This remake of the old series just doesn't work: Where the old Prisoner series was surreal, the new one is existential. It is much more mean spirited and weirdly psychological, and very overbearingly totalitarian. Where in the old series the characters were mostly trying to maintain pleasantry and good manners, the new mini series has a much larger element of demagoguery and fear.
The look of the village, with the exception of Number Two's palace, is very hum drum, whereas the old series village really played up the dichotomy of looking like a quaint and charming little place, yet all you want to do is get away from it.
The story line is much weaker too: instead of a disillusioned former spy hero, we get the usual clueless computer geek being used by the evil corporation.
Also, greatly unappreciated were the crude remarks in the conversation between Number Two and the psychiatrists.
This new Prisoner is much more 1984, than an exploration of what you do with old spies.
The look of the village, with the exception of Number Two's palace, is very hum drum, whereas the old series village really played up the dichotomy of looking like a quaint and charming little place, yet all you want to do is get away from it.
The story line is much weaker too: instead of a disillusioned former spy hero, we get the usual clueless computer geek being used by the evil corporation.
Also, greatly unappreciated were the crude remarks in the conversation between Number Two and the psychiatrists.
This new Prisoner is much more 1984, than an exploration of what you do with old spies.