Episode 4:
Well, the DVD had this episode and ep 5 in the wrong order, so I watched 5 first and there is no point in watching this one since I already know the outcome to everything in it.
Episode 5:
It's been a long time between this and the last episode for me. Not that I wasn't enjoying this show, but I guess i get easily sidetracked. Somewhere in that time I watched a couple of seasons of other shows, some cable, some British and almost all of them were good. Now, I'm back to this show and I forgot how serious it was, with this weird vibe of comedy like Eureka! especially the opening and interlude music.
This show was trying to be an action, melodrama hybrid with the occasional funny slash quicky character, usually represented by the IT guy. Well, they go the melodrama part down pretty good. And I must admit that most of their action is not too cheesy. But some of the storylines are bugging the fuck out of me. That's right, I'm unleashing my full vocabulary on this mofo. The two are the whole son with black outs who has a thing going on with a professor and the crazy mom with the psychotic baby.
The blacking out son, also known as Kyle, reminds me of some of the characters in Veronica Mars where some of the characters are trying way too hard to portray teen-aged angst because they're actually in their late 20s. If the actor would tone it down just a bit, and maybe brush his hair once in a while, he would lose that annoying factor. But you know who is more annoying is the young professor who has taken a shine to him. One moment they're all talking about wild parties and the next she says him in her hallway outside of her apartment in the middle of the night and she's saying it's the weirdest thing she's ever seen. Really? You went to a college and now work at one, one where I might add that fraternizing with the students does not seem to be off-limits, and some student who has the hots for you is out in your hallway and that is super weird? Now, if she found him hiding in her bedroom closet dressed as Hitler in a tutu, holding a roasted turkey leg in one hand and gold fish bowl in the other with three very dead gold fish floating on the top and when you ask him what the fuck? he is all slurry with a bad Southern drawl, now that would be some weird shit.
Crazy mom and psycho baby. That kind of sounds like the title for this weeks most popular vid on youtube. I really do not care for the actress that plays Lily. I didn't like her in Awakened or Avakenings of whatever it was called - the show about the cop who is in one reality when he's awake and as soon as he goes to sleep he wakes up in the other reality - she was really annoying in that show. She has too acting speeds: whine and whiiiiiiiiiiiine. My theory is that she is either the daughter of one of the executive producers or is an incredible lay. Now the baby on the other end is cute and adorable, yadda, yadda, yadda, it's the story that they've built around that is annoying. She has all these crazy powers and wields them as if she were an adult in an infant's body. Which would be fine, mind you, if that is how they wrote the character. Instead, Isabella seems to be about as advanced as any six month old (never mind that the young actor playing her is obviously quite a bit older) yet she understands clomp ex, adult thoughts like convincing someone to commit suicide or lying to someone else by showing him the Nobel Prize ceremony. I don't buy that one bit.
I am totally willing to overlook all of the other little issues like since when did they teach agents of the CDC to use firearms and combat tactics? Or, how is it that the shooter takes at least four shots at Collier, at least two of which hit, but when Tom looks up at the killer, there is only one bullet hole in the glass? Or that the junkie girl is actually a secret hottie who can kick smack because the cute guy smiles at her.
For the record, scout's honor that I haven't read anything about this show, I don't think that Collier is dead.
Episode 6:
This was an interesting diversion, as we get to see Tom living a life that might have been with a woman that he literally just met. He isn't in the alternate world for just a short time, either, but spends more than eight years there and pretty much gets everything he could ever want, just the way he wants it, including a hot new wife, Alanna, who is the 4400 who has created the world. And it's all because the mysterious powers that be from the future think that his life is about to turn to shit, so they want him to have some warm fuzzy memories to fall back on, and maybe Alanna as well. It is an interesting way to write a love interest into the story with virtually no back-story or preparation at all, and because of that also a bit contrived. But, I think television needs more strong, intelligent women, so I'm all for it. Plus she's old my American television standards, and check this out, she's the love interest and she's not blonde. I dare you to look at American television shows and find me the love interest of the main character who is not blonde, yet not supposed to be 'ethnic'. The only exception to this rule, in fact the opposite of this rule is the sitcom format, where the spouses slash long time girlfriends slash whatever, always have dark hair and the bimbos, if applicable, have blonde hair.
Tom gets a glimpse of Kyle all bloodied and in the backseat of a police car that is definitely not part of the contrived reality (since we see him being all doctorly and cleaned up right after that). Tom doesn't do anything with this, in fact he thinks he might be hallucinating again by the way he is acting, so I guess the producers stuck that in so that we don't forget? That seems kind of condescending, but then I might not be their target audience (if I were we would have longer story arcs and more science and philosophy explaining why things have happened) and I guess when this came out they weren't making episodes with the thought that someone was going to sit down and go through a season in a week or so.
Episode 7:
The opening for this show is so weird. It has a typical beginning, showing scenes from previous episodes, then a bit of story, sometimes you get the "previously on 4400" and then a bit more story, but then they roll credits - it's like they have two opening sequences. And I know I have mentioned the music being off-putting, and I think that at the start of every episode, I feel like I'm watching the start of Quantum Leap.
The 4400 of the week in this episode is from Granite Pass, Oregon. I love when they make up small towns in places that I am familiar with. In this case, she starts off about six hours South of Portland (which actually does exist) which is just about Grants Pass. Granite Pass - Grants Pass, I think we know their motivation for the town's name. Though, the made up city is only 273 people, yet the downtown has a stop light and what was a thriving downtown before everyone died. Obviously, they have never been to small town Oregon. Later, someone in the info chain to our two government agents at the NTAS reports the 4400 "going West on 99", which is a real highway in Oregon, kind of. You've got 99E and 99W so I'm guessing that the writer saw the W and made the mistake of thinking it meant the highway went East-West, which of course is not how it works and totally wouldn't make any sense. When she is finally confronted in downtown Portland, I'm tempted to be cheeky and say they couldn't have gotten that right because it wasn't raining, I won't. The only thing I will say is that showed pretty much everybody in downtown Portland jay-walking, and that just wouldn't happen - I mean everybody doing it - because you would get run over by a bus or the Max (Portland's light rail system), or likely first one and then the other.
Another character has just been introduced out of the blue, Matthew, who is helping to run the 4400 Center now that Collier is (supposedly) dead. It's kind of plausible the way they did it, except they refer to conversations that we weren't privy to. If they can just write people in and out all willy-nilly, then why don't they take Lily away? Laura Allen was less annoying than usual this episode, but that's only because she was giving little speeches and not really interacting with the baby, her hubby or really anyone. Sigh.
The 4400 at IMDb
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