What to watch over the summer, part 4400

I was reminded about The 4400 by a comment on one of my previous posts. It'd been nearly a year since I'd watched any, so I've spent the last couple of days catching up. I was a bit dubious as I'd dismissed it early on as a poor X-Files clone, but I have to say I'm rather pleased I went to the effort. The unlikely story runs thusly:

One sunny day in America (where else?) some clever scientists spot a rather dangerous looking comet on a collision course with earth. Every spends 20 minutes or so running around sweating and firing missiles. We've seen all this before, and we've seen what happens next a few times as well. It turns out not to be a comet at all, but just some odd ball of light that deposits 4400 seemingly normal human beings of all shapes and sizes by a lake near Washington. Again, convenient location. Turns out, each of these people has gone missing in "mysterious circumstances" over the last 60 years. None have aged, although a 6 year old girl taken in 1946 is strictly speaking in her 60's, with family long since dead. Hooray! The first couple of episodes cover this happening, and the usual "what if?" style bumf of government agencies, quarantine etc. There's some quite emotionally impacting stuff featuring people tracking down families that have aged and forgotten about them, but it's pretty predictable stuff and so far, so X-Files. The next development is when several of "The 4400" start developing, yes, you guessed it, eerie powers...

The first episode dealing with this is very disappointing, and by this time the narrative of the show has settled on following a man/woman partnership of quirky government agents assigned to investigate any odd happenings involving the 4400. Astonishingly, the writers seem to be trying to build some sexual tension between them. She's motherly and scientific, and he's a bit maverick. Did I mention it was a bit like the X-Files? Anyway, the series saves itself with the next episode. A slightly retarded "returnee" moves back to his old neighbourhood. He's appalled to find it a crime infested slum (although this guy's only been gone a year, we'll suspend disbelief that his 'hood could turn downhill so quickly on account of this being in America, where everyone eats babies given half a chance). Luckily he appears to have acquired superhuman strength and speed, which he uses to go about cleaning up the town. Quite literally really, his first priority being cleaning up graffiti in the park. While he's at it, he saves a woman from being mugged. Soon the "avenging angel" rumours are circulating and Mulder and Scully Baldwin and Skouris (fucking character names, aaargh!) are on hand to investigate. It's at the end of this story that things get interesting for me. Firstly, in the death of the Avenging Retard the writers show a higher than normal appreciation for irony. The poor fellow is stabbed trying to foil another mugging, as whoever gave him these powers made him fast and strong but neglected to make him invulnerable. Secondly, rather than wrapping him up and moving onto the next thing with little or no pause for thought as is usually the case, these agents are actually asking why these things are happening. There's a very interesting "ripple effect" theory about the people chosen to manifest these powers, which has a good pay-off at the end of season 1, when the crushingly inevitable aliens explanation is also thrown out to the sound of applause from millions (well, probably thousands in its first run) of living rooms. The story arc turns out to be cleverer, and in some way more believable than the X-Files clone conspiracy rubbish ever was. The two leads fail to bone each other, and in fact just seem to drop the idea altogether. Season 2 develops the themes and characters nicely, and for a fantasy show keeps its feet nicely on the ground, focusing on the public reaction to the 4400 and their attempts to first reintegrate with the world, and then defend themselves from it.

It's what I call a creeper too. Not in the way that a song is, where you have to hear it a few times and it grows on you, but in the way it became successful. American Television in case you didn't know is incredibly cut-throat. Shows are cancelled at the first sign of ratings poison, and even the big stars are never on more than a one season contract. Episodes are thus made to very short order. I remember they were still in Hawaii filming the Lost season 2 finale after the penultimate episode had aired. The upshot of this is that when a show gets cancelled half way through a season there has to be something else ready to step in. I think The 4400 is a case of this, as season one only runs to 5 episodes. Season 2 is then an ambitious 13, and season 3 promises the same. The season 3 premier garnered over 4m viewers, which although it launched in the nothing season (episode one aired June just gone) is pretty impressive.

The 5 episode "mini-series" format of season one makes it easy to dip into, and easy to discard if you don't like what's on offer, so if you have a spare 2-3 hours give it a go as you'll need to get to the end of episode 3 to start to appreciate it. The end of season 3 is only a few weeks off so if you want to avoid seeing spoilers you'd better get a move on. First two seasons available on DVD, season 3 is on the USA Network and Sky One, plus its well represented from all the usual sources.