Dave Rogers, "The Prisoner"
I have to stop the notion that just because there�s a show or movie that I like, an accompanying book will be just as good � or good at all for that matter. First there was that completely unfunny book on Monty Python, and now this � a flat-out boring tribute to one of the most interesting television shows ever made.
Part of the problem comes from the fact that I don�t like much television at all. I can name shows I do like on one hand � Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Simpsons, Monty Python�s Flying Circus, The Young Ones, and The Prisoner. Not having a wide variety of shows that I do like makes me a little obsessive about the ones I enjoy. At the rate and quality that these books have shown thus far, I cringe when I think about the fact that I still have two books on the Young Ones, two more on Monty Python, and another Prisoner book to go through.
This book gives a five-page semi-history of the show, brings up a few readily known bits of trivia, and then launches into a scene-by-scene, word-by-word account of every episode.
Great. I get to read the author�s transcription of the show.
As I start reading, my eyes become dangerously close to sticking in the back of my head from rolling them so much. The Prisoner was a show with thousands of subtleties, both visual and verbal, but none of this comes through in Rogers� prose. The scenes are flat and stripped of all symbolism, and it is not �word-for-word� as the cover proclaims.
In fact, they left out a lot of things that I thought were rather important. Worse, the author for some strange reason decided against paragraph breaks even when the dialog changes from character to character.
If I hadn�t already seen all the episodes, I would have become totally lost on any semblance of a story line. Dealing with a show that is still hotly debated over its use of symbolism, you would think there would be something in terms of analysis. You�d think that, but you�d be wrong.
Halfway through this book, I decided to watch one of the episodes (�The Schizoid Man�), and then read the synopsis afterward to compare the outcome. The book was devoid of the cunning involved, and all sense of tension disappeared into hokum mediocrity. Even worse, it was BORING, when the actual episode is one of the best from the series.
Indeed, the writing is so boring and the lack of paragraph breaks make it so difficult to read that I can�t fault the copy editor, even though I caught at least 15 errors. Okay, it is difficult to write anything remotely long without making some mistakes (as Alex pointed out in my review of the last Chomsky book), but c�mon... 15 errors? For something that is obviously a labor of love? If anybody needs to resign, it�s this guy.
And if you�ve never seen the program, that joke is gonna fly right over your head.
