I agree. To me (a big fan of the original series, who thought a remake was questionable at best), this failed on just about every level.
Patrick McGoohan's Number Six took all the crap that the Village (and the slew of "new Number Twos") could throw at him, and not only survived intact but often ran rings around them, turning their plans back upon them. In this new show, "Six" ends up blubbering to his fake "brother" that if he (Six) really is delusional then he's been treating his "brother" poorly. For God's sake, grow a pair, "Six" -- you're a disgrace to the number.
As far as that goes, having a Village whose inhabitants are referred to only by numbers (their names being taken away and not allowed to be used), is creepy and disorienting. When everyone - even the leader of the Village - is referred to as "Number _____," it reinforces the fact that they're all being treated as cogs in a machine. By having everyone referred to simply by their number ("Six" instead of "Number Six," "Two" instead of "Number Two"), it just make it sound as if everybody has weird names. (It does allow me to differentiate McGoohan's character as "Number Six" and Cavaziel's as "Six," though, which I'll continue to do in this post.)
Number Six had a distinctive outfit: the tan slacks and black jacket with white piping, which looked cool and was also something you wouldn't see in normal, everyday society. (Plus the cool button with his number and the old-fashioned bicycle, the emblem of the Village.) Six's outfit is nothing special, and wouldn't look out of place if I wore it to the local mall. Likewise, the original Villagers often wore those half-capes and carried the multicolored umbrellas, allowing them to look "different" from what you see every day in real life. These new Villagers look completely normal.
Number Six's Village was filled with people who had knowledge dangerous to their respective governments, and they had been kidnapped and forced to live under the conditions of the Village: names instead of numbers, don't question Village authority, etc. This new Village is apparently inhabited by people who aren't even aware that there is anything else on the whole planet other than their own Village. This opens up a whole lot of plot holes, which even Six could see: do the Villagers know what a crocodile is, and if so, how? (Since the Village is all that there is, and doesn't contain crocodiles.) I want to know how a Village of apparently less than 10,000 people (I don't think anybody's number had more than 4 digits) manages to refine its own gasoline, write, produce, and act in its own locally-broadcast soap operas, manufacture buses and automobiles, etc. without any contact from the outside world. Okay, I understand that obviously these things are being brought into the Village somehow, but none of the inhabitants even question where the new cars came from, or where the gas in the fuel pumps come from?
For that matter, if the Village is all there is in the world, what's the point of having a bus tour industry that shows you the sights of the Village? Who goes on these tours? And having gone on one, who would ever go on one again? All in all, I think if the producers of this show wanted to make a remake of "The Village" (the M. Night Shamalayan movie), they should have done that instead of remaking the Prisoner.
There were a few touches I did like, however: the fact that Ninety-Three was wearing the same jacket that Number Six did throughout the original series, the lava lamp in his room that evinced memories of the original show's Rover being formed, and the eventual appearance of Rover itself. But I think that's really all I liked about the show. My wife was ready to give it up as a lost cause 20 minutes into the first episode, but I vowed to give it my full attention for the first full two episodes. Having done so, all I can say is that I was really, really disappointed in the show, I think the creators made a bad call in just about every decision they made in remaking the original, and I don't intend to waste any more of my time on this crap.
At 7:00 PM tonight, I'll watch "House." At 9:00 PM, I'll watch "Castle." And just to wash the bad taste of last night's two hours out of my mouth, I think I'll pop the first episode of Patrick McGoohan's "The Prisoner" in the DVD and enjoy the Village as it used to be, and in my mind will always be.
Johnathan
