THE 4400 - Season Two - Individual Promo Card - Inkworks 2006
The 4400 (pronounced "the forty-four hundred") is a science fiction television series produced by CBS Paramount Network Television in association with BSkyB, Renegade 83, and American Zoetrope for USA Network. The show was created and written by Scott Peters and René Echevarria, and it starred Joel Gretsch and Jacqueline McKenzie. The series ran for four seasons from 2004 until its cancellation in 2007.
In the pilot episode, an enormous ball of light deposits a group of exactly 4400 people in the Cascade Range foothills near Mount Rainier, Washington. Each of the 4400 had disappeared at various times starting from 1936 in a beam of white light. None of the 4400 have aged from the time of their disappearance. Confused and disoriented, they remember nothing between the time of their disappearance and their return.
Creator Scott Peters has stated that the series was originally titled "A Light in the Sky", but looking for something unique he decided to "play around with numbers" instead and arrived at "4400" because it "just sounded cool" and "was a very round number with two 4s and two 0s".
The season(s) during which each actor has been included in the main cast are marked in green. When a starring actor also has appeared as a guest star during other seasons, this is marked with the number of guest appearances. Gray square means the actor doesn't appear in that season at all.
The National Threat Assessment Command (NTAC), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, is in charge of dealing with the return of the 4400. Dennis Ryland is the head of NTAC. Ryland assigns Tom Baldwin and Diana Skouris as the lead team to investigate the 4400. In season 2, Ryland goes to Washington and is replaced by Nina Jarvis. In Season 4 Meghan Doyle takes over as the head of NTAC.
Many of the returnees have trouble getting their lives back on track after being gone from the world for years. More significantly, a small number of the returnees begin to manifest paranormal abilities, such as telekinesis, telepathy and precognition, as well as other "gifts". For example, in the pilot, Shawn Farrell manifests an ability to heal the broken neck of a dead bird, bringing it back to life. In addition, one of the 4400, Lily Moore, has become pregnant between her disappearance and return.
The first-season finale, "White Light", reveals that the 4400 were abducted not by aliens, but by humans from the Earth's future, that Kyle Baldwin was to be their "messenger", and that they were returned to avert a catastrophe.
By the second season, it is revealed that all 4400 have a fictional neurotransmitter, promicin, in their brains, which gives them their powers. The government, afraid of what this large group would do with such power, had secretly been dosing all of the 4400 with a promicin inhibitor, which had worked on most, but not all, of the 4400. One of the inhibitor's side effects is a potentially fatal immune deficiency. The inhibitor is ultimately removed from the 4400 by a dose of promicin extracted by Kevin Burkhoff from the blood of the infant Isabelle, who was never given the inhibitor.
At the beginning of the third season, the Nova Group, a terrorist faction made up of 4400s, emerges. Originally formed as a "defensive" group in the aftermath of the promicin-inhibitor scandal, the Nova Group eventually carries out numerous terrorist attacks against the government and NTAC. The group is responsible for many terrorist attacks including the assassination of the men involved with the promicin-inhibitor conspiracy; the attempted assassination of Ryland; the framing of Baldwin for murder; and the driving of another person to insanity.
During the third and fourth season, it is revealed that only a certain faction from the future wants to see history changed. Another faction, which prefers the status quo, opposes the 4400, and has sent their own operatives, including Isabelle Tyler and "the Marked", into the past. The exact motives of both factions have not yet been revealed.
Eventually, Jordan Collier, a returnee who declares himself the savior of humanity, makes promicin shots available to the general public. However, only half of the human population can actually tolerate promicin, and thus develop superhuman abilities, while the other half die upon taking the shot. Although the government outlaws promicin use, thousands of previously ordinary people have developed superhuman abilities, severely complicating NTAC's task. Collier later annexes a part of Seattle and transforms it into "Promise City", a self-proclaimed paradise open to all people with superhuman abilities. The US government attempts to reclaim Promise City but meets with little success.
At the conclusion of the series, Danny Farell's uncontrolled ability exposed some of the residents of Seattle to promicin, resulting in about 9,000 deaths and as many newly empowered humans, while at the same time forcing the remains of NTAC (now themselves mostly promicin-positive) to ask Jordan Collier and his followers (as the only group immune to the 50% chance of death from exposure) to become the de facto government of Seattle. The series ended with a cliff-hanger, with Collier pledging to build the future he had promised, while the government watches uneasily as Collier's militia remains in control of Seattle, now known as Promise City.
