sherif may revert to his black nature and "whip it out." But times are dire; the town is going broke and they're desperate--so let's try the black guy. But in remaking the episode I show that the idealistic, young black sherif finally realizes what side his bread is buttered on and cuts a deal with the evil rich men at the top and sells out the town. But I make it ambiguous enough to make it seem like his real motive is to change the system, for their own good, from within the power structure. . . . Get it?

In other words, Rodneyoscope, Gallagher's The Prisoner may be dumb, but there are enough dumb Americans around to buy it lock stock and barrel. But for the rest, a younger viewing generation, they will not know how it's been subverted.

Be Seeing You in Harmony,