Sorry, I completely spaced on my 4400 recap this week ...
Curtis Peck is a really bad filmmaker (think Ed Wood) and one of the "original recipe" 4400s. His ability is to uncover conspiracies in the process of writing about them. His resume includes the Kennedy assassination and Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance, and his latest film -- "The Marked" -- involves Bad Future People.
According to Peck, ten agents from the future have possessed the bodies of prominent people in our time. One of these was creepy Matthew Ross, who Isabelle killed last season. Which makes sense. Another is somebody like Bill Gates, who despite having "The Mark" behind his ear denies knowing anything about a conspiracy ... yet still says that IF such a group did exist, their goal would probably be to get rid of Jordan Collier.
Tom gets thrown in a nut house for a few days, and wakes to find that he is "marked" now too. But as far as he can tell, he isn't possessed by a future person. Curtis Peck disappears, and the next time he shows up, he has abandoned his project, claims that he made it all up, and has a movie deal. Clearly somebody got to him, and either tweaked his brain or paid him off.
Meanwhile, Jordan and Kyle keep trying to pull Shawn over to their side, but Shawn says no, insisting that it's important he runs for city council, in order to stop Gabriel Hewitt's nefarious plans for the future. In response, somebody on Team Jordan makes Hewitt have a stroke, which Shawn then heals for him, hoping it will change Hewitt's opinion of 4400s.
Still not as much action as I'd like to see, but at least the plot is getting more intriguing.
This episode was a nice step in the right direction. Maia's visions of a fascist future were suitably creepy and foreboding, and showing us an entire town filled with Promicin-powered citizens finally gives us a sense of the pervasiveness of the "freak" situation. Still, the writers could have taken it a bit farther than they did. I'm reminded of scenes from the X-Men comics/movies, where we see kids playing ball with each other, and every five minutes, somebody has to yell, "Hey, no fair using your powers!"
Maybe it's just an indication of the show's special effects budget, but the powers shown were kind of weak. A guy shooting flame out of his finger like it's a butane lighter, a gun heating up, a woman willing apples out of a tree, a kid screeching, and a tension-relieving shrink. I wanted to see somebody in the background casually lifting a car to pick up a penny, or somebody walking through a wall as a shortcut, or somebody turning their head 360 degrees when they hear their name. In other words, something that couldn't already have been done on TV back in the 60s.
Seems like the writers are really playing up the religious angle at this point. Which could be interesting if they twist it around a little. For instance, I'm wondering, did the book actually say that those people on the list needed to take Promicin in order to get powers? Or just that they need to take Promicin? Big difference, right? What if they know that everybody on the list will get a power except for a select few, like Tom, who will die? Could make things tricky for Kyle.
Diana finally finds April, who is a human lie detector. She's caught up in a murder, the details of which are kind of fuzzy to me. Anyway, Tom and Diana take care of it, and April gets hired by NTAC. Diana decides not to go back to Spain. Shawn is thinking about running for office. Kyle and Isabelle decode the Future Book, and discover a list of names of people who need to get Promicin shots. And Tom is the last name on the list. And ... that's pretty much it. Once again, by the end of the episode, I'm left wishing something more would happen.
Okay, the holiday is upon us tomorrow, so I doubt we'll get much chatter about this last week's episode. Once again, it was okay, but not really earth-shattering. Old woman takes Promicin. Old woman gets power of astral projection. Old woman gets killed, but her astral version sticks around, and it becomes a classic ghost story where the person can't "cross over" until their killer is found. It was kind of clever to do this in a sci-fi way instead of a horror way ... but not all that clever.
Meanwhile, Shawn re-opens the 4400 Center and after some token bluster, NTAC lets him, Molly (aka the Least Believable NTAC Director Ever) cries a lot and gets Shawn to heal her father, Diana seems disappointed when her boyfriend and daughter come back from Spain to join her, and Kyle's feminine side tells him exactly where to be when Isabelle's police transport gets into a freak accident, freeing her. In other words, hardly anything happens at all.