Early in the first season, theorists at NTAC suspect that the 4400s have been placed in the timeline with their enhanced abilities for a purpose, to cause some change that could propagate and redirect the course of history. An example of this was when a 4400 named Carl Morrissey attempted to use his enhanced strength and reflexes to fight crime in his neighborhood park. Although Morrissey was killed by a group of thugs, his death inspired others to become involved in various neighborhood clean up projects.
Another example of this effect at work came during the season two episode "Wake up Call". In that episode a mentally ill returnee uses mind control powers to force the other residents of her mental hospital to build an unusual machine. When the machine is activated it cures fellow patient Kevin Burkhoff of his crippling schizophrenia. When NTAC looks into Burkhoff's background they discover that prior to falling ill he was a brilliant neuroscientist who was working on gene therapies which could end up being the basis of the technology which created the 4400.
The 4400 ran for four seasons. The first season is presented as a miniseries of five episodes, which aired weekly from July 11, 2004 to August 8, 2004, with a two-hour premier. Seasons two, three and four are each 13-episode seasons (counting the two hour premiers in seasons two and three as two episodes). A special episode, "The 4400: Unlocking the Secrets", aired between seasons two and three, on June 3, 2006, originally on NBC.
Production of the third season was shot in Vancouver until July 26, 2006. The third season premiered June 11, 2006, with 4.2 million viewers tuning in. Executive Producer Ira Steven Behr described season three as "bigger and more mythic. It feels like 26 episodes instead of 13 because we're cramming so much stuff in".
Production of the fourth and final season began in early 2007 for a mid-year premiere, returning with the episode "The Wrath of Graham". Billy Campbell, the actor who plays Collier, took most of season three off to sail around the world. The show was rewritten to explain the character's absence, making him the victim of an assassination. In the fourth season, Campbell returned to the series as a regular, rather than a guest star as in the previous three seasons, with the revelation that the character had been alive after all, but had wandered as an amnesiac for two years until he reappeared to assume his role as the leader of the 4400.
The Vesuvius Prophecy, by Greg Cox, is the first book based on the series. It was released in June 2008. Set during the show's third season, the plot revolves around Maia's prophecy of the eruption of Mt. Rainier.
Wet Work, by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore, is the second original novel based on the series. Published in October 2008, it is set during the show's second season. Its plot concerns Tom and Diana's hunt for a rogue government assassin who uses her promicin powers to kill people.
Welcome to Promise City, by Greg Cox, is the third book based on the series, and the first set after the events of the end of the series. It was published on July 28, 2009.
Promises Broken, by David Mack, is the fourth book based on the series and the second set after the end of the show. It concludes most of the saga of the 4400, but it too ends on a cliffhanger. It was published on October 27, 2009.
The theme song of the show is "A Place in Time", written by Robert Phillips and Tim Paruskewitz and performed by Amanda Abizaid. All seasons are filmed in high-definition with closed captioning. USA Network broadcast episodes after season one in fullscreen 480i; the DVD releases contain the episodes in their native widescreen format.
The soundtrack to The 4400 was released on May 8, 2007 by Milan Records and includes music from the first three seasons, as follows:
Bosshouse featuring Amanda Abizaid - "A Place in Time" (Theme from The 4400)
Switchfoot - "This Is Your Life"
People in Planes - "Falling by the Wayside"
Thirteen Senses - "Into the Fire"
Ivy - "Worry About You"
Engineers - "How Do You Say Goodbye?"
Maroon 5 - "She Will Be Loved"
Jacqueline McKenzie - "Shy Baby"
Bedroom Walls - "Do the Buildings and Cops Make You Smile?"
Billie Holiday - "Cheek to Cheek"
John Van Tongeren - "Salvation"
The Landau Orchestra - "A Place in Time" (instrumental arrangement)
Note: The last track does not appear in the series. Although not included on the soundtrack, "Life for Rent" by Dido was used in the episode "The Starzl Mutation". The song "Where Is My Mind?" by the Pixies was later used in the series finale.
The
4400 is set in Seattle, but actually
filmed in the Vancouver, British Columbia area. The high-tech,
glass-walled 4400 Center is the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
at the University of British Columbia,. Other cable science-fiction
series, such as Kyle XY,
Fringe,
Stargate Atlantis,
and Battlestar Galactica
have also used the Chan Centre as a filming location.