The Prisoner

I just finished watching AMC's reimagined The Prisoner. It was self-important pants.
It was well acted and looked lovely. I love most things the Ian McKellen does and his 2 was no exception. He slipped from touching moments with his son, to cool evil, to manic with ease. Jamie Campbell Bower's 11-12 is touching in his self-involved teen angst. Ruth Wilson's 313's predicament as pawn and heroine, need for stability and desire for life, tool of 2 and friend of 6 is poignant.
The supporting cast, the scenery, the costumes, and the cinematography are also superlative.
Sadly it is not enough to make the piss poor script worth the six hours of my life I wasted watching the show. The dialog, although mostly well delivered, is little more than self-help tripe strung into menace. "Only by becoming one can we defeat two." Seriously?
The central conflict between 6 and 2, between prisoner and jailor is convoluted. It would be one thing if it was a simple struggle for freedom. Instead it is clear that 2 wants something from 6. It is not as simple as 6 merely being trouble because you learn early on that 2 is not above simply eliminating trouble. The reason why 6 is a prisoner and why 2 plays with 6 are never made clear until the end. This allows for a number of interesting points to be brought up about terrorism, authoritarianism, free will, our surveillance state, human nature.
When the final resolution came I was left wanting. The truth of the village is disappointing in it unoriginality. The resolution of 6's struggle is unbelievable. It does not flow from the character and makes the moral ambiguity of the ending disappointing.
There was a lot of wasted potential in The Prisoner. A straight remake would have been excellent. The reimagined story could also have worked with better writers. The conflict between 2 and 6, jailed and jailor, needed more tension and more purpose. The Lost style puzzle for the sake of it/flashback story telling technique does not work here. 2's descent needs more time to be believable.