Seriously, TEN THOUSAND powered-up freaks in the world, and this is as chaotic as the world is right now? NTAC has time to read blogs and harass old arthritic librarians? There isn't some petty crook in Kentucky with delusions of grandeur because he just realized he can zip around like The Flash and rob any bank he wants? There isn't a housewife in Texas accidentally blowing up Mexican restaurants with Promicin-induced explosive farts? There isn't some geek flying around the Manhattan skyline screaming, "Look at me, I'm Superman, I'm SUPERMAN!!!"?
And where's Richard? I had hopes that he'd show up at the 4400 Center and save Shawn with his TK powers, now that he's had months on the road to practice with them. But no such luck. Instead we get another one of Tom's "can't we all just get along" speeches. Come on 4400 writers, howzabout a little action? Don't save it all for the season finale.
In this week's The 4400, a misguided father tries to "fix" his autistic son by giving him a Promicin shot. The kid then gets the power to make people's fears seem real, thereby driving them crazy. Tom and Diana -- who's now working for NTAC again -- track the kid down, Shawn heals his autism, and the father goes to prison. But I'm guessing it's not the last we see of that kid and his fear schtick.
Okay, so what else? Diana is back, Molly has a sick father who we all know she's going to ask Shawn to heal, Tom lets go of Alana, Shawn's brother feels inadequate and wants to risk taking Promicin, Isabelle learns that if she ever takes Promicin, she'll die, and Kyle discovers that his power is ... well ... having a cute girl in his head, who shows up on his bed when he gets out of the shower, and who he's embarrassed to tell his father about. Yeah, Kyle, I had that "power" too, when I was a teenager. It's called PUBERTY. You just better watch out what you do with your new-found "power", or you'll get hairy palms ... and possibly go blind.
I have to say, while I enjoyed this episode, I saw quite a few things coming at least 5 minutes before the writers got there. Such as the autistic kid being the one with the power, as well as the father's motivation. And the kid going to the train station. That kind of thing. It doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the show one bit, but it makes me wonder whether it's because: A) I've just been watching WAY too many sci-fi shows and now I'm constantly looking for the patterns; or B) the writers aren't stretching hard enough to surprise us ... and if they are or aren't, does it really matter? Just a thought. Let me know if you have an opinion about this.
In the Season 4 premiere of The 4400, it looks like the writers have gotten back to the "freak of the week" formula that served the show well in the first couple of seasons. The big difference now, of course, is that the "freaks" are no longer only 4400s. Now they might be what Marco calls "Extra Crispies" -- people who have taken Promicin injections and received powers from them. At one point, we see a newspaper headline that reports 6000 people will die from taking Promicin injections by year's end. So using the 50-50 formula we were given in last season's finale, this means that roughly 6000 people will have received powers in that time. Which puts the total freak count up to 10,000 or so at this point ... and growing.
Among that count is an antisocial teenage boy named Graham -- an "Extra Crispy" who discovers that his power is to make people worship him. He handles this about as maturely as you'd expect -- getting cheerleaders to bang him and all that. More importantly, he single-handedly revitalizes the black hoodie economy in the state of Washington. But he oversteps himself when he tries to take over ALL of Seattle, and Jordan Collier himself has to deliver the smackdown, revealing his own power in the process -- the ability to neutralize the Promicin in a person's body and take away their powers.
By solving a problem that NTAC couldn't, Jordan continues to establish himself as a savior of mankind ... kind of like that other guy with a beard and the initials J.C. who came back from the dead. Hey, I never said the show wasn't heavy-handed at times!
As for the regular characters, Tom is back, but missing Alana, who seems to have been pushed a couple hundred years back in time by the Future People. Diana was living peacefully in Spain with Maia and the photographer until Marco let her know that her sister might have taken Promicin, which prompted her to return to the States. Kyle took Promicin, but it doesn't seem to have killed him or given him powers, and he uses a boost of it to wake Shawn from his coma. The now-powerless Isabelle is in jail, and Richard is still missing.
Over at NTAC, there's a new sheriff in town, in the form of Meghan Doyle, who likes foreign films and seems to be a bit unorthodox in her methods. Odds are, there's more to her than meets the eye. (My money is on her being a Future Person or something.)
