Okay, if I can get away from politics long enough, that’s going to be my sig.
Wow, it has a nice ring to it.
So, StoutHearted, do I owe you money?
OK…was 11-12 in a gay relationship with the guy he killed? Seems really edgy to go there with what appears to be an underaged kid.
Killing off the little girl was pretty dark, too.
I think this thing ends tomorrow night, with two more hours.
I’ll be seeing you…
That was my impression. Number two didn’t suggest, “Find a nice girl”, but, “someone of your own age.” 
What did whats-her-number tell the kids about the drugs Gandalf give his mama, “These are red fireballs, these are green stars, and the yellow fireworks look like a dragon.”?
I thought it was red hearts, green flowers and yellow stars…magically delicious.
Well, the original series didn’t have to compete with things like Lost or hot tubs.
I missed it yesterday, but caught the first four hours today. At first, I had the same reaction as most of the posters here; that it had upped the enigma quotient so high we couldn’t get a handle on anything that was going on. But then I thought that the original was probably as impenetrable in its day; in the days of Gomer Pyle and Bonanza it would have been pretty out-there. I didn’t see it until the 80’s, and knew the basic idea going in. I didn’t even open this thread, so I could see the new one spoiler free.
However, the original told well-contained, small-scale stories in most of its episodes; it was just the series-long, grand-scale questions that got punted in the finale. This new version seems to be questions at every level, and will have to redeem itself in the ending much more than the original did.
And managed to explain the entire premise of the series in 3 minutes with minimal dialog!
CMC fnord!
It’s a good thing John Mace never got tired of seeing it, since the same freaking 3 minute sequence opened every one of the 17 episodes.
I concur that it’s a brilliant montage sequence, but it seems stupid to keep playing it over and over and over again… if you had never seen the show before and just turned it on for episode 9, you’d think the first 8 episodes had to do with him being a spy and he just quit in episode 8.
Not all of them – Living in Harmony, notably, lacks it completely. The first time I saw it, I thought they’d pre-empted the show and replaced it with something more popular.
It took the new series up to 3 episodes for Number 6 to finally begin wondering who Number 1 is? Sheesh!
I’ve been trying to keep up, but this new series is confusing me, and not in the fun, surreal way that the McGoohan series did. I find my mind wandering while watching it, and I get lost. People love the Village, then all of a sudden they’re installing secret cameras - even kids are getting in the act! The Village is supposedly an autonomous community, but apparently no one questions how certain resources get there, like, say, wood in the middle of a freakin’ desert?
The standard opening is also not present in “Fall Out”.
One thing I found interesting about “Harmony” was speculating whether the love therapy actually existed at all or it was just a placebo to push Six and 313 into their respective directions. Not that the show really made that connection, just something I thought about while trying to make some sense of things.
The original is uneven, with some really awful episodes (especially toward the end), but more than enough excellent ones to make it worth seeing. McGoohan is just great in the role, and the original village was creepy in it’s hypernormality.
As for this one, I gave the third episode a chance for 20 minutes, then got terminally bored and left. My wife continued to watch. When I returned just before ten, she had fallen asleep about ten minutes after I left.
As the critic said, “Sleep is an opinion.”
But I did figure out the difference between the two series. In the first, they tortured Number 6. In this one, they torture the audience.
They change it in a couple of episodes, just to mess with the viewer. In one, it starts out as a Western.
Touches like that are what made the original series so compelling.
That’s exactly what I thought! Great minds think alike.
I haven’t seen much of the original series, but the new one has set up so many puzzles I just know it won’t answer them all in the end. What’s with the sinkholes? How could anyone make an entire ocean disappear? Why would Six’s fake brother admit he wasn’t his brother after all? Where do they get their food, gasoline, clothes etc.? Are the pigs a reference to Animal Farm? Those two misty towers in the distance look so much like the World Trade Center I figure the show must be making some commentary on 9-11 and the War on Terrorism, but I’ll be damned if I can figure it out.
If I were Six, I’d be seriously tempted to wring Two’s neck. The geezer usually goes around without guards, after all.
No guards, but there’s always the blancmange.
I don’t think so. I saw it when it was originally aired in the US, I was in junior high school at the time, and I didn’t find it impenetrable at all. Some of it was a little odd and quirky, but the overall and individual stories were not in any way hard to follow.
I tried to watch the new one, but like others here I gave up after a while. It’s just not at all interesting. The actor playing “Six” (and why on Earth did they find it necessary to drop the “Number”?? It makes it sound like everyone is a pet) is just completely nondescript. He’s dull, uninteresting, has no charisma or personality whatsoever. Yes, I know that they were trying to go for some “everyman” thing, but it doesn’t work. A show like this needs a lead that has an extremely powerful presence that draws the viewers in and makes them care.
Those who’ve said that he wants to escape just because he likes being free are missing the point. A show like this needs really strong motivations, on both sides. In the original, Number Six was a former spy, with all the training and knowledge that that entails. He didn’t know who ran the village, but he knew that he needed to protect himself and what he knew, and that he needed to get out, for more than just his own well-being. On the other side, the Number two’s needed the information that (they thought) Number Six had.
In this new one, Six is some corporate dude who quits; big deal. There’s nothing there to make me care what happens to him. Who knows what Number Two wants? Again, nothing to draw me in and make me care.
And folks, it’s not a blancmange, it’s Rover. I didn’t watch long enough, but did the new one really not use that name for it?
The Old Guy whose number I’ve forgotten, who escaped, who wore a jacket like Patrick McGohan, had lava lamps in his apartment reminiscent of the special effects of launching a rover.
That isn’t trippy. The LAST one? THAT’S trippy.
Why Netflix? AMC has them all for free and you can bail with no regrets if it gets too boring.
Oh my God. The Matrix? The entire thing cribbed from The Matrix? There’s lame, and then there’s this version of The Prisoner
What utter tripe!
Drugs.