Good Idea or Bad? Looking at various sci fi and fantasy television projects currently in the works and pondering whether they will fly or crash.
What Is It? The 4400 first premiered in 2004 and focused on 4,400 people who had mysteriously disappeared over the prior fifty-plus years and who just as mysteriously reappeared near a lake close to Mount Rainier, Washington. They have no memories of what happened prior to their disappearance and they start to manifest special abilities after they return. The National Threat Assessment Command is assigned to investigate what happened to them and to determine if it is safe to reintegrate them into society.
What Is in the Works? The CW has given a straight-to-series order for a “reimaging” of the property which will come from Ariana Jackson (Riverdale) and Anna Fricke (Being Human). Deadline Hollywood gives the following description of the project:
4400 overlooked, undervalued, or otherwise marginalized people who vanished without a trace over the last hundred years are all returned in an instant, having not aged a day and with no memory of what happened to them. As the government races to analyze the potential threat and contain the story, the 4400 themselves must grapple with the fact that they’ve been returned with a few…upgrades, and the increasing likelihood that they were all brought back now for a specific reason.
Good Idea or Bad? The 4400 debuted on the USA Network shortly before Lost has revitalized sci fi TV on the broadcast networks and at a time when genre entries on television were rather sparse. I recall watching it from the beginning and believing that it had potential, but by the third season I was losing interest and did not stick with the show into its fourth and final year. It did develop a notable following, though, and after it was cancelled on a cliffhanger in 2007, they began lobbying for the show to get at least a final season in order to wrap up its storylines. That fanbase has continued its efforts to this day to get a revival of the show and have an online petition that is active and that has gathered over 90K signatures.
Cyber Knight & the Hand Puppet Commandos: One woman, seven hand puppets, and the solution to the Fermi Paradox will determine the fate of the Earth. Buy now in eBook and print format
--
That group will likely not be happy with The CW’s plans as it will be a complete reboot with all-new actors and storylines. And considering the network, the show will almost certainly have plenty of pretty young faces and will deliver a hefty amount of copy-and-paste dialogue and storylines. It actually seems rather odd that they would pick this property to reboot because it was never more than a cult show and does not bring much name recognition. But perhaps Jackson and Fricke are fans of the original and wanted to put their own spin on the story. And since the former has been working on The CW’s successful Riverdale series and the latter just delivered the hit reboot Walker, Texas Ranger, the network is allowing them some leeway.
Since I personally believe the original never really lived up to its potential, I don’t necessarily think that taking a second shot at the premise would be a bad idea. But almost certainly the producers will be putting The CW’s typical youth-skewing spin on the concept, which is not the best way to go. A different creative team and network might deliver a better reboot or picking up with the original characters and see if they could correct some of the mistakes of the first run could be workable as well. But a YA take on the property that will almost certainly not engage the existing fanbase and may not attract enough new viewers sure seems to have this one shaky footing to start off. As they are proceeding, this looks like a bad idea, but perhaps they can beat the odds and turn this into a decent reboot.
Notable Facts: The 4400 premiered in July 2004 and had among its cast Joel Gretsch, Jacqueline McKenzie, Mahershala Ali, Billy Campbell, and Laura Allen. It started out as a five-episode “mini-series” (more like a tryout run) then continued on as a regular series. It had somewhat of an X-Files vibe at first with the characters Tom Baldwin and Diana Skouris as the stand-ins for Mulder and Scully, but it shifted more focus to the various members of the 4400 as the series progressed. The fourth season wrapped up in September 2007 with the show ending on a cliffhanger, and production on a fifth season was stalled because of a writer’s strike that began that year. USA then decided to cancel this show–along with Dead Zone–in part due to declining ratings but also because the network went through a change of direction and lost interest in sci fi properties. The story was carried on in books but did not have a proper resolution even in that format.
Do you think that a reboot of The 4400 is a good idea or bad? Chime in with your comments below.
More from CancelledSciFi.com: Keep up with the ratings developments and the status of all the currently airing sci fi and fantasy shows with our Weekly Roundup posts. And be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates.
Follow our Sci Fi TV Schedule for all the currently airing and upcoming sci fi and fantasy television shows, and keep up with what is airing/streaming each week with our Weekly Listings.