In case you can't get enough of The 4400, be sure to check out USA Network's attempt at a viral web marketing campaign, in the form of several blogs that discuss the pros and cons of the fictional Promicin drug ...
http://www.promicininfo.com/
http://www.promicinpower.com/
http://www.promicinterror.com/
I'll admit, I'm impressed with the amount of work they've done fleshing out the story online. Whether or not the campaign will be successful at getting people to watch the show is another matter entirely. But as somebody who works in web marketing, I'm always curious to see ideas like this tried out.
[guest-posted by the geekboy]
Time to wrap up this season of The 4400, starting with last week's episode ...
The Nova prisoners escape from NTAC with the help of Jordan Collier, who reveals his plan to save the world from its bleak future (an elite minority that dominates an underprivileged majority), even if it means a war between the 4400s and the rest of the world. Richard sides with Jordan, and after a lapse of faith, so does Shawn ... and Tom's son Kyle. With Isabelle's help, Ryland rushes to build his army of super-soldiers, but not quite fast enough. Jordan, Burkhoff, and Tess steal Haspelcorp's entire supply of Promicin. The plan? Give it to the masses, and make everybody special.
In the season finale, Jordan's assistant Devon acts as the first guinea pig (besides Burkhoff) ... and dies. Ryland reveals that roughly half of all non-4400s who take Promicin will die in the first couple of days, and the other will eventually get powers. Steep odds. Shawn gets arrested, and after using Isabelle to dig into his brain, Ryland tries to recover the stolen Promicin. But it's a trap, and while Isabelle survives, none of the other super-soldiers do, and Ryland goes a bit loopy. Isabelle rushes to the Center to start killing 4400s in an attempt to draw out Jordan, but ends up facing Tom and Richard instead, who use the Future People needle on her.
So Isabelle is now powerless and Shawn's in a coma. Richard goes on the run alone, and the 4400 Center gets shut down. Jordan hands out needles of Promicin to homeless people for mass distribution, then goes into hiding with Kevin and Tess. Diane's sister April and Tom's son Kyle are both going to inject themselves. Diane and Maia leave for Spain with Ben (presumably to return by the start of next season). And Alana gets sucked up into the sky in a burst of light. So much for rewarding Tom for doing what you asked him to, Future People!
FYI ... the show has already been picked up for a fourth season, which will begin next summer.
[guest-posted by the geekboy]
Sorry, with the big move a couple weeks ago, I got a bit behind on The 4400. So here's a quick rundown of the last four episodes, for those of you who might actually want to discuss it ...
Tom and Diana get high on Promicin cookies. Tom talks to his dead father. Diana breaks up with Marco. Shawn tries to kill Isabelle ... and fails. So he agrees to marry her.
Dr. Burkhoff finally returns, along with Tess, who helps him try to turn Diana into a Brundlefly. They fail, Burkhoff heals himself to the point of looking normal again, and they hit the road. Shawn becomes a roadie for a drugged-up rock star. Richard hones his TK, presumably for some inevitable showdown with Isabelle.
With Ryland at the helm, Haspelcorp uses Promicin extracted from a willing Isabelle to create some 4400-like super soldiers. One of these goes rogue and starts killing people with a local and very rare genetic mutation, who it turns out are the only people that can breed with 4400s to create children with 4400 powers. Which presumably explains why the Future People chose Seattle as the return point. Meanwhile, Shawn gets high on a magic cigar, sees several possible futures, none of them good, and sticks with his decision to marry Isabelle. Then, on the day of the wedding, an unshaven and not-so-dead Jordan Collier shows up.
As far as I can tell, the Future People snatched Collier, brought him back to life, fast-forwarded him through some bleak years to their time, then sent him back again with little to no idea of who he was. Tom, frantic to get his son out of prison, smuggles Alana back into the country to help Collier get his memory back, then helps get Collier away from NTAC, and in return, Collier exonerates Kyle, who is set free. Collier paints himself as a kind of messiah, and based on how afraid the usually unflappable Isabelle is of him, one has to wonder if he's right. He banishes her from the 4400 Center, claiming that she is more evil than human, and forbids her to ever return. Is he right? Or is Collier the evil one? Regardless, I'm sure Shawn is relieved.
