The 4400
Season Four

Available on DVD

1. The Wrath of Graham
2. Fear Itself
3. Audrey Parker's Come and Gone
4. The Truth and Nothing But
5. Try The Pie
6. The Marked
7. Til We Have Built Jerusalem
8. No Exit
9. Daddy's Little Girl
10. One of Us
11. Ghost In The Machine
12. Tiny Machines
13. The Great Leap Forward

The Wrath of Graham

The world is a very different place from the end of the last series. Jordan Collier has managed to make Promicin available to anyone, with a 50/50 chance of getting an ability and getting dead. There are 6,000 people already who have chased the odds and lost. One of those might be Diana's sister and so she comes back from her new home in San Sebastian, Spain (nice place) to look for her sister. Her ex-partner Tom Baldwin has his own problems considering that his wife's disappearance seems to have been solved by her turning up in a portrait painted in the 1800s. At least his son is home from his walkabout./

The case for the opening episode is that of Graham, a high school student who took the promicin shot and finds that anyone who spends any time with him comes to worship him, literally. Before anyone knows it, the city of Seattle is his and the military are talking about air strikes.

For the opening episode of a new series, this is seriously underwhelming. Sure, there are always old plot points that need to be tied up, but the main plot with Graham starting to take over the world never really convinces and the manner of its conclusion by the revelation of Jordan Collier's ability is somewhat disappointing.

At least Shawn is out of his coma and Kyle has an interesting new friend and Isabelle is waiting in prison to find out whether or not she will ever be released because of the threat she once posed.

This show has always had potential, but it will have to do a great deal better than this if it wants to keep our attention.

Fear Itself

Diana and Tom work their first new case together. Someone is bringing people's worst fears alive in their minds, but on an apparently random basis. They discover an autistic child whose father gave him promicin in the hope that it might help, but the boy is now missing, a walking mind-bomb.

The second episode of the new series doesn't improve that much on the first. Again the case that the NTAC agents are working isn't anything special and that dulls the whole episode. Whilst you can feel for the father who just wants his son to be normal, the chances that he might have been killed make the moral dilemma an interesting one, but not enough to redeem that part of the story.

On the more personal side, Shawn tries to persuade his brother Danny not to risk the promicin shot and Kyle finds out something very disturbing about his new female friend in a twist that is quite delightful.

Audrey Parker's Come and Gone

Audrey Parker is an old woman who took the promicin shot and found that she could take her mind out of her body and transport it anywhere to see anything. She uses this to help a woman who is about to be the victim of a con, but then finds that her body has been killed. The essence of her mind, like a transmission, is going to fade over time, but before that happens she might be able to get the message through to Diane that she was murdered and by whom.

The main story here is more interesting than the last two have been and manages to run through the whole episode, but there is a serious case of deja vu for anyone who has watched just about any episode of The Ghost Whisperer. The identity of the killer is pretty much obvious from even before the murder takes place, so the resolution comes as as surprise to nobody except the characters in the show.

It is interesting that Shawn takes steps to bring a focus back onto the 4400 original abductees and their place within the world and its future because that has been kind of forgotten in the whole 'promicin for all' storyline and the show in general. The original concept was quite strong, but the show has meandered far away from that, so we wait to see if it can regain that focus or change itself into something equally valid.

The Truth and Nothing But

Diana locates her sister April and finds out that she has been using her ability (nobody can lie to her) to wheedle secrets that she can then use to blackmail people with. One of her schemes backfires and sees her partner killed. On the run and in fear of her life, she goes to her sister, but saving her life may land her on the end of a life sentence for being promicin positive.

Families eh? Who'd have them? The main story about Diana and her sister is the strongest of the season so far, but that really isn't saying that much. The support story of Shawn's being drawn into politics is less interesting, but Kyle's growing obssession with the strange cult that worships Jordan Collier clearly has some legs. There is hope for that one.

Try The Pie

Now that Tom knows his son Kyle has taken the promicin shot, he goes after him, tracking him down to a town where everyone appears to be promicin positive and enjoy an especially idyllic life. Is this a blueprint for heaven or Jordan Collier's personal kingdom? Collier leaves it up to Kyle as to whether Tom should be given the promicin shot (as foretold in the book of prophecies) forcibly if he refuses to choose it for himself.

Families eh? Who'd have them? One week after the Diana and her sister story in The Truth and Nothing But, we get a Tom and his son story. To be fair, it's not bad. Jordan Collier is a contradictory, and therefore more interesting, character. Looking more like Christ every day, espousing a wish to unite the world, but ready to use violence against those that threaten him instantly it is hard to fathom what the truth is about him and makes him much more watchable.

