AMC-TV certainly deserves credit for its decision to remake the 1960s British TV series The Prisoner as a six-hour miniseries. The first four hours are quite successful at creating a mysterious atmosphere and posing numerous questions. Whether the final episode will enable viewers to make full sense of the story is the big question that remains as we head toward the final installment, airing tonight at 8 EST.

As in the original series, a man (Jim Caviezel) wakes up in a town, called The Village, which he does not recognize, though he is told that he was born and raised there. Instead of using his name, everyone calls him Six, and all the other people are addressed by numbers instead of names as well.

Everyone in The Village seems to be content, at first, but the place seems artificial, and Six’s efforts to get answers are thwarted by what appears to be a big conspiracy led by sinister Number Two (Ian McKellan). But whereas the stylish 1960s version was quite clear about what The Village was and why Six was there, the new version tries mightily to make the thing a great big mystery, in the manner of the ABC-TV series Lost.

That’s certainly a defensible choice, and the producers make some good use of that ambiguity early on, bringing up some interesting speculation about the nature of perception, free will, and the like.

In the first of the three scheduled two-hour episodes, for example, Six confronts Two and and angrily insists, "The Village is not all there is." He is convinced that he comes from another place and that he can reach it by finding an ocean beyond the vast desert surrounding The Village.

Two then confirms the spiritual implications of Six’s observation by launching into a scornful oration disdaining such talk as suggesting "a mysterious road that leads beyond, beyond, beyond, a magic gateway, perhaps, some portal leading into Never-Never Land." Two posits pleasure as a sufficient purpose in life, concluding, "Every day above ground is a good day."

Later, Two explains to his son, "For people like Six, life is not enough. The simple life–they want to escape it." In addition, there appears to be some sort of belief among the villahers in God and an afterlife, as indicated by a hymn sung at a funeral in episode one. That adds to the potential spiritual implications suggested by Six’s situation and the possibility of life beyond the village as a metaphor for a spiritual reality beyond the natural world.

The discussion between Six and Two is soon followed by the episode’s climactic moment, repeated from the 1960s original version of the story, in which Two shouts, "I am not a number! I’m a free man!" This makes explicit a theme that becomes increasingly prominent in the second two-hour episode, the issue of free will versus determinism. (Interestingly, this has been a prominent theme of the current ABC series FlashForward as well.)

This theme is given both metaphorical treatment and explicit discussion among Six, Two, and other characters. (The show’s promotional tagline is "You only think you’re free," but the show itself has not suggested a conclusion in favor of determinism so far. Presumably we shall find out tonight.)

A particularly rich metaphorical exploration of the free-will/determinism issue is the love story, in which Six finds out that he has been genetically manipulated into falling in love with one of the women in The Village. If Six chooses to love her anyway, the story line invites us to ask, is that really a free choice, and if it’s not, what choices that humans make really are free?

Those are interesting questions, of course, and not ones that can be answered definitively with scientific certainty. Instead, they are the realm of art, and if it’s still an open question whether this version of The Prisoner will ultimately be dramatically satisfying, the questions it has posed so far are well worth pondering.

–S. T. Karnick