Re:The Prisoner
As you know, I love The Girl Who Was Death… imaginative I thought, but rather out of place.
The show denies expectation (to a point at least). And it doesn’t follow normal, hackneyed sci-fi genre conventions. Yeah, the show is not strictly sci-fi, meaning it’s not generic, and as you know, McGoohan claimed it wasn’t sci-fi. Plenty of [url=http://www.sadgeezer.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=120&page=1&POSTNUKESID=c3270aadaf623bbc79da21b11ce6f988]science and technology[/url] which firmly puts it into the sci-fi universe for me, but, yes, thank goodness, they don’t bother to explain it. I do so hate the pseudo technobabble in the later Star Treks etc..
I find the ideas in The Prisoner intriguing and appealing. It is a very philosophical and psychological show, but if one’s strictly looking for action, and doesn’t want to have to think (plenty of room left open for individual interpretation, then it’s probably a show best avoided.
Too many shows try to explain everything, there’s no room left for your imagination/ your own creative input. It’s a multi-layered show. The Prisoner treats the viewer as an individual with a mind of his own up to a point. I’ve found it a very immersive show; the Prisoner’s dilemma is my own… On a basic level, we share the same questions as the Prisoner (and a few more) and I think that was a clever strategy. I don’t much care for it when the audience can figure things out/ know far more than the characters. I really like Stargate SG1 (especially for the Col. Jack humour), but get irritated because I usually figure out the connections faster than the protagonists (even the brainy ones) because they give us so many clues – I guess it’s done that way so the audience feels smart, but it van make the characters in the show seem dumb… I like to be surprised, and I like a sense of mystery, once I’m sure I know exactly is going to happen I lose interest. The Prisoner managed to keep me guessing at least when it came to many of the questions that are layed out for you from the beginning.
Still, I didn’t like that I always knew his escape attempts would fail, and it did really stretch credulity at times… No. 6 could have learned a thing or two from Homer Number 5 — now Homer knew how to effectively handle bouncy balls. But since in the end, as you said, everything isn’t what it appeared to be anyway…
I’m talking hermeneutics here: The way the show engages the audience echoes the Prisoner’s plight – the structure works well on an internal (The Village as the world) and external (we are witness to the Village) level.
Anyway, to each his own… Perhaps he couldn’t identify with No. 6, the concepts bored him, or he’s a hard sci-fi buff – my big love is arthouse and experimental works. The Village is so layered with artifice that I do think, generally, it would appeal more to people with more literary than literal minds.
By the way, think I’ll move employ some Village trickery, and move this thread to The Prisoner forum. It’s so old that it’s not showing up in General Sci-Fi Stuff.
EDIT: To obscurity and beyond… Still not showing up (I found this topic when doing a search, but it doesn’t show up on the forum pages)