"...It reminded me of a delightfully British, Technicolor version of LOST..."

My initial reaction to the original BBC series THE PRISONER was that it reminded me of a delightfully British, Technicolor version of LOST - only the people trapped in The Village are forced to wear silly, unflattering outfits. The intriguing premise of the 1967 series goes something like this: a British Intelligence agent resigns from his post for unknown reasons, after which he is abducted and transplanted to "The Village," a candy-colored, seemingly heavenly place where people of various nationalities live in harmony and no one has a name. The agent is designated Number Six, and Number Two (a sort of Vice President of The Village), attempts in various creative ways to find out why Number Six resigned and to whom his allegiances belong to. Meanwhile, Number Six stubbornly guards his secret and attempts various creative methods of escape, often thwarted by gigantic white balloons that rise from the ocean to swallow dissidents. If you lik e your television with generous doses of political intrigue, mind control, double crosses, psychological puzzles, and freaky crowd-manipulating technology, you might want to give this influential classic a shot.

The new AMC miniseries moves the story to New York City, with Number Six resigning from a shady corporation that monitors video surveillance of various seemingly random people. Unlike the original, when this Number Six is whisked away to The Village, his memories of the past are so fragmented that he is not entirely certain they are true. Instead of the quaint cottages and castle walls of BBC's seaside Village, this one is an uber-modern suburb in the middle of a vast desert. Everyone appropriately wears khaki, and food consists only of various different types of "wraps." Number Two is played chillingly by veteran thespian Sir Ian McKellen, and the villagers display a more open fear of their Beloved Leader. The most essential change may be the tone of the series, which has dropped the early James Bond era campiness to strive for a sober believability. Where the original Six had a knowing smirk plastered on his face even in moments of distress, the new one has a much wider range of facial expressions. He is more a sensitive-regular-guy than an impervious-super-cool-spy, which brings me to the verdict...

The remake of THE PRISONER may be more realistic and a bit more subtle, but the original is so much more fun, if you're willing to suspend your disbelief and enjoy the Technicolor spectacle of it all. Both make for equally good drinking games, though, if you take a shot every time Number Six bellows "I am not a number!"