More Village

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

In A Message An Old Friend Said

   I wonder how fans of the original series will take to the new series of THEPRIS6NER. I said it's more probably a case of how first-time fans to the new series of THEPRIS6NER will take to the original?

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

AMCtv Announces......

    New York The Premier of THEPRIS6NER A "Mini-Series", on Sunday November 15th at 8-10pm ET/PT, which features the first two episodes back to back. The reinterpretation of the classic series of the 1960's television series the Prisoner will air over three consecutive nights, two episodes per night 8-10pm.

    I wonder how Six of One: The prisoner Appreciation Society will react to the reinterpretation of THEPRIS6NER? What I mean is, that particular society once prided itself on supplying all manner of information on the Prisoner. But there is already a major supply of information about the new series out there on the World Wide Web!

Saturday, November 07, 2009

In a letter a close friend wrote "With the impending new series of THEPRIS6NER, you'll have enough material to keep you going for a few more decades to come."

  I believe he may very well be right. I hope he is proved to be right. In any case, I shall do my best.

THEPRIS6NER - The New Series 2009

   Readers of my blog may be wondering why I make no mention of the new series, the reinterpretation of THEPRIS6NER. Well the answer is a simple one - because I haven't seen it yet. I am waiting for the ITV1 premier on British television. Oh I suppose I could order a copy of the series on DVD from America, but I'm old fashioned, I like to wait until such a series appears on television here in Great Britain. But once I have seen the series, you may rest assured that I'll find plenty to say about it. The only question remains, when will ITV1 be screening the new series, and will my patience hold out?

First Impressions

    I have only seen Arrival of this series so far, however I plan to watch it a second time this evening. I wonder how ardent fans of the original series have taken, or not taken to this reinterpretation? Oh I know I've only seen the first episode, and you cannot judge a complete series on one episode. But I seem to have taken to THEPRIS6NER like a duck takes to water. I know that that's easy enough to say, although I was not overwhelmed by the first episode like I was as a young boy by the original series, but in a different way this time. Well it's a completely new series, and I am already hooked.

   I didn't even miss The Village not being Portmeirion. I never wished this reinterpretation to have been filmed in Portmeirion. Portmeirion would have been far too small for such a series as this. And that's strange in itself, that I didn't miss Portmeirion, and that must say something, possibly about me. I can think of several fans of ‘the Prisoner,’ whom I have known in the past, who could never dream of any place being used as The Village other than Portmeirion. Perhaps I have moved on. Perhaps like THEPRIS6NER and The Village, I have evolved. Can accept that everything Prisoner does not revolve around that Italianate Village in North Wales. Mind you, having written that, it seems highly unlikely that I will ever have the money to go and visit Swakopmund, in Namibia.

    And it was easy for me to accept the "Retro" Nissan Figaro as The Village taxi {later I was to discover it is actually a Renault Dauphine}. Because the Figaro is taxi for The Village in the same way that the Mini-Moke was in the original series. As for other old vehicles, well I had seen both the Black Bedford van, which stems from 1959, and the black Commer van {I was wrong again, but I cannot remember what the van actually is}, in video trailers for the series. But I was taken aback when I saw a Morris Minor pass by in the street of The Village, not one, but two, which also stem from the 1950's. You can tell this from the "split" windscreen. Later models of the Morris Minor had the "full" windscreen. There is a Morris Minor in the opening sequence of the original series of the Prisoner. You can see it just behind the Prisoner's Lotus Seven as he passes the Houses of Parliament, as he turns right. that Morris Minor has a "split" windscreen! That's not me drawing a comparison, although I realise it reads like that, but really I see it as an echo from the original series. I'm more interested to see such "retroism" used in The Village, which is set in contemporary times. Mind you, that's not to say that Morris Minors cannot be seen being driven today in the outside world. Yet you don't see so many 1950's Bedford's about do you?

   And that's the thing about this series, it looks to be set in contemporary times, but there is much within it that has been taken from the past. It's intriguing.

Arrival – a second impression April 2010.

     I must say that the episode was far more enjoyable the second time around. Perhaps because it is a new series I was trying to take it all in at once, the first time. I'm sure as the camera passes over the towers in the desert, that one makes the shadow of 1 on the sand!

   I am surprised by the amount of freedom the citizens enjoy in The Village, and the lack of surveillance. There doesn't appear to be any amount of surveillance cameras on display, or mounted in the eyes of stones busts and statues!

   Michael tells Lucy, back in New York, about his education, that his school teacher was Mrs Radcliffe. Now I wonder if that's an in-joke at the cost of Patrick McGoohan. Seeing that as a boy, he was later educated at Ratcliffe College in Leicestershire.

   But I made a mistake, an easy thing to do when seeing the first episode of a new series for the first time. The Morris Minor's are of the 1960's, and not 50's as I previously stated in another piece of blog. Because the windscreen is not divided in the centre, as with the 1950 model of the Morris Minor.

   Now I cannot wait for the next episode, unlike some of my fellow fans it has to be said. No-one is forced to like this new series. THEPRIS6NER is not there to replace the original series, but will stand on it's own merits, not to be compared with the original series, save for the observance of the echoes of that original series.

   At the time long seasoned fans of the original series made their comments on the new series to me. “One fan said to me that he doesn't like the series because it's not set in Portmeirion.” While others expected a remake. A friend said he didn't give Arrival ten minutes before he switched it off. Another viewer went a little longer, giving Arrival thirty minutes before he switched off! Because it wasn't like the original Arrival at all! “Well what the hell use would a remake be to anyone? You have the original.” And even if THEPRIS6NER had been filmed in Portmeirion, fans would still have to put up with the experience of a new No.6. Because Patrick McGoohan is reported to have wanted the role of Two. But that role had been cast to Ian McKellen.

    Speaking for myself, I never missed Portmeirion once last night while watching Arrival for a second time, I never missed the Italianate Village for the first time. A friend of mine on the telephone yesterday, said that I've moved on, he could tell that in my voice. and I have. I find I can appreciate both series.

     Those who do not like THEPRIS6NER still have that series to enjoy, but I will have both, which clearly puts me one-up I should say. As I enjoy both series for their own sakes, and not for the sakes of the other!

   As No.2 says in Free For All "Every citizen has a choice," and of course he is right. If fans of the Prisoner do not like the reinterpretation of that series, well that is their choice. For me, I cannot wait for the next episode. And yesterday I pre-ordered the DVD box set of the series.

It is, as it is, as it should be

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