Not Quite 4400 Reasons to Watch THE 4400

By: Jason Davis
Date: Monday, June 26, 2006

In keeping with the theme of the last few columns, I'm continuing my TV critic education with a crash course in what's presently on the air. This week, I've been through THE 4400, a series I had been intrigued by when it premiered, but had never got round to watching. Thus, the second season DVD release followed quickly by the premiere of year three gave me an excellent opportunity to acquaint myself with the show. I must say, having watched so many en masse, that the series holds up wonderfully under intensive viewing and really almost fulfills my long held fantasy of an X-Men TV series. You've got a diverse minority with superhuman powers being alternately protected and hunted by the government while private interests seek to enslave their gifts to secret agendas. Of course, the series is mainly told from the perspective of the two agents investigating the returnees, but thematically, both THE 4400 and X-Men cover a lot of the same ground.

From a conceptual standpoint, the series has one of the most robust set-ups I've seen in years. When I interviewed writer-producer Tim Minear (of ANGEL, FIREFLY, WONDERFALLS fame) back in November, he lamented that too many networks were buying TV pitches that described one episode and not a viable TV series "with legs" as they say in the industry. Well, THE 4400 certainly has legs...4400 of them really. For those unfamiliar with the concept, the series opens with what appears to be a comet headed straight for Earth. As it approaches, said comet slows to a halt and literally returns 4400 humans mysteriously abducted over the last 60 years. As the returnees are released from quarantine, several begin to manifest superhuman abilities and the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) is charged with discovering where the 4400 have been and what has happened to them. Typically, the episodes feature NTAC agents Tom Baldwin (Joel Gretsch) and Diana Skouris (Jaqcueline McKenzie) investigating another 4400 manifesting paranormal abilities while slowly developing a cohesive theory as to 4400's raison d'être.

At this point, I'm going to go careening off into spoiler-land, so anyone interested in experiencing the series with virgin eyes should skip on down to the triple asterisks where a more general discussion will ensue. All the spoiler conscious folk down below? Okayhere we go. What really intrigues me about the show's concept is that the biggest surprise of the series was spent at the climax of the first season's truncated run. According to co-creator Scott Peters, the revelation that the 4400 were taken by future humans to alter the past in an effort to save the future was intended for somewhere around the end of season five. Of course, TV being a business and all, one's never sure of getting to the fifth season so the powers that be decided to fire the narrative's big gun at the end of their guaranteed allotment of episodes. It's a bold step. It's like revealing the identity of Number One in the pilot of THE PRISONER. The interesting result of the revelation is that, rather than letting the air out of the balloon, it has created a greater context for mystery. We know who took the 4400. We even know why to an extent. What we don't know his the how behind the why and that's an area where I shall now entertain a spot of speculation.


Time travel's always a bit of a narrative sticky wicket. If one goes back in time to prevent "Incident A" from happening and succeeds, there's no longer any reason to prevent "Incident A" from happening and a paradox ensues. So, if the future humans, who we'll call the Modifiers for lack of a better designation, intend to alter the course of their history to secure they're own future, they'll have to predicate their revisions to the time line in such a way as to avoid negating totally the threat they seek to avoid. With me so far? Essentially, they can really only fix things to a degree such that the interference in the past diminishes but does not eliminate the problem. This is very interesting as it would suggest that the unintended casualties the 4400 have endured in the present day are a calculated erosion of the Modifiers' objective. Their plan no doubt calls for the loss of several key players to effect the incomplete solution I've hypothesized above. We've also seen that there is some redundancy amongst 4400 abilities. Richard Tyler seems to be a telekinetic much like Orson Bailey (who died in the pilot). Thus, some of the pieces of the Modifiers' puzzle would seem to have back-ups to fill gaps left by accidental or intentional loss of key players. Another matter for speculation is the members of the 4400. Clearly, these were people who were not inherently necessary to the history of the human race. The Modifiers plucked them from time without hesitation and deposited them back as many as 60 years later. So far, it appears that the number of abductees expanded as they went with fewer returnees from the middle part of the 20th century and multitudes from the 1990s and early 21st Century. Why start in 1946 with Maia? Could it be that the atomic bombs dropped at the climax of World War II opened the door for the Modifers' abduction technique? What if they're capacity to pluck people from the past has increased in capability? That could explain larger numbers as time went onespecially if the Modifiers are working in a relative time base to our own.