Two more episodes left in the season!
[guest-posted by the geekboy]
I'm posting about The 4400 kind of late this week, so I'll keep it brief. It was kind of a "meh" episode anyway. Isabelle has gone from Darth Vader mode to Fatal Attraction mode, in a way that was kind of predictable. Ryland is working for Halliburton ... er, I mean, "Haspelcorp" ... and enjoying it a bit too much. Isabelle is working with them, letting them do all sorts of tests on her, although we don't know why yet. Alana betrays Tom by tipping off Gary the Terrorist Mind-Reader, then goes to jail, which results in Tom and Diana catching Gary, so that Tom can make a deal with Ryland to free Alana, but then Tom double-crosses Ryland, and in the end, Alana and Gary have to flee the country. So now, without Alana there to take him on virtual vacations, I'm guessing Tom will become a very cranky man.
And still, no sign of the Dr. Burkhoff subplot ...
[guest-posted by the geekboy]
In this episode of The 4400, we got a few major questions answered ... and a few new ones raised. We find out what Matthew told Isabelle her mission was after her growth spurt -- to kill all 4400s. Of course, we learn this just before she kills him, and so we still don't know who the hell Matthew was, where/when he was from, or if what he was saying is the truth. It does seem very plausible, though, considering that Isabelle apparently has the ability to turn a 4400's power against him/herself. Which is exactly what she does to Daniel Armand and a couple of other Nova Group members during her "rogue" time away from the Center, indirectly(?) killing two of them in the process.
And then there's the matter of the Future People wanting her dead. But Tom isn't convinced yet, and passes on the opportunity to kill her until he's certain. Of course, her actually being the 4400 "antichrist" seems too obvious to me. So my guess is that she's really their savior somehow. She's certainly Shawn's. So I'll be curious to see how this plays out. And to find out what's up with her and Dennis Ryland! I'm guessing it can't be a good thing.
In other news, Alanna finds the drunk driver who killed her husband and son, confronts him, and ... what? The next day, the guy ends up getting drunk, driving, and getting critically injured in an accident. So was it just plain old guilt that made him do that? Or did she use her power to show him something that made the guilt unbearable? The accident itself maybe, or an alternate world where her husband and son were still alive and happy? Regardless, "Bad Alanna!" Let's see what her own guilt does to her now.
Meanwhile, what the hell happened to the Dr. Burkhoff subplot? I want more BrundleFly action!!!
[guest-posted by the geekboy]
Kind of a slow week on The 4400. You know, just the typical episode.
Tom and Diana resist the Borg Queen's memory wipe, still remember Maia on some subconscious level, use Alana's alternate reality power to flesh the memories out, gradually manage to locate Maia and the other kids at different points in the past, find out that Maia died of scarlet fever in the late 1800s, Diana goes a bit crazy and traps herself in one of Alana's illusions, slowly killing herself, then Tom calls the future's bluff and tries to hang himself off the side of a bridge, fairly confident that the future people won't let him die, and they don't, and he brokers a deal with the Borg Queen to bring the kids back to the present. In return, he has to "Kill Isabelle". No big woop.
Over at the 4400 Center, Richard finds out that Shawn has been sleeping with Isabelle and confronts him. Shawn relents and breaks things off with Isabelle, who insists in a smiling Glenn Close kind of way that things are NOT over, and who then confronts Richard and begins to turn his guts inside-out, while Matthew watches on and grins nefariously.
Isabelle sees this, and stops short of killing her father, but one wonders if she'll be able to control herself next time. Meanwhile, the Nova Group insists on a meeting with Richard, and when he turns them down, one of their 4400s begins transmitting some kind of paranoia into Shawn's head, which culminates in him cutting his own arm open with a knife.
