TV: The 4400
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a sucker for a good sci-fi story. I even like some of the bad ones. Apparently I missed season one of The 4400 last summer. The good news: It was a short, five episode season and they played all five episodes before the season premiere this summer. Thanks to the wonders of TiVo, I was able to get caught up in time for the season premiere on The USA Network.
The premise of the show revolves around 4,400 people who are all returned to Earth at the exact same moment. We don't really know why they've returned or where exactly they've come back from. And the frustrating part? None of the 'abductees' remember anything between the time they disappeared and the time they returned. Another interesting part of the show is that these 4,400 people who all reappeared on earth at the exact same time in the exact same place, near Mt. Rainer in Washington, were all abducted over a range of roughly one century. Some abductees were born in the 1900s, while others were only missing for a few months...and they all appeared by a lake in Washington in 2004.
The 1st season of The 4400 showed a lot of promise. The storyline begins well, because the writers chose less than a dozen of the 4400 characters to focus on (that could've been messy). Each of these characters has the ability to do something supernatural. A young girl can see the future, a teenage boy can give and take life by the touch of his hand, a woman who is pregnant can sense danger through her unborn child, the list goes on. The question is, why do they all have these abilities? Shortly into the show we discover that the 'abductees' were not taken by aliens, but rather were taken by humans in the future. Apparently the future of Earth is rather dismal, and future humans abducted the 4400 and returned them to 2005 to alter the timeline, in hopes of a better present for the future earthlings.
Now I'm completely sucked in. I would've loved a series about alien abductees, but a show about time travel? You don't have to tell me twice.
The bad news, however, is that the first three episodes during this summer season have been frustrating. The show, from the beginning, suffered from poor acting and dialogue, but I was prepared for some of that. The show is on The USA Network, and it's a sci-fi show. Can you say double-whammy? The creative storyline and subject matter allowed me to overlook some of that, but it seems to be getting worse.
The less-than-a-dozen character plan seems to be failing, as even the handful of stories the show is following seem to be meandering and too loosely strung together. At the end of season one, the government agents that were studying "the 4400" were analyzing how the powers given to the abductees were causing events, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, that would cause ripple effects that would somehow affect the future in a positive manner. It seemed like there were dozens of possibilities for the show. Now, the show seems to be meandering into a soap opera-like dialogue, losing interest in tying things together.
Overall the series is fun, and I'll probably keep watching just to see what happens. If the writing and dialogue take a turn for the better, I'll do a follow-up and you can catch it on DVD.
Final Score: 3 Cents
The premise of the show revolves around 4,400 people who are all returned to Earth at the exact same moment. We don't really know why they've returned or where exactly they've come back from. And the frustrating part? None of the 'abductees' remember anything between the time they disappeared and the time they returned. Another interesting part of the show is that these 4,400 people who all reappeared on earth at the exact same time in the exact same place, near Mt. Rainer in Washington, were all abducted over a range of roughly one century. Some abductees were born in the 1900s, while others were only missing for a few months...and they all appeared by a lake in Washington in 2004.
The 1st season of The 4400 showed a lot of promise. The storyline begins well, because the writers chose less than a dozen of the 4400 characters to focus on (that could've been messy). Each of these characters has the ability to do something supernatural. A young girl can see the future, a teenage boy can give and take life by the touch of his hand, a woman who is pregnant can sense danger through her unborn child, the list goes on. The question is, why do they all have these abilities? Shortly into the show we discover that the 'abductees' were not taken by aliens, but rather were taken by humans in the future. Apparently the future of Earth is rather dismal, and future humans abducted the 4400 and returned them to 2005 to alter the timeline, in hopes of a better present for the future earthlings.
Now I'm completely sucked in. I would've loved a series about alien abductees, but a show about time travel? You don't have to tell me twice.
The bad news, however, is that the first three episodes during this summer season have been frustrating. The show, from the beginning, suffered from poor acting and dialogue, but I was prepared for some of that. The show is on The USA Network, and it's a sci-fi show. Can you say double-whammy? The creative storyline and subject matter allowed me to overlook some of that, but it seems to be getting worse.
The less-than-a-dozen character plan seems to be failing, as even the handful of stories the show is following seem to be meandering and too loosely strung together. At the end of season one, the government agents that were studying "the 4400" were analyzing how the powers given to the abductees were causing events, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, that would cause ripple effects that would somehow affect the future in a positive manner. It seemed like there were dozens of possibilities for the show. Now, the show seems to be meandering into a soap opera-like dialogue, losing interest in tying things together.
Overall the series is fun, and I'll probably keep watching just to see what happens. If the writing and dialogue take a turn for the better, I'll do a follow-up and you can catch it on DVD.
Final Score: 3 Cents
Zimm's two cents. | 12:38 AM
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