3 out of 5

Created by: Scott Peters and René Echevarria

Man, the early 00’s were a weird time for TV.  I’m a junkie now, but after I graduated from casual media watching to watch-out-I’m-an-asshole-with-opinions watching, television got left behind – with an upturned nose of judgment – in favor of movies.  Every “you should watch this” suggestion had me sussing out the weaknesses in the formula, generally citing the way that plotlines were obviously threaded in just to keep you watching.  The isolated experience of film was, haughty harumph, far superior.  And Lost happened.  And curiosity got the better of me for DVD rentals, and I totally understood the fever.  But if there was ever a show to abuse the “just keep watching” formula, it was Lost, and the wait between seasons (a wait I’d long spared myself by not being a TV person) led to expectation buildup, which removed the breathless experience of my DVD binge and had me flip-flopping to hate for the show’s clearly made-up-along-the-way logic.  I was broken for TV, and I went away to TV-less land for many years.

I’ve told this story for review framings before, but the use of it here is to laugh at myself: The 4400 is exactly the kind of tepid nonsense that had me swearing off TV in the first place.  But now, reformed, or converted, or whatever, and as an avowed TV fiend thanks to all our ruinous media consumption platforms, I can appreciate its bland brew for being a sort of spartan, get-the-job-done experience, as well as acknowledge some interesting elements the show did pretty well.  But man the early 00s were weird.  Everyone wanted to be Lost, but we hadn’t really figured out how to not make TV shows look like TV shows yet.  So the aspirations for something greater are in 4400s DNA, but you flip it on and tune out because, dang, it has the same non-gloss as every other USA / TNT / whatever show of that era.

Over the past seventy or so years, 4400 unrelated people have been disappeared, only to be returned in a ball of light one evening in Seattle.  The government is quick to jump on things, monitoring the returnees and dubbing them, appropriately, ‘The 4400,’ and then, deeming them non-threats, releases them out into the wild.  Some go back to families; some have been gone for too long to have that option.  The National Threat Assessment Command – NTAC – and particularly agents Tom Baldwin (Joel Gretsch) and Diana Skouris (Jacqueline McKenzie) are tasked with keeping tabs on the 4400, and when some returnees begin displaying unique powers – “unique” here being generic stuff like healing and precognition – there’s an even further shift in the world’s dynamic that essentially gets embellished (i.e. the “gifted” version everyone else) as the series continues.  But, initially, for the first two seasons-ish, this is X-Files material, with spooks of the week replaced by a 4400 of the week who requires Tom’s and Diana’s intervention to reintegrate with society.  A lot of cliches are there, with Tom being “the best damn agent” so-and-so’s ever seen, even though all we see is him get angry and bumble around; an enigmatic businessmen who seem to want to use people for profit (Billy Campbell as Jordan Collier, a particularly rich returnee who founds an agency in ‘support’ of the 4400); vague prophesis about doom and gloom from child returnee Maia (Conchita Campbell); ill-advised relationship squabbles and more.  Skirting that stuff, though, is 4400’s fairly dedicated world-building.  Don’t get me wrong: it’s completely ignorant in some regards.  Co-creator Scott Peters admitted that the 4400 number was chosen, essentially, because it sounded cool, and the revelations as to the ‘why’ of the returnees draws into question the exact reason for that precise number when we seem so focused on a small, Seattle-centric cluster, as well as the X-Men cliche of very specific, describable powers that fit into clean buckets.  Certainly there’s only one healer out of the thousands, for example.  And stuff like this will continue to crop up along the way.  But instead of over-Lostifying things by trying to justify and or most of this, the writers double down on the focus they start with and successfully keep most of their plates spinning.  A couple of characters fade in and out, but otherwise, surprisingly, even side characters are kept consistent throughout the series, and concepts introduced in the first season are carried through ’til the end.  It’s wholly uncomplicated popcorn, but it’s a store-brand popcorn that was nonetheless popped with love.

And I never found myself wishing for more.  Everything about the show sort of aims for a mid-range, and it makes it.  Years back this would have procured my derision, but nowadays, being able to stick the landing that consistently for four years is impressive, and an appreciative distraction that I can stream at my leisure.