Late to the Party: The 4400

Well, there went my Sunday. I'd heard a lot about this show, The 4400, that was supposed to be quite good, but it was on USA, started as a summer series a few years ago, and didn't really sound like something you could just jump into, so I hadn't bothered. But this morning, facing an empty Tivo, I was scrolling through the channels and stumbled into the second half of the pilot. I saw during a commercial break that they were running a marathon of the "essential" episodes, set up a season pass, and just like that my Sunday disappeared as I became steadily more addicted to this show.

I don't want to say too much about it in case any of you are tempted to run out and get the DVDs and get caught up before the newest season premiers next Sunday - which you should all do! - but here's the premise: in 2004 out of a big ball of light on the shores of a lake in the Pacific Northwest (convenient given the show's being filmed in Vancouver) 4400 people appear all at once. Turns out these 4400 people had disappeared, one at a time, over the past 60 years. None of them have aged a day, no one knows who took them, or where they've been, but some of them seem to have come back with some rather remarkable powers, which makes some people fear them, and others worship them. It's a bit of a mish-mash of X-Files, X-Men, and Lost, and it's very well done. We find out in fairly short order who took them and why (or do we? dun dun dun) but the mysteries don't end there.

That's one of the real pleasures of the show, the revelations come pretty fast [cough]Lost[cough] keeping up a great forward momentum, but there's always some new revelation or twist to come. And with 4400 (really less, they get killed off all the time and these people are not immortal, or ARE they? dun dun dun) people with superpowers roaming the planet, they can always bring in somebody new to stir things up if they ever get boring, which they certainly haven't so far. Of course, it's hard to say whether I'll enjoy this show nearly as much now that I'm all caught up and have to wait for new weekly episodes, or a significant part of the thrill was just abandoning myself to it in one great day-long obsession. (I watched every single "essential" episode and have the worst TV hangover of my life.) That caveat aside, I really encourage anyone who likes/liked Lost or the X-Files to set your Tivo, Netflix the first seasons on DVD, and get yourself hooked. Even after watching an embarassing number of hours of this show, I cannot WAIT for the next episode.