The Prisoner

AMC's remake of classic espionage/mind-screwing series The Prisoner doesn't live up to the original, though it does do some interesting things differently and at least has some sense of a cohesive story and an actual ending. It's a bit slow at times, and it's probably a good thing that Ian McKellen's name comes before Jim Caviezel's in the credits despite the latter being the protagonist because well... he's a lot better. Caviezel's 6 just isn't a very likable guy, and McKellen's 2 provides the vast majority of the miniseries' good lines and moments. Instead of a series of barely connected episodes where a sequence of people attempt to wrestle some secret from a captive 6, 2 tries to convince him that the Village he's been whisked away to is the only society that actually exists, and there's questions about the true nature of reality on everyone's minds.

When you think about the supposed premise, it doesn't really make sense. The original series was strange, but at least the citizens of the Village didn't seem completely deluded the whole time. But once the story actually unfolds, things come together and actually seem to work if you squint a bit and can actually follow out what's going on. The last episode can be easy to get lost in if you don't pay rapt attention, but even without entirely grasping it I got the gist and had a sort of "oh" moment. It makes me glad they decided to air it over three nights instead of six weeks, because more time to absorb, forget details, and form biases might have made it harder to figure out. The Prisoner isn't the sort of thing I'd want to watch very often, because it drags more often that it should and it's sort of tiring to follow. But I thought it mostly succeeded at retaining the spirit of the original without retreading the same ground, and had enough bits to keep fans of things that mess with your had happy for the most part. Sorry if this seems a bit scatter-shot, but my mind's kind of preoccupied.