The 4400



The 4400 is a new miniseries airing on USA Sunday nights. It's a kind of high concept sci-fi series, combined with some more soap opera-ish melodrama that's probably supposed to appeal to USA's older demographic.

A comet passing by earth suddenly changes course and looks to collide with our planet, but then slows down and becomes a ball of light that drops exactly 4400 missing persons outside Seattle. The 4400 people are form all over the world, and all disappeared, apparently kidnapped by aliens, over the last 50 years. None of the abductees have aged a day, nor do they have any memories after being abducted.


"Who knew Cameron Diaz could do that?"

At first the government quarantines everyone, but after a month and a half finds nothing, so the returned are free to go. Most of the American members of the 4400 stay around Seattle, which is fortunate because it keeps the series budget down, and means that the 4400 are easily investigated by Tom (Joel Gretsch) and Diane (Jacqueline McKenzie), who work for the Department of Homeland Security. At first the 4400's biggest problems would seem to be integrating with a society that thinks them dead or strange; later it becomes obvious some of them have paranormal powers.


"Turn your high beams off!"

It's an interesting concept, kind of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) meets X-Men (2000), with a touch of the comic series Rising Stars. I'll be curious to see if there is some good reason for why aliens did this. My only problem is some of the unlikely melodrama. Do we really care that Tom is going through a divorce while this going on? Is it really believable that Tom's son is in a coma, a coma he fell into while with Tom's nephew as he was abducted? With Tom's nephew among the returnees, does it make sense that Tom would accuse the nephew of some sort of negligence in his son's condition? You don't have to be Fox Mulder to realize IT WAS PROBABLY THE UFO!!! Hopefully future episodes will sort some of this out and get rid of the extraneous storylines.

Posted: Mon - July 12, 2004 at      

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