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The Prisoner series DVD review

         
   The best thing to be said about the miniseries adaptation of the cult classic 1960s British television series, “The Prisoner,” is that it is not a full series. Though the original series also ran out of ideas towards the end, and finished with a controversial finale, it was a lot more fun than this dreary “Lost” wannabe. The melodrama is too heavy for those who loved the wicked sense of humor in the original, and there are numerous changes which immediately infuriated fans of the original.

            The Village in the miniseries resembles a much more sophisticated representation of the town in the unfortunate M. Night Shyamalan film. The members are oblivious to a world outside of the remote desert village, and this is achieved with memory loss. They are a part of some high tech project, but there is far less consideration to the reasons why this protagonist quit his job or was sent to this village. There is far more with the characters, who remain constant throughout the series.

            A man named Michael (Jim Caviezel) quits a job at a high security office, only to find himself kidnapped and sent to a remote village with people who are oblivious to an outside world. There is no explanation as to why Michael is able to resist the memory erasing while others aren’t, but he refuses to accept the reality of The Village. Rather than an ever-changing leader, there is a constant in this series, played by Ian McKellen. Everyone in The Village goes only by a number, and McKellen is number 2. There is no number 1, for reasons that the whole series relies upon.

            This three-disc DVD set includes all six parts of the miniseries on the first two discs, with the third containing only special features. There is a feature about the shoot of the series over 92 days, as well as a featurette about the look of The Village. Interviews include a panel with the cast at Comic-Con and an interview with McKellen by Jamie Campbell Bower.

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