Aside from the allegorical aspects, "they" wanted to BREAK Tom, or to see if he could be broken! As a previous posted said, "they" wanted Tom to give up the negative (what Hitchcock called a "MacGuffin") to them WILLINGLY.

You are right for the most part. The organization[Them] wasn't trying to kill Tom.
But in the episodes where Tom joined that militia. The commander clearly tried to kill Tom. He thought he was a big-shot within the organization and he could do what he wanted, even killing Tom. He was taken care of[Killed] for his Hubris.
Noone was important in the org. The org. was always first.
But that only happened occasionally. Those who defied the Org. were always taken care of.
I like to think that humanity was secretly being invaded by Aliens or something from parallel worlds. They were systematically taking our every aspect of human life. That's why no operative of [Them] was important. They were nothing but human pawns. The real threat[invaders] never showed themselves in the series. They worked behind the scenes. Never having direct contact with humans. Perhaps they couldn't be here physically yet. Or they were preparing the world for their arrival. Tom would be both their test-subject and their paranoia virus. Season 2 could have had Tom now trying to find out who he[Gemini] was. Spreading more paranoia to those who came in contact with him[Organization and general pubic].
This series is a homage to the Prisoner I know.
But I always got a invaders vibe from it also as I watched.
The mind games were from the Prisoner but I believe the paranoia has a lot of it's origins from the 1968 U.S. series "The invaders"
At least I have an ending.
Be it far fetched or not. LOL

This message has been deleted.

And with all those crackshot military, police and government guys, do you really think they'd have missed that many times? My opinion is that they never intended to kill him.
-packrat1

They rarely shoot at Tom, but the fact is that those are human errs. The assassins and muscleheads they sent after him knew exactly who they were up against, and probably got overly excited.

If they wanted Tom to submit to the organisation, then why did they shoot at him, as I thought the premise of the show was that he be alive rather than dead? Was the shooting a warning to Tom that they were hot on his trial rather than the bullets doing fatal damge to him? Thanks.

exactly, they didn't do this just to get negatives, as the last eps said, (not gonna say too much in specific if you didn't see and plan on someday) that the negatives was never all it was about, as you find out through series that the negatives isn't of the real..
Was about testing him!

This message has been deleted.

there wasn't a season 2, much to the fans' disappointment

This message has been deleted.

This message has been deleted.

In the show, there were many times "They" could have simply taken the negatives from Tom, but it was important that he break down and hand them over, submit to Them. That's important, metaphorically.