***

Idle speculations aside, the backstory created for the series is as intriguing as the dramas played out against it week in and week out. On one of the season two commentaries, showrunner Ira Steven Behr, late of STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, noted that one of the show's greatest difficulties is telling the amount of story they desire to tell in the limited space of thirteen commercial TV episodes a year. The temporal limitations of the series have led to more than a few abandoned plot threads that simply didn't have room to get on the air. Though some might consider this a loss, I think it's a wonderful sign that the series is forced to harvest its very best concepts leaving a surplus of good ideas in its narrative wake. It's certainly a better set up than the alternative. That's all for this week. I commend THE 4400 to you without reservation and USA's keen to have you watch as well. In fact, there's a lovely season three marathon scheduled for next Sunday (opposite BBC America's HEX marathon). Personally, I'd go with the former over the latter as HEX seems to lack the strong narrative thrust of THE 4400. As always, feel free to write me at wastelandjason@hotmail.com with your thoughts on THE 4400, HEX, or even DAYS OF OUR LIVES if you're so inclined and I'll see you for Independence Day.


MONDAY, JUNE 26
MEDIUM (10 PM PST, NBC) "Dead Aim" False alarm for last weekNBC pulled another pre-emption and I didn't catch it before deadline. Thus: Buffy's Harry Groener, forever immortalized as the sanitation-obsessed mayor of Sunnydale, California, guest stars in this week's "encore presentation" (I remember when we called 'em re-runs) of this pseudo-procedural.
SAVED (10 PM PST, TNT) "The Living Dead" A full moon calls up some bizarre emergencies for Cole and Sack in the third episode of a series I seem doomed to miss out on.


TUESDAY, JUNE 27
VERONICA MARS (9 PM PST, UPN) "Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner" Duncan enlists Veronica's help to ferret out child abuse.


WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28

LOST (9 PM PST, ABC) "Abandoned" Some snobby excess baggage is shot by a bitchy different bit of excess baggage and your columnist admits that even the most unlikable characters are worthwhile if they get rid of other unlikable characters.
LOST (10 PM PST, ABC) "The Other 48 Days" The greatest hits of the tailies presents a parallel season one with the Others whittling away Flight 815's rear end.
BLADE (10 PM PST, TNT) Pilot It's been quite a while since Marv Wolfman's vampire slayer made his comic book debut. Three theatrical films later, he hits the TV screenhopefully without all the problems that plagued WITCHBLADE a few years back.


THURSDAY, JUNE 29
HEX (10 PM PST, BBC America) "Possession" Rather like BUFFY's "Innocence," this episode deals with the dangers of shagging strange demonic men. Sadly, it doesn't do as good a job as BUFFY.


FRIDAY, JUNE 30
KYLE XY (8 PM PST, ABC) Pilot Catch a repeat of this ABC Family pilot tonight and then give me a call to let me know why this series is plastered on every billboard in Burbank. Between this series and HEX which is on the side of every public bus in the city, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed...
NUMB3RS (10 PM PST, CBS) "The Running Man" Don and Charlie investigate the theft of a DNA synthesizer capable of concocting custom diseases.
SATURDAY, JULY 1
DOCTOR WHO (7:15 PM GMT, BBC1) "Army of Ghosts" I've just seen the trailer and it sent a chill right up my spine. This is gonna be...well, it's gonna be big. Those of us keeping up with the news know how big. The rest of you'll just have to wait and see. "A storm is coming..."
SUNDAY, JULY 2
HEX (2 PM PST, BBC AMERICA) Season One Marathon If you didn't catch HEX the first time round, BBC America offers all the episodes to date in this five hour marathon. If British witches aren't your thing, you can always catch:
THE 4400 (3 PM PST, USA) Season Three Marathon Catch up as USA airs the first three episodes of the new season capping the marathon with:
THE 4400 (9 PM PST, USA) "Gone Part 2" Tom and Diana investigate a 4400 with the power to make people fall in love.
DEADWOOD (9 PM PST, HBO) "Full Faith and Credit" Vulgar language is employed...I suspect.
THE DEAD ZONE (10 PM PST, USA) "Panic" Johnny discovers a secret while trapped in a house with JJ and another kid. Interesting fact: What USA is billing as the "fifth season" of THE DEAD ZONE is really a collection of episodes left over from the fourth season, some of which were produced as much as a year and a half ago.
ENTOURAGE (10 PM PST, HBO) "Guys and Doll" Dom tries to join Vince's posse.