TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

Ah, the summer of 2004. I still lived upstate. Cable was free because of my roommate’s job with Time Warner. My mortgage was 1/5th of my current rent. I had a deck, a yard, a savings account, and a car.

And Lost had not yet made Sci-Fi on television cool.

When The 4400 was announced on USA, I really didn’t think much of it. The premise didn’t really interest me. In fact, I didn’t even really know the plot hook until part-way through the third season and no one had actually mentioned whether or not it was any good until a bit after that. When I recently discovered that the last season was the final season, I decided now was as good a time as any to watch it.

The Plot Hook: In 2004, 4400 people who have disappeared from the world over the last 60 years re-appear, having not aged a day, in Seattle. These people include a little girl who disappeared in the 1940s, a Korean War soldier from the 1950s, and various people from the 90s and 00s. They are returned with powers. The aforementioned little girl can see the future. An old man has the power of telekinesis. Steve Brady becomes a ninja. As we find out over the course of the season, these people were not selected for no reason. There was a purpose to who was taken, why they were changed, and when they were returned. This is the story told over the six-episode arc of season one.

The Good

- The show handles the reaction to these mysterious returnees very well. The reporting of the 24-hour news cycle filling hours and hours of stories of these returning people. The government illegally detaining these people. The ACLU filing for the release of the citizens. People trying to re-integrate into a society that really doesn’t want them. And then the sudden dawning on society that these people may not have come back completely normal.

- The character Jordan Collier is amazing. A rich man whose motivations are very uncertain after the first season he becomes the “face” on the 4400. He appears on the 4400 version of the O’Reilly/Greta/Nancy Grace/Wolf Blitzer show in the 4400-verse. He buys a gated community for every 4400 resident who wishes to live there. He’s rich, intelligent, and persuasive… everything a burgeoning cult leader should be. I don’t know where the guy is going to go over the next few seasons, but I know he’s going to be an important figure.

The Bad

- The ancestors of the show’s characters are obvious. The skeptic female scientist and the believer lead investigator tracking unexplained phenomena while working for the FBI Homeland Security had been done previously… and very well before collapsing under the weight of too many conspiracies. Although, by watching this show, you can certainly see the original inspiration for Heroes.

- They spend a lot of time making you hate just about every person on the show that isn’t either a 4400 member or a government employee. The families of most of the characters are two-dimensionally mean. One of the returnees returns to her husband’s house to see her her now 12 year old daughter (who was six-months old) to find her husband remarried and a daughter who was never told her current mother wasn’t her biological mother. Instead of allowing the returnee to get to know her daughter, he immediately files a restraining order and has her arrested. A man who was the partner at an insurance firm returns to find that his interest in a firm with his name on the letterhead is gone and the man who now runs the company won’t even give him a job. A brother treats his other brother like a freak. It’s very heavy-handed and, to a point, unbelievable.

- The plot gets a little heavy-handed at times… but I’ll forgive them because their first season was a run of six-episodes. They had a lot to communicate in six hours.

- Do we really need more “creepy little girl who can see the future” or “mystery baby might be the new messiah” plotlines? Haven’t these been done to death elsewhere?

- With the xenophobia of the 21st century likely well-documented by X years in the future, it isn’t really outlined why kidnapping people and grandly reinserting them into the timeline in 2004 is more effective than kidnapping someone, modifying them, and reinserting them into the timeline before anyone realizes they’re gone. Why is a girl from the 1940s more effectively creepy and omniscient than a girl from 2004?

The Verdict

I’m not in love with this show and am kind of surprised it made it through four whole seasons. I am, however, sufficiently curious to see where it’s going… and the idea of it being a closed world now (since it’s been cancelled) actually makes me more likely to grab the 2nd season somewhere along the line.

To this point, I give it a resounding “meh.”

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the role of 24 will be being played by The Terminator.

The Good

- As sci-fi shows go, this is the best of all worlds. You’re coming in with a established mythology tweaked to fit into a new timeline. The rules of this universe are already well established. This system seems to work out well for these type of shows. It’s kept Smallville on for like seven years.

- It has a chance to find an audience because of the lack of any other valid options. It’s got Monday to itself. Between that and the fact its got a built-in fanbase, it’s going to do pretty well.

- I’ll put this under good for now. The Terminator Goes To High School is kind of amusing. My one problem with her thus far: how is it in the first episode she could pull of human enough to fool John Conner… possibly the only guy in the world who would likely recognize her for what she is… however two episodes later they’re back in high school and she’s strange and can’t figure out how to act.

The Bad

- In the very first episode, they use the gaping Terminator plot-hole that everyone notices but the powers that be refuse to close. The evil terminator has Sarah Connor in his clutches, can kill her, but refuses to because he can use her. Then, he calls John and uses her voice. If any of the Terminators actually used this power as they should, the movies would have ended in like four seconds.

- Except for Summer Glau, the acting in the pilot was really, really bad. They were not convincing at all. In fairness, it got better in the later episodes.

- There is going to be a really creepy sub-plot with guy on robot love.

- Terminators are incredibly good movie monsters, but I don’t know if they make really good episodic television monsters. If you think about what it takes to kill a terminator — well-established in movie lore — think about having to kill them on a weekly basis. Arnold had to be crushed in a hydraulic press and melted in lava. Robert Patrick had to be melted in lava. The T-X was blown up by a mini Hydrogen bomb. Killing Terminators isn’t easy. How many Terminators can you possibly throw at two people before it’s just completely absurd that they’re still alive? I understand that giving them their own pet terminator helps, but I feel like this show is going to suffer from lack of action. I will be shocked if they can avoid the pattern of “introduce big bad terminator, confront, hide, hide, hide, confront, hide, destroy.”

The Verdict

I like it for now. As I said above, it’s a type of show that lends itself to becoming a television show. It has a deep but loosely defined mythology that can be exploited and there is one over-arcing goal that they can put off for as long as they can come up with storylines. The only problem is that, right now, they’re on a time-clock. Skynet is brought online in 2011… which would lead one to believe that the fourth season will be quite an adventure. On the other hand… what do they do after that?

They have me wanting to know more about Cameron, which is good. There are a lot of disparate storylines. There is the random “painting things on the wall of the high school to drive a girl to suicide”. There is the over-arcing “the Terminator that they blew up in the bank is now looking for them”. There is “why is Cameron eating food”. There is “guy they left in 1997 who John went to visit and now knows they’re back”.

In all, enough to keep me watching.