So can we assume that "the enemy" the future people are referring to probably includes Matthew -- seeing as they want to kill Isabelle, who definitely seems to be part of Matthew's plan? Then again, a few episodes ago, it was Matthew who handed Isabelle a suicide needle similar to the needle the future people gave Tom this week. And which side was it that drove Kyle to assassinate Collier? And just where is Collier, and which side is he on? All in all, I can't help but think that the story isn't quite as clear-cut as the Borg Queen makes it sound.
[guest-posted by the geekboy]
This week on The 4400, Maia gets kidnapped by The Borg Queen, who has disguised herself as a human being in order to assimilate young 4400s, so that their special future powers can be used to strengthen the collective and further the goal of annhiliating the pesky Federation once and for all ...
Okay, I know -- wrong sci-fi universe. But the actual plot line is no less creative. Presumably the Future People aren't happy with the progress that the 4400s have made so far toward the goal of changing the timeline. So they've decided to correct things on the fly, by removing some 4400 children from this part of the timeline, and re-seeding them into the timeline at an earlier point, where they will hopefully have more of an impact. The result, as Maia predicted at the beginning of the episode, is that her mother and everybody else will forget about her entirely. Which is kind of a bonus for Marco, who will no longer remember how he dies.
So I'm wondering where this goes now. Will Maia and the other kids grow up in the past and re-appear as teens or adults in the current timeline? Then they could all be freak-friends with Isabelle. That is, of course, unless Isabelle continues on her current path to becoming Darth Vader. Seriously, though, things are looking bleak for Isabelle, no? Having rebelled against her pimp daddy Matthew, it seems like she's on the classic "absolute power corrupts absolutely" career track ... which never ends well. Dark Phoenix anybody? And I can't wait for the inevitable episode where Shawn scorns her, and fury ensues.
[guest-posted by the geekboy]
The Freak of the Week on this episode of The 4400 is a teenage boy with the chameleon-like ability to appear to be other people. Mostly, he likes to be Tom Baldwin. Which of course for all the Star Trek TOS fans out there resulted in some moments of deja vu. Remember, when Kirk got duplicated by the transporter, and one was good and the other was bad? Remember that? Wasn't that awesome? This is especially relevant when you consider that Joel Gretsch (Tom) is actually William Shatner's son-in-law. So do you think Bill coached Joel on how to beat himself up? At any rate, we can now check "Evil Twin/Clone/Imposter" off our list of "Ten Most Commonly Used Sci-Fi Plots" that have been used with success by this show.
Over at the 4400 Center, Shawn teaches Isabelle how not to drown, how to drive like an idiot, and how to be a whore. Actually, I guess Matthew the right-hand man taught her that last bit ... but it certainly looks like Shawn is going to take advantage of it. So what do you think Matthew was talking about when he told Isabelle that she and Shawn would one day be on "opposite sides"? He seems to know a lot of things we don't. For instance, how did he know that Isabelle could change her eye color? Is he a 4400? Or is he channeling somebody from the future?
Meanwhile, Dr. Burkhoff continues his homage to BrundleFly by (ick) losing his fingernails, then further attempts to impress Diana by stabbing himself in the hand with a letter opener and having the wound heal a few seconds later. And is it just me, or was Diana gazing down at him in kind of a lovey way as Burkhoff slept in that one scene? Maybe she's a woman who likes a "fixer-upper" -- a man who's passionate about what he does, to the point of mental illness and self-destruction? If so, then sorry Marco!
Next week, Maia disappears ... kind of like, um, the Kyle Baldwin character, who's been MIA all season. What's up with that?
[guest-posted by the geekboy]
Well, The 4400 returned last night, and I was very pleased with it. The writers have done a great job at reflecting the "greyness" of politcal and personal morality in this day and age. There's NTAC, who fears and mistrusts and has therefore villainized all 4400s with one broad brush. There's the extreme Nova Group, who has villainized NTAC to the extent of trying to assassinate its top officials one by one. There's the 4400 Center, which could almost be said to be "neutral", if not for Shawn's flip-flopping back and forth about the Nova Group, and the fact that his right-hand man clearly has a nefarious agenda all his own. And in the middle of all this is the newly-adult Isabelle, who is trying desperately to figure out whether she is good or evil or something in between.
