Blog of Much Holding

In celebration of AMC’s re-imagined The Prisoner, and in celebration of the recent blu-ray release, I’m re-watching all 17 classic episodes. Join me, won’t you?

Yes, I’m running behind.

The original intent of this series of posts was to re-watch all the original episodes of The Prisoner before I sat down to watch the AMC production, which debuted in the US last week. Well, unfortunately for my loyal readers (but fortunately for me) I had a business matter to attend to which ended up with me go to Australia for two weeks this past month. So, I’m late, but still plan on finishing the original before watching the new version (though, unfortunately, the reviews I read are not encouraging).

So, onward…

“Dance of the Dead”

Well, this episode is messed up.

McGoohan is drugged, ostracized and generally has a really bad day. An example of how bizarre this episode is: In the end The New Number 2 is dressed like Peter Pan as a Halloweenesque carnival (where McGoohan is the only one not in a costume) that devolves into a mock trial. McGoohan is sentenced to death and… well, it’s not death as we know it. It is the sentence of isolation, as the inhabitants in The Village turn on him. Where before McGoohan had worked to help him, now he is shut off from them… and this, along with the loss of an old colleague Dutton is a heavy weight as the pars close on him at the end of the episode.

You may note there is not much of a plot synopsis here. That’s correct, because the plot is not important here – the themes and visuals presented are. It’s a good episode, though not a favorite, and is more of a piece of art than an episode of a TV show. It is provocative and the not-so-subtle subtext of death is not one that appeals to everyone.

It ends, as with many episodes before and after, rather hopelessly. It gets a little better in the next episode.. but not much.

Here it is, in one minute – and yes, you probably need to watch the full episode to figure it out.

Here are some pics of the nice model that came with the Star Trek blu-ray set I purchased at Target. It’s an exclusive and the disks fit in the saucer section. Nicely done…

One of the many luxuries that we don’t appreciate nearly as much as we should is the personal entertainment systems that airlines put in their newer jumbo jets. These systems offer an abundance of choices, from basic cable TV to full video-on-demand and everything in between.

As I was stuck in a plane for over 20 hours this past couple of days returning from a business trip in Sydney, I was definitely appreciative – my stack of papers and books I had brought along to Sydney were exhausted before I climbed on the plane, and the entertainment system allowed me to catch some films I had not seen previously as well as revisit some old favorites.

A couple of these old favorites was The Godfather and The Godfather Part 2, movies that I believe are perfect in every respect. To imagine that Coppola had to fight to get Pacino cast as Michael is still something that I still shake my head at to this very day. Watching both films back-to-back (as it is every time I rewatch them) makes me appreciate them all the more, They are art writ large, masterpieces that were produced at the end of the old studio system and the beginning of New Hollywood, when the rebels took over- and I am afraid we will never see movies of this quality ever made again.

One notable thing I appreciated was that I was able to watch the original trailers for the films as an option in the airlines’ entertainment system. The one for Godfather Part 2 was gaudy, with cheesy voice-overs that try and sell the film as cheap shocksplotation. The one for the original, well… that was very interesting.

One of the things I complain the most about movie trailers is that, more often than not, they give too much away – We see the plot twist revealed in the trailer and any surprise is long gone by the time the viewer sets down to watch the movie. Usually this is because in today’s Hollywood so many of those surprises are revealed in “money shots” that the editors of the trailers just HAVE to add to the trailer, to get the viewers in seats.

I complain about modern trailers revealing too much, and yet I look at the trailer for The Godfather and I think “Jeez, they are showing EVERYTHING!” Yes, the trailer is mostly a succession of still images set to music from the film, but what they show… it’s almost a cliff-notes version of the film. I guess since the book was a best seller by this point they decided to show the audience that yes, the stuff they liked from the book was in the movie too.

Please find it embedded below, and if anyone knows where I can find a replica of the Vito head bust shown at the end of the trailer let me know – I’d pay top dollar for it.

Woo-hoo! Donna’s back! The two-parter will air Christmas Day and New Years Day in the UK and the day after those respective dates in the US (again, woo-hoo!)

Will be traveling for business the next week and taking a week off for the Thanksgiving holiday so the updates here will be light (though I plan on updating more retro reviews of the original Prisoner series in the next couple of days)… Obviously, if something really cool passes over the transom I will post about it.

Catch you hip cats later!