Maia's dreams about a nazi-style internment camp for promicin positives makes for uncomfortable parallels. Is this her fear talking or a vision of the future?

The Marked

An original 4400 whose ability is to tell the unknowable truth through the medium of truly awful films goes missing and his producer is scared silly by the trailer for what was to be the next production; an expose of a cabal of future minds placed in present day bodies and out to stop the 4400 from saving the future.

There are now two conspiracy plot lines going (three if you count Jordan Collier). Sawn's rival for city council is revealed in Maia's dreams as the leader of the oppressive regime out to get promicin positive people and the anti-4400 faction from the future come back to ruin their plans. This all adds up to intriguing plotlines in the future, but not to a great episode here.

The dreadful movies revealing who killed Jimmy Hoffa and JFK are so bad they are entertaining.

Till We Have Built Jerusalem

Jordan Collier announces that he is going to create Heaven on Earth starting in South Seattle. Taking over part of the city, he will show why promicin positives are the way of the future. The government response is rapid and predictable, sending in promicin positive soldiers to take Jordan out. Maia sees the future and goes into what is now called the Promised City to warn him so Tom and Diana have to go in to save her.

The pace steps up a little here as Jordan's plans start to fall into place and everyone has to react to them. The show is taking an intriguing direction with this, but it means that the original 4400 are again being sidelined in a show that they formed the basis of. Shawn's subplot about a sex scandal is merely a distraction.

No Exit

Tom, Diana, Jordan, Kyle, Shawn and all the other major players in the unfolding drama wake un in NTAC central to find that they are locked in, have no weapons, no food, no way out and the building itself is trying to kill them. Only by working together do they have any hope of escape, but can two sides so utterly opposed to each other possibly co-operate?

The show goes off at a complete tangent, abandoning the main plot altogether, but it doesn't matter because this little diversion is quite fun, not least when people start dying before the audience is let in on the explanation. Following that, it's a fairly average story, but still entertaining enough.

Daddy's Little Girl

Richard, Isabelle's father, shows up in Promise city and reconnects with his daughter. He does this by first kidnapping her and then by giving her a drink created by another 4400 to make her younger. To take her right back to the childhood that she never had. Meanwhile Shawn receives a call for help from the Doctor who developed Promicin. He is trapped with schizophrenic Tess who is replaying her sweet sixteen party from the 50s using her power of persuasion to make people dance for days.

This is a pretty bizarre end to the story of Isabelle (assuming it to be the end as you never can tell with this show) and the first sign that the writers are starting to have problems with where the show is going. They never really knew what to do with Isabelle once she had lost her powers and so they have now written her out. The secondary plot about the diner is also underwhelming and Tom and the boss lady are getting it on. I guess that the grieving process for his wife is now over and we can't expect to be seeing her any time soon.

One of Us

Richard Tyler's having a real family moment. After sending his daughter back to her childhood, his dead wife shows up and starts talking like nothing ever happened. Tom Baldwin is also having problems. Visions of himself in the future doing evil things are explained by the new bigwig from Washington who explains to him that he is becoming one of The Marked and he will be a lot happier if he lets him happen. After a good night's sleep he does just that.

The Isabelle story continues and at least makes some more sense than at the end of the last episode. The plot strand with Baldwin being taken over by the marked is also proving to be quite interesting. One of the good things about THE 4400 is that you never quite know in which direction it's going to go next.

Tiny Machines

Shawn leads a team of promicin positives into Promise City to get back Dr Berkoff who is working on the test that will predict whether the shot will kill or not. Isabelle is forced to go into Promise City and take Jordan Collier to the hideout of the Marked. Diana learns that Tom's condition is due to nanites, the titular machines, creating a new personality in him. The only way to kill them is to kill him as well. First, she has to catch him.

Plotlines are tumbling together and the pace has picked itself up quite considerably as they all struggle to get themselves untangled in time for the next, climactic, episode. After all the meanderings of the previous weeks, finally the plot has some urgency and some real focus. There is a real sense that things are going to get worked out.

The last image of the episode is also a terrific one.

The Great Leap Forward

Shawn brings back Tom from the very edge of death, but he is Tom again and he knows where Collier is being held. He also learns that the Marked have sent Isabelle back to kill his son. It is time for her to decide exactly who she is. Shawn's brother, meanwhile, has taken the shot and developed an ability of infecting those around him with promicin. Their mother didn't survive and a whole portion of the city is infected. If a cure can be found it might already be too late. The world will be altered beyond conception.

The final episode and it's a mad rush to try and get everything sorted out and brought to some kind of closure. It's a bit rushed as a result, but the breathless pace at least wipes away some of the memories of the longueurs and unnecessary detours that this season of the show has taken. Is it enough to justify season 5? Only time, and the network, will tell.