Unfortunately, Isabelle's soul-searching is not going to be made any easier by the fact her growth spurt seems to have indirectly killed her mother. Talk about survivor guilt. But I'm not counting Lily out just yet -- after all, we never saw what her 4400 power was, and Isabelle has the power to heal herself, so ... who knows.
Meanwhile, Tom is learning what a boon his wife's power can be when it comes to making the most of your vacation days. Maia is growing bored of living life as a constant rerun. Diana and Marco have the most platonic dating relationship I've ever seen. And Dr. Burkhoff is pulling a "Brundle Fly" by injecting himself with promicin ... and can I say how glad I am that Jeffery Combs is a regular on the show now?
The key plot point revolves around what the Nova Group will do on October 19th. The worst is assumed -- destruction of major cities, a catastrophic plague, assassination of government leaders. But in the end, Nova pulls off a hugely passive-aggressive act of terror, by bringing a field of wheat to a barren desert in Africa. Their message is clear (paraphrasing): "Be our friend, and you can have nice stuff like this. But be our enemy, and we'll mess you up." And thanks to humanity's fine line between fear and self-preservation, this can only continue to muddle everybody's moral compass in the months to come.
[guest-posted by the geekboy]
Honestly, this week's episode of The 4400 was kind of weak. The writers were a little heavy-handed with the parallel plotlines, all four of them involving repentance and/or forgiveness. The Rwandan 4400 sat by and watched thousands of people get murdered, and hopes to redeem himself a little by healing unborn babies with defects. Diana ends up forgiving her sister for using Maia's abilities, but doesn't let her stay. Kyle doesn't believe anybody will forgive him for unwittingly assassinating Jordan Collier, so he runs away. And Richard looks as if he might forgive the old racist war "buddy" who beat the crap out of him 50 years ago for dating a white woman, but when the guy proves to be entirely unrepentant, Richard just says some mean things to him and walks away. Okay, okay, we get it!
Most annoying, though, was Tom's angry indignance about Edwin Mayuya's crimes. While I agree that on a moral level, Mayuya's failure to stop what was happening was wrong, and even punishable, I simply don't buy the fact that Tom was SO upset about it, to the point of seemingly wanting to execute the guy himself. There's nothing in Tom's personal, familial, or cultural past that would justify this kind of visceral response to what was essentially a crime of cowardly inaction -- or if there is, the writers didn't bother to let us know about it.
I'm hoping for a better episode next week.
[guest posted by the geekboy]
I'm running late with my 4400 post this week, because my own life got interrupted by some flooding in our house, and I didn't get a chance to watch the latest episode until Wednesday. Anyway, since this one dealt primarily with only one character, I'll keep it short. Tom wakes up one day, and learns that "It's a Wonderful Life". No 4400's freaking up the world, no deadbeat son giving him headaches, no boss hating on him all the time. Just a weird door that's sometimes there and sometimes not. Oh, and a hot European(?) wife who also remembers how crappy things used to be.
Bottom line: The Future People looked back in time, and said, "That Mulder needs to get laid more." "His name isn't Mulder, it's Tom." "What?" "His name is Tom Baldwin." "Oh. Well, he's a cop. He should get laid more. Let's give him an exotic wife." "Seriously?" "Yeah, sure, why not? But the joke's on him, we'll f--k his life up royally in the next few weeks." Meanwhile Diana's all like, "What the frig? Where's MY instant husband? Hello! In case anybody hasn't noticed, it's not like my bed's been rocking the past two years! Sure, just give me the annoying sister and a daughter who can tell me where I left my car keys when I lose them. THANKS!!!"
I give this episode a thumbs up. A bit off the beaten path, but nicely self-contained.
[guest posted by the geekboy]
... we finally get an episode of The 4400 that doesn't center around an X-File case. Which is bad news for those who watch purely for the sci-fi cameos, but GREAT news for those who have been dying to have the plotlines of the main characters connected a bit more. I really thought this episode stepped things up a notch. Richard and Lilly are no longer fugitives. Lilly gets to see her daughter again ... at least until Heidi's spleen explodes or whatever. Let's see, what else happened ... something ... what was it ... oh yeah ... JORDAN COLLIER BITES IT.
Or DID he? Maia predicts the death rather convincingly. But Baby Isabelle gives Colliier a vision in which he doesn't die. So did Isabella really "lie" to him? Or did he fake his own death? Because a few days later, his body disappears. Kind of like that other guy with a beard ... wait ... Jordan Collier ... Jesus Christ ... J.C. More than coincidence? Anyway, the nebulous figures now seem to be Kyle and Isabelle. I get the impression that one of them is a force for good and one is a force for evil, but which is which? And was/is Jordan really on the bad side, or the good side? And how will things change now that Shawn is running the show?
After kind of a slow (but fun) start this season, the show is finally starting to make my head spin with guessing. Which is exactly what I like my sci-fi to do. Loves it!
guest-posted by the geekboy
No real sci-fi cameos in this week's episode of The 4400, at least that I could pick out. The casting department is clearly slipping. What, you're telling me there's NOBODY from Babylon 5 who's looking for work? I find that hard to believe. Also no real Scientology bashing that I could discern -- did Tom Cruise get to the writers?
The main plot line this week shows us how far the "No Child Left Behind" program has come. A teacher abducted in 1974 is accused of abusing children when she acts as a kind of muse and immediately unlocks their natural talents. What she seems to have forgotten, unfortunately, is that many kids don't have natural talent, and that sometimes what's needed to succeed is not the flip of a switch, but raw hope and determination. Who's to say that gun-boy couldn't have gone on to become a happy and successful -- if uninspired -- graphic artist of some kind?
Meanwhile, Jordan comes off looking pretty good this week. His advice to Shawn about not healing the homeless turns out to be sound, and Isabelle seems to give him her blessing, thereby bringing Richard and Lily back into the fold. So does this mean he's really good ... or that Isabelle is really evil? Oh, and Kyle has another unexplained blackout.
VIEWER ALERT: Starting 9am EST on Saturday, July 2nd, USA Networks is marathon-ing the entire run of The 4400 so far, including all the first season episodes.
guest-posted by the geekboy
This week's cameo on The 4400 is the holographic doctor from Star Trek Voyager, and his magic 4400 power is to put TrimSpa out of business. Apparently, there's now an "enzyme or somethin" in Trent's saliva that causes a person's metabolism to speed up dramatically, resulting in rapid weight loss. Which seems great at first, until you've eaten everything in your fridge, including those nasty pickled eggs your uncle gave you in 1997 ... and you're still hungry. NTAC gets control of the situation, but not before the loan shark and his wife literally starve to death, thereby "fleshing out" the cautionary tale. Exactly what the Future People had in mind this time around is kind of vague -- but I suspect the plan was to put an end to Anna Nicole once and for all.
Meanwhile, the Exorcist baby behaves itself this week, but Richard pisses off the wrong guy; they lose their chance to settle down, and they're on the road again. At the 4400 Center, the writers make it clear to us that they don't like Kabbalah any more than Scientology, and Jordan teaches J.Lo (or whoever) a new sex position called "Third Key".
Maia saves the life of a biker (another sci-fi regular) ... who goes on to become the first Pope with ink. Kyle attends a college party and blacks out (been there done that), and ends the show with perhaps the creepiest mirror scene since Leland Palmer morphed into "Bob" on Twin Peaks.
Note to USA Network: STOP RUNNING TWO MINUTES OVER!
guest-posted by the geekboy
Guest-starring on tonight's episode of The 4400: Gallant from "ER"; Andromeda from "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda"; Natalie Wood's daughter; and a guy doing a bad (and possibly dubbed?) Australian accent, who you've seen doing bit parts in countless sci-fi shows before, but whose name you can't place, even after you see it.
