Season 1 - 5 episodes (2004)
Season 2 - 13 episodes (2005)
Season 3 - 13 episodes (2006)
Season 4 - 13 episodes (2007)
Buy The 400 on Amazon Video (paid link)
Created by: René Echevarria, Scott Peters
Starring: Joel Gretsch, Jacqueline McKenzie, Mahershala Ali, Laura Allen, Patrick Flueger, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Chad Faust, Kaj-Erik Eriksen, Samantha Ferris, Jenni Baird, Brooke Nevin, Conchita Campbell, Karina Lombard, Billy Campbell, Peter Coyote
Rated: TV-14
Watch the trailer
Plot
As the reappearance of 4,400 missing persons on a single day confounds the global community, federal agents on the case slowly discover the ways in which the victims have been changed.
Verdict
The first season wasn't bad. It's a great premise that's aided by the brevity. Additional seasons bounce between case of the week and the larger arc, but the end of the world is coming and characters rarely seem to care. When episodes introduce a new character with powers that only appears for the one episode, it feels like filler. The third season reduces the story to good versus evil and the future war. It's just generic. Season four makes big character changes only to revert them. New overarching plots are introduced, but it just seems like an attempt to remain relevant or interesting. While the show was canceled prematurely after season four, I didn't mind.
Skip it.
Review
I remember when this first released. I was intrigued by the concept, but
I never got around to watching it and then fell too far behind, back
when you could fall behind and miss out on shows. The show was canceled after the fourth season due to budget, ratings, and the writers' strike.
Season 1
Various people are abducted throughout time, leaving their families wondering and searching. In the present day, what appears to be a comet hurtles to Earth before slowing down and appearing as a ball of light. The 4400 people that have disappeared over decades suddenly appear. They're the same as when they were taken, some sixty years ago not having aged a day. They're back, but what now? Some survivors have been gone so long they don't know anyone. For others, their families have moved on, presuming them dead.
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| S1: Laura Allen, Mahershala Ali play Lily, Richard |
Several of the survivors try to find their place in a world that's moved on, and many of them have powers. Lily's (Laura Allen) family has mourned and adjusted, but she forms a bond with Richard (Mahershala Ali) who is dealing with a world fifty years more advanced than what he remembers.
Even the first season has a one off episode, which becomes more common in future seasons, about vigilante Carl who wants to clean up the local park.
Jordan Collier (Billy Campbell) wants to unite the 4400, but for what? Later in the season we find out that the 4400 were taken by humans in the future and reseeded to fix events.
The first season is fun enough with people getting abducted and the reveal being it was future humans. Being a short season, it doesn't have a chance to drag, but where does this go? The survivors don't realize why they were taken or given abilities.
Season 2
When the season opens, Collier has been busy creating a center for the 4400 while using Shawn (Patrick Flueger) to heal people and generate funds. Lily, her baby Isabelle, and Richard have run away, fearing Collier.
Many people fear the unknown and the abilities the 4400 have. Several episodes introduce a new member of the 4400 and a unique power. Most of them just appear for one episode. That makes this season move slower with these one off episodes that don't push the plot forward. Diana (Jacqueline McKenzie) adopts one of the 4400, Maia (Conchita Campbell). She can predict the future, providing an ominous prediction that Diana's bosses will betray the 4400. Diana, along with her partner Tom (Joel Gretsch) work for NTAC who monitor the 4400, and deal with any cases involving them.
Tom later experiences a world where the 4400 never happened and he's married to Alana (Karina Lombard) for nearly a decade. When he wakes up he and Alana start, or continue, their relationship. They've had eight years, but for everyone else, they just met. She's a 4400.
This season isn't bad, it just seems a bit generic. I'm not as invested. At the end of the season, many 4400 get sick and lose their powers. It turns out they've been injected with something to curtail their powers.
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| S4: Joel Gretsch, Jacqueline McKenzie play Tom Baldwin, Diana Skouris |
Season 3
This picks up with a plot to kill the authorities that tried to suppress the 4400 abilities. Richard and Lily's child Isabelle (Megalyn Echikunwoke) ages twenty years rapidly. Lily did too. Adult Isabelle wants to check off all the adult stuff on her list, trying to start a relationship with Shawn. Isabelle is either going to be the savior or destroyer of the world. Which will it be? Both sides want her help.
The future recaptures Maia, wanting to try again to fix the future as what they've done hasn't worked.
The overall goal is to save the future, but so many episodes explore random 4400 abilities. This looming catastrophe is often treated as insignificant. Even the future gives Maia back when pressed by Tom.
A new threat, the Nova group is introduced. They're terrorists who oppose the 4400. That mirrors the two factions in the future; one that wants to use the 4400 to fix things and another that oppose it. This show keeps introducing factions, characters, and abilities that delay the main plot. The future event is a MacGuffin. I like each season less than the last.
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| S3: Billy Campbell plays Jordan Collier |
Season 4
Diana's sister April returns. She was the black sheep of the family in season two. Now she can make people tell the truth which makes her popular among the government agencies. Shawn is running for political office to establish equal treatment for the 4400. While Jordan is handing out shots that will provide 4400 abilities to anyone that survives. Collier has returned from death after being killed in season two. He's
starting a town for people with abilities. He creates Promise City in
Seattle, cleaning up a polluted site no one wanted.
Kyle, Tom's son, has found a book with prophecies and a list of people that will take the shot and survive. That list includes his dad.
People from the future, the Marked, can now go into their past/the show's present to influence the future similar to the show Travelers. That undermines the entire basis of the show. If the future can send people back, why not do that instead of abducting and reseeding people? Once that ability is introduced, why doesn't it happen more?
Richard de-ages Isabelle to start over, but what does that accomplish? She's then aged back up. Where is this show even going?
This season ends without resolution, but this is the worst season, and it kept getting worse as new plot elements were introduced. Characters are significantly altered and then reverted. If four wasn't the last last season, it would have been for me
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