"A telekinetic insurance salesman, a clairvoyant eight-year old, and now some kind of sad-sack vigilante. And those are only the ones we know about." - Homeland Security agent Diana Skouris (Jacqueline McKenzie)
The 4400: The Complete First Season DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
It is almost a nightly occurrence: TV newscasters reporting on yet another person who has seemingly disappeared without a trace. Many are never found. Imagine, though, if a diverse group of people who have gone missing over the years all reappeared at the same time and in the same place, looking exactly as they did at the time they were last seen, and remembering nothing of the intervening years. That is the intriguing premise of The 4400: The Complete First Season, an engrossing sci-fi yarn that blends the paranormal mysteries of The X-Files with the heart-tugging emotions of high quality TV dramas like Once and Again.
As the series begins, the Department of Homeland Security's Seattle office is put on highest alert when a passing comet suddenly shifts course and threatens to destroy Washington state. The government launches a volley of ballistic missiles in an attempt to avert disaster, but the missiles have no effect on the asteroid. Bureau head Dennis Ryland (Peter Coyote) and his agents can only stand by and wait for the comet's inevitable impact. As it grows near, the asteroid turns out not to be an asteroid at all, but a giant ball of light that is headed toward Mt. Rainier. As if that isn't strange enough, the mysterious orb soon disperses, leaving behind 4,400 "missing" people who had disappeared from their lives over the past fifty years.
The returnees come from all walks of life, and the series focuses on a small handful of the 4400. The oldest returnee is Maia Rutledge (Conchita Campbell), who disappeared at age eight from Crescent City, California while on a family picnic in 1946. She's also the youngest returnee - none of the 4400 have aged, and none of them have any recollection of their time away. Richard Tyler (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali) was abducted while serving in the Korean War in 1951. Lily Moore (Laura Allen) left behind her husband and their newborn daughter in the early 1990s. High school senior Shawn Farrell (Patrick Flueger) was taken in 2001 while drinking beer with his cousin Kyle Baldwin (Chad Faust) on a beach.
Each hopes to pick up their lives where they left off since, to them, no time has passed. In actuality, spouses have remarried, relatives have died, neighborhoods have been razed to make way for interstates, and younger siblings are now OLDER siblings. Upon being released from a government containment facility, each returnee has to adjust to a newly unfamiliar world. Shawn, for example, discovers that Kyle has been in a coma since the day Shawn was abducted, making Shawn's disappearance even more baffling to their families. Now Kyle's father, Homeland Security agent Tom Baldwin (Joel Gresch), is determined to discover why the 4400 have returned - and why they were taken in the first place.
As Tom and his partner, agent Diana Skouris (Jacqueline McKenzie) begin their investigation, it soon becomes evident that many of the 4400 have changed. Some are psychic, some have telekinetic powers, and some even have the power to heal. Diana theorizes that the returnees have been sent back for specific reasons, and that the actions of each create a "ripple effect" that could eventually change society as a whole. The death of one abductee spurs a movement for social change in his rundown neighborhood. Another accidental death inadvertently prevents the completion of a multi-million dollar insurance swindle. Coincidence, or is there a higher plan at work? Tom is determined to find the answer, unaware that the key to the mystery is much closer than he thinks.
The idea behind The 4400 is ingenious. Not only do we follow a core group of characters to whom we have an emotional bond, there are also thousands of other potential storylines to explore. In a way, the series can be seen as a distant cousin to Lost in that each episode focuses on a different member of a group - even a member we haven't seen before. Unlike Lost, however, if The 4400 ran for ten years, it would not even come close to exhausting its character pool. The relative briefness of this first season also helps because it does not allow the series to fall into repetition or monotony.
The show's concept also allows for the effective use of guest stars. In the pilot episode, Law & Order's Michael Moriarty gives a wonderfully nuanced performance as an insurance salesman who disappeared in 1979 on the eve of his 39th wedding anniversary. He returns to find that his now-senile wife is in a nursing home, his business has been sold, and that his entire life has been irrevocably changed. Moriarty is heartbreakingly effective in his portrayal of this seemingly mild character that becomes uncontrollably enraged by his loss of control. Other guests include Oz's Lee Tergesen, Sex and the City's David Eigenberg, and Tales of the City's Billy Campbell.
The series also makes effective use of post-9/11 lingo and jargon. The most obvious, of course, is centering the series on the Department of Homeland Security. At one point, a domestic terrorist is arrested as an "enemy combatant," and told in no uncertain terms that the Miranda rights do not apply to him. Still, the series avoids being jingoistic, especially in it portrayal of a particularly soulless agent who is sent by the Feds to monitor affairs in the Seattle bureau.
All of the show's riddles are not completely solved by the final episode, but the resolution is still satisfying. For every question answered, at least one or two other questions are raised. Since The 4400 has been renewed for another season, however, viewers shouldn't have long to wait for some of the show's other mysteries to be solved.
The five episodes that make up the first season are housed on two discs. The discs are held in a standard keepcase that includes an interior swinging arm for the second disc. The menus are simple and functional. There is no "play all" feature. There are also no scene selection menus, although the episodes are divided into chapters.
