A ‘Prisoner’ of irony?

The buzz on the updated version of “The Prisoner” on AMC is good, but we’re having a hard time getting excited about it; not sure why. Perhaps it’s because we fear that this update, like many others before it, will just wind up missing the point of the original. Far too many times an update will focus on those elements that made the original cool, but will either neglect or fail to perceive that which gave the original its heart in the first place. (The makers of the movie version of “I Spy,” for instance, either didn’t understand or didn’t care that the original TV series was not a comedy, despite the starring role for legendary comedian Bill Cosby. There were a lot of wisecracks, sure, but the show was, at its core, about the simple, serious grunt work involved in being an undercover government agent.)

Of course I’m happy to give the new “Prisoner” the benefit of the doubt, but I’m wondering if miniseries writer/executive producer Bill Gallagher appreciates the irony behind one of his modern tweaks. In the original 1967 series (it aired in the U.S. in ‘68), star Patrick McGoohan was “Number Six,” who famously inveighed at the beginning of every episode, “I am not a number! I am a free man!” In the reimagined version, however, our hero, portrayed by Jim Caviezel, is simply called Six. (Oscar nominee Ian McKellen is Two.) In other words, technically he’s not a number either. He’s a guy who’s original name was simply replaced by another. They could have called him “Kumquat” and achieved the same effect as “Six.” Gallagher might have thought it was cute or hip or modern to take away the “Number,” but it ends up missing the point of the loss of individuality made by the original series.

AMC’s reimagining of “The Prisoner” begins Sunday, Nov. 15.

http://www.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner/