The Prisoner: Harmony

Hour Two of The Prisoner remake, Harmony, is the second hour of the first night's Prisoner episode. The Prisoner remake stars Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen as Number Six and Number Two.

It opens with Six lying in the desert. Seagulls. He is found and brought back to the village, where Two and the Clinic staff try and convince that a man, Sixteen, is Six's brother. When Six denies it, 16 produces a picture of the two of them as boys. Two suggests Six go to therapy. Not convinced with any of the evidence presented supporting this claim, he never the less goes along with the charade, presumably because it's easier than fighting at the moment. Six continues to spend time with his "brother" over the next few days, coming across "ruins" (a boat anchor and a old train station) which are dismissed by the locals but only embolden Six's belief in escape. He's convinced that he's not related to Sixteen, and that the entire ploy is an illusion, but he starts to question his own memory. Almost convinced, he begins to crack, unsure what to believe.

End Episode.

I'm not sure I liked this hour as much as the first one, probably because I'm still trying to compare it to the original series. There's just no comparison. While Battlestar Galactica was dated cheese, the original Prisoner has held up (costumes and technology notwithstanding) with deep psychological, allegorical themes. It's not bad and is certainly opening up the series to a completely different kind of mythos and reality than the original series had. I'm not sure if I'm liking the overuse of character numbers-as-names, considering most of the time the original never used "names" - usually with conversations just directed toward a character.

Nore sure if I like how they "explained" what he did and (worked for a private company) or why they actually had him really really allude to why he resigned, worried that it's going down the "evil corporation conglomerates" route. Not sure if I like Two having a family either. Again, I'm trying to compare this to the original. I need to stop. We'll see if it happens in the next installment, "Anvil."

*** out of *****

The title is a shortened version of the original series title, "Living in Harmony," though it only bears a marginal resemblance to it.