The 4400 Season 3 disk 3

Episode 7: Blink
I have to remind myself when watching this, that they are not ripping Alphas, that the 4400 aired several years before Alphas even went into planning. There is an episode of Alphas that I thought was groundbreaking in the way it portrayed a drug derived from an Alpha that ended up with several people killing themselves under the influence. Well, guess what, they totally ripped it off from the 4400. I can't even say that they did a better job with it.
This is actually one of the better episodes of the 4400. It's focused. The main story is Tom and Diana being dosed against their will with a hallucinogenic drug, and the minor story is Shawn dealing with the fallout of having sex with Isabelle. Tom and Diana interacted, but also had their own personal story lines. This was great. Each story was given enough time to develop, and while not groundbreaking cinema, each story not only got a decent amount of development, they all received conclusions appropriate to the arc of the episode which may mainly or majorly affect the larger arcs of this season.
Since this was the seventh episode of the third season and it's the first really solid episode, I hold out little hope that there is more to come. I guess the real surprise is that the show lasted four seasons.

Episode 8: The Ballad of Kevin and Tess
Summer Glau! Summer Glau! Summer Glau!
I guess there might have been some other people in the episode, too. Actually, there is a bit of a trend going on as they picked three stories again and only went with them. It wasn't quite as tight as the Blink episode, but it was one of their better efforts. Plus, Summer Glau!

Episode 9: The Starzi Mutation
Kudos to the 4400. This was another good episode. It was tight, and only had two storylines going on, which were fully developed and nicely executed. The shows seems to be stepping away from the melodrama somewhat this season and going more towards the mystery-suspense-drama much like the way the X-Files were handled.
I think this whole season has been significantly better than the first two, and the second part of it here is better than the first part of it. I guess part of it might be that they got rid of the two actors that were really annoying me every time they were on screen, but also because they are putting some effort into actually developing the characters beyond name, rank and special ability.

Episode 10: The Gospel According to Collier
"My messiah's back and you're going to be in trouble." Or something like that. Jordan is back, and thanks to Alanna being brought back he remembers who he is now. It will be interesting to see how this angle plays out - the man who has actually seen the catastrophe that the the 4400s were sent back to prevent. Visionary businessman as prophet, could be very interesting.
The other story line this time is Diana hooking up with her sister's boyfriend, whom Maia has seen her marrying. It raises some interesting questions about free will, which they briefly touch on at one point, but it mostly feels like a set up for something that is going to happen later, and I hope that something is not a lot of melodrama. I'm kind of getting used to this show not having very much of it.

The 4400 at IMDb