The Rant Aisle

You have to wonder how real rock and roll fans felt when accosted by someone raving about Pat Boone. “There’s nothing out there like it! You gotta hear this stuff!” And then the unfortunate fan would have to sit down in front of a bloodless and dumbed down version of real music and smile queasily. Not that this happened too much in the ‘50s. After all, Boone made his career out of insuring that this conversation would never take place. Had the internet existed back then, Boone would have been eviscerated on blogs by whining jerks like me. Instead, he got rich and made Chuck Berry’s life a living hell. But I’m not going to spend a thousand words railing against Pat Boone. Not because I like the guy or think that a little constructive criticism is just what he needs, or even think that Boone knows what the internet is. I bring up that example because something very similar happened to me last year. I read the incredible reviews of Heroes and sat down to watch it… and came away profoundly unimpressed. It wasn’t that I thought the show was terrible (although it certainly got that way toward the end), but rather that I just couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.

Comic fans are used to our beloved funnypapers being dumbed down for the straights, but it wouldn’t be fair to compare Heroes to anything in print. Besides, if the phrase, “I didn’t like it because the book was better” is ever spoken in my presence, I turn into a combination of Sam Kinison, a Viking warrior and the Colonel from Boogie Nights. “Really, doctor,” I tend to say, “You think that spending sixteen hours in a movie theatre sounds like a good time?” Then I throw them from the window of a moving bus. Violent digression aside, it’s only fair to compare something on its own terms, and I can do just that, with a superhero story in the middle of its fantastic fourth season and showing no signs of slowing down: The 4400.

USA is steadily carving out its place in the cable original series market with its twin detective comedies Monk and Psych (I can’t be the only one desperately hoping for a crossover), and with the wonderfully entertaining mix of Alias, MacGuyver and Vengeance Unlimited that is Burn Notice. The 4400 was one of its earlier shows, debuting as a five episode miniseries that set up the plot.

4400 people who have vanished over the last fifty years all return at once without having aged a day. Some of them have special powers. They don’t know what took them or why they’ve been returned. Basically, you have a superhero story with a UFO twist. Early on in the show, the both the origin of the powers and the question about why some returnees manifest them and others don’t are major plot points. But unlike other shows that seem to wallow in their mysteries, The 4400 actually pays them off in a timely fashion, letting the audience feel like there is some grand plan behind the show. I’m not going to spoil it for new viewers, but the show is currently exploring what it would mean should the cause of superhuman abilities become both known and available. Imagine the most interesting parts of books like Squadron Supreme and Rising Stars written for television by writers who respect their audience. This is a show written by fans for fans and if someone else gets it, great. If not, their loss. Of course, this is why it’s presently being ignored and Heroes is getting all kinds of accolades. But the general populace’s loss is our gain.

The writing is really what sets the show above the others. That the show has an elaborate, intertwining plot with many characters with varying shades of good and evil is a surprise for many. It’s not “easy.” There’s not a clearly labeled good guy with his perfect mirror-image bad guy. The show presents the characters, and although some are more straightforward than others, it lets the viewer decide. Is Jordan Collier a soulless manipulator who uses others for his own ends? Or is he a starry-eyed idealist trying to make the best of a bad situation? Both interpretations are valid ones, supported by a variety of scenes. And the best part? Both interpretations might exist side-by-side, further muddying the waters. The men responsible for this are Ira Steven Behr, Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Rene Echevarria. These were three of the four guiding lights behind the best series to ever come out of Star Trek, the brilliant Deep Space Nine. The only missing team member is Ron Moore, currently working on arguably the best sci-fi series of all time with Battlestar Galactica. I realize there are some haters who turn off as soon as they hear the words Star Trek, but the rest of you, trust me. DS9 was the only show where the captain took one look at Q and punched him in the face like Nic Cage in a bear costume.

The show’s cast as changed a little, but here’s a list of the major characters. There’s Tom Baldwin and Diana Skouris, two agents of NTAC, the agency responsible for policing the returnees, a sort of Scully and Mulder team without the cliched sexual tension. Then there’s Jordan Collier, a wealthy returnee with a messiah complex (must be those pesky initials) with the ability to completely shut down an individual’s power forever and Shawn Farrell, Tom’s nephew and Jordan’s protégé, who has the ability to both heal and kill with his bare hands. A couple of the actors are a wee bit shakier than the others, but the core group couldn’t be more solid. Plus, Collier, the morally ambiguous “is he Jesus or Satan?” character is played by Billy Campbell, who if you remember him at all, you remember him as the Rocketeer. How cool is that?

The 4400 is the best series about superpowered people on television. Go to your Netflix queue and add it. You’ll thank me later.