You hear it all the time on shows like American Idol, when people who take on a classic are told, “You made it your own”—whether it was a good idea or not. That’s how I feel about AMC’s ambitious six-hour, three-night homage to the legendary ’60s cult curiosity The Prisoner: They made it their own, but did they really need to?

On its own terms, the new Prisoner is a beautifully filmed (in Namibia and South Africa), unquestionably provocative head trip stirring up all sorts of allegorical yada-yada about mind control, free will and the lack of privacy in a soulless Big Brother corporate society. It’s further distinguished by Ian McKellen's sensational performance as Two, the dapper, cheerfully sinister ringleader of a mysteriously surreal Village where a man called Six (Jim Caviezel) finds himself trapped.

“There is no out. There is only in,” Two gleefully informs Six as the mind games begin. In the second hour, Six encounters his brother—or is he?—who declares, “My head is so confused with confusion” as Six continues to insist there’s a world outside the Village. In another chapter, Six is set up with a soul mate who’s a dead ringer for a woman he remembers from his previous life. It all begs the question: “You really think you can manufacture love?”

What’s missing in all of this is the playful, hallucinatory wackiness of Patrick McGoohan's original vision for The Prisoner, a garish experiment that was emblematic, yet but ahead, of its trippy ’60s times. This reimagined version, which feels a bit old hat in a post-Matrix fantasy landscape, is more leaden, pretentious and solemn, a tone embodied by Caviezel’s brooding Six, who’s more dour than dashing. And as marvelous as McKellen is, I miss the whimsy of a different Two popping up each week, keeping Six even further off balance. (This Two even has a backstory with a rebellious son and comatose wife.)

As I watched, intrigued but detached, I couldn’t help saying a prayer that 20 or so years from now, no one will get the bright idea to rethink Twin Peaks for a new generation. Want to blow our minds? Try something new.

In happier dramatic news, Sunday also brings up the first night of a two-part Masterpiece Contemporary movie titled Collision. While PBS’ Masterpiece is best known for its literary period pieces, I find myself drawn just as deeply to its modern anthology of Contemporary stories. Collision is a terrific example of an unconventional and original story, weaving suspense, irony, mystery and emotional turmoil in the aftermath of a deadly multicar freeway pileup.

Douglas Henshall (so appealing in BBC America’s Primeval) is the dogged inspector trying to figure out what caused this accident, while still recovering from his own personal road-related family tragedy. As he follows the tangled lives of the people affected by the crash, we find our own preconceptions challenged about what brought these disparate, often desperate characters to converge on this expressway at the worst possible random moment.

Not until the very end do we get a clear picture of what actually happened. By that time, the dramatic consequences have taken us down roads that are even more treacherous and surprising. Don’t miss this one.

The Prisoner airs Sunday through Tuesday, 8/7c, on AMC

Collision airs Sunday 11/15 and 11/22 on PBS (check local schedules for time)