‘Prisoner’ Writer Explains Why Our New Paranoia Is Different
Graeme McMillan, io9.com: AMC’s reboot of The Prisoner was previewed at Comic-Con, and in addition to the amazing footage, series writer Bill Gallagher was on hand to tease more, including why this series isn’t a remake, but a “response” to the original.
On whether or not he pictured original series lead Patrick McGoohan when writing the series:
“No, I deliberately didn’t do that, I didn’t think of an actor at all … I won’t cast it in my head, because then I box myself in, and I can’t do that. It has to be this imaginary character.
“I didn’t have McGoohan in my head because [this Prisoner] is a different kind of Number Six, he’s a different character, he has different attitudes. In the beginning of the series, Six wakes up the middle of the desert, no idea where he is, no idea how he got there, no idea what to do, and immediately he’s hurled into an event, which is this old man is trying to escape, he’s being pursued by soldiers. And he rescues this old man. For me, in my head, that’s McGoohan, the old Six. And that old man dies. In my head, he dies to allow us to imagine a new Number Six. McGoohan said that the end plate on the old series should’ve said “The Beginning,” because the cycle goes on, and so in my imagination, [that scene is where] one cycle ends and another cycle begins. And so that scene allowed me to imagine my own Number Six.”