Richard and Lily are still "fugitiving" from one town to the next (cue Incredible Hulk piano theme), killing bounty hunters, stealing money, and getting innocent people arrested. But they mean well. At one point, the baby looks like it's thinking really hard, which makes you think it might be pooping, but it's actually doing something to Richard ... but what? Punishing him for disagreeing with Lily? Or maybe (as I suspect) "unlocking" Richard's 4400 power? Meanwhile, Maia predicts a power outage, Diana has a slutty sister, Tom can write a check in under 2 seconds, and Kyle is "hot for teacher". But the key story -- besides the whole mind-reading baseball player spying on Collier who's trying to take over a small island thing -- is that the 4400 Center does not allow its residents to use pharmaceuticals. Which means the writers are DEFINITELY poking a stick at Scientology. Do you think Brooke Shields might be a silent producer?
And does this mean that Katie Holmes might be a 4400?
The geekboy has graciously agreed to recap the second season premiere of The 4400.
Season 2 opens one year later. Since the end of last season, Lily and Richard have had their mulatto superbaby, with which Lily apparently has daily "conversations". I imagine the baby sounds like Stewie from Family Guy: "Damn you, woman! We need to run! Run! The Amish Texas Ranger with his bible passages is on to us!" So they decide to flee. But then they don't flee. Then the baby goes all Exorcist in a gift shop ... and they're fleeing again.
Over at the newly-built 4400 Center, Collier has taken Shawn under his wing, and is using him to finance the new 4400 Centers -- and his book about The 4400 -- by getting him to heal very sick people. For a steep price. Upon its release, the book causes a media stir, particularly because of Collier's claim that he can "bring out The 4400" in anybody. Hm. Do I smell a veiled criticism of Scientology here? If so, bring it on!
Not-Scully adopts the precog girl, who is acting like she's not precog any more. Not-Mulder gets his un-possessed son back ... who I'm convinced is only ACTING un-possessed, biding his time, working his way back into Shawn's life. Other than that, these two plotlines are kind of "blah blah blah" for me so far, but I'm sure they're going somewhere.
Meanwhile, back at the psych ward, the actress from Firefly who plays River -- a mentally disturbed girl with special powers -- is introduced to us as Tess, one of The 4400, who is ... well ... a mentally disturbed girl with special powers. Clearly, Summer Glau's agent is NOT concerned about typecasting. Her best friend at the institute is none other than Jeffery Combs, an awesome B-actor last seen regularly playing a blue-skinned alien on Enterprise. But the first times I ever saw Combs were in the movies Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Bride of Re-Animator -- all based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. No big wonder then that the first thing we see "Kevin" do is hand Tess a collection of Lovecraft stories. I love these writers!!!
Cameo-gawking aside, the jist of the Tess/Kevin plotline is that Tess's trip to the future has turned her into some kind of "queen ant", who is able to compel both the inmates and the staff to build a giant version of Devil's Tower out of mashed potatoes. Wait ... wrong sci-fi plotline. Using Tess's sketchy blueprints and some mad MacGyver-like cobbling skills, they build a huge transmitter, which shoots its load into space, then dies. Afterward, Tess sinks into a deeper state of crazy. The "plot hook" for the episode? Turns out the now un-crazy Kevin is the preeminent scientist in the field of science that will one day be used to rewire The 4400 in the future.
And so another domino falls into place ...
Just a reminder that The 4400 returns this weekend. I really enjoyed the first installment and am looking forward to this one. I'll probably post about the first episode and see if there's enough interest to continue through the run. Even though I'm not a big sci-fi fan, I've got to hand it to USA and Sci-Fi Network for scheduling many of its miniseries and regular shows during network tv "off-time." My TiVo certainly appreciates it.
The 4400 ended this weekend. The finale was good, but it left a lot of loose ends, and an assumption that the show may return again (as another mini-series or maybe a series?). Did anyone see it? Do you think Lily's baby is going to save the world? Why was Kyle "the key?" And what does Tom have to do to make sure the world isn't destroyed?
Is anyone watching The 4400 on USA Network? It's a mini-series that premiered over the weekend, with a sci-fi premise - "Over the last century, thousands of people have gone missing. Suddenly and inexplicably, 4400 missing people are returned all at once, as they were on the day they vanished. Unclear what this world altering-event means, the government investigates the 4400 to piece together where they've been and why they've been returned." I don't usually dig sci-fi, but I really enjoyed the first installment. It's creepy and sweet and sad. Give it a shot.