Just one week from today, the seeds of a revolution will be launched.

Buoyed by the success of the NUTS to CBS Jericho campaign in which fans sent 40,000 pounds of nuts to CBS headquarters in New York and Los Angeles and got an abbreviated seven-episode second season of their beloved show, fans of The 4400 settled upon another edible with a long shelf life: sunflower seeds.

The group has a web site, MySpace page, LiveJournal blog, online petition and more.

Beginning Feb. 1, USA Network President Bonnie Hammer will be bombarded by angry fans of The 4400.

As I previously reported, sunflower seeds will be their weapon of choice, selected because of Kevin Burkhoff’s lament in “Tiny Machines” that while he was being held in Promise City, they didn’t even give him sunflower seeds.

Savethe400.net has been set up as a clearinghouse for all the info you need to know to help in the effort, including a link to the petition, the MySpace page, the LiveJournal blog, and NutsOnline — the company that helped Jericho Rangers save their show from extinction and who The 4400s hope will be their good-luck charm.

Looks like Jeff over at NutsOnline may be about to help another effort to bring a show back from cancellation.

Fans of The 4400 — myself among them — were disappointed, although not totally shocked, when we heard the news the other week that the show had been canceled. It had been months, after all, since the season finale aired and still no news on whether there’d be a new season. What were they waiting for?

So the fans are striking out. There have been discussions of sending sunflower seeds, a la the Jericho Nuts campaign. Why sunflower seeds? When Kevin Burkhoff was rescued from Promise City, he made a comment that his captors hadn’t even allowed him the seeds. So some fans are urging others to order the seeds through NutsOnline and send them to USA:

USA Network
30 Rockefeller Plaza
21st Floor
New York, NY 10112

The mailing date is Jan. 2. The idea is that if all fans send them the same day, there would be a deluge at USA’s HQ. If it works, future dates can be chosen for more letter/sunflower seed barrages.

Sure, NBC is claiming this is just a way to get more viewers for the USA Network hits Monk and Psych, but c’mon. We all know this is also about getting more scripted shows on broadcast in case the strike lasts too long.

(I’m still more than a little ticked off about The 4400 being killed off, can you tell?)

The shows come back next month for their seventh and third seasons, respectively, Monk and Psych will still air first on USA, but then in March they’ll air Sunday nights on NBC.

Sorry, I can’t really say anymore. I’m sure these are lovely shows; I’ve only heard good things about them. But grrrr (imagine me shaking my fist), USA.

Color me confused, devastated and enraged.

This horrible (yet kind) note has appeared on the message boards for The 4400:

To all the wonderful fans of The 4400
It’s with great sadness that I pass along to you the information I’ve just received—The 4400 has been cancelled. We’ve had a great time bringing you this story and submersing you in the lives of all these incredible characters. Thank you especially to the folks on the board here whose tireless devotion to the show is nothing short of remarkable.
…
But at least we got to go out with a bang! I had an awesome time directing the last episode. I think I got to make almost every single cast member cry (on camera). How much fun was that?! So let me raise my metaphorical glass to you all and thank you for being so loyal and so dedicated. I wish we could go on forever, but the party has come to an end. Be well and on behalf of all of us at The 4400—thank you, it’s been a pleasure.
Scott Peters
Creator / Executive Producer
The 4400

That, my friends, is class.

Here’s some odds and ends from strike news:

• Variety reports that NBC is considering using substitute hosts to replace its latenight stars. Non-writing staff on the shows were told they’d be laid off in two weeks if the strike lasted longer than that.
• TVWeek says that CBS News could be affected by the strike. More than 500 CBS News employees are members of the Writers Guild of America; they’re scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to strike. They range from news writers and editors to desk assistants, promotion writers and researchers in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington and have been working without a contract since April 2005 and without a raise since April 2004.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles has a premiere date, and will lead into the third hour of 24’s Season 7.

As previously reported, 24 kicks off from 8-10 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 13. I wondered, though, why it was only one hour, 9-10 p.m., on Jan. 14, it’s regular Monday timeslot. All is now clear: Sarah Connor will be kicking Terminator butt for an hour before Jack comes back to kick … someone else’s butt.

Here’s what Fox has to say about the show (which is alternately called Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles):

Again facing relentless Terminators that will stop at nothing until John Connor, the future leader of the resistance, is eliminated, Sarah Connor stops running and starts fighting back against fate and the machines that are out for her son…

The SciFi Channel has renewed Eureka, ordering 13 new episodes to broadcast next summer.

According to a release from the network, the show will begin production in Vancouver early next year.

The channel also gave the OK for another season of “its investigative reality hit” Destination Truth.

I’ve never watched Destination Truth, described as such:

Every week, Josh Gates, a world adventurer and eager truth-seeker, and his small crew of production buddies visits a different destination around the world that is home to notorious supernatural and mysterious stories, such as the Chilean Chupacabra, as well as some lesser-known phenomena like the dinosaur-like creatures reported in the skies over Papua, New Guinea, a haunted village in Thailand, and the Wolfman of Argentina. Josh searches for evidence to either prove or debunk these stories by talking to witnesses and experts and immersing himself in the local culture.

It actually sounds kind of interesting (better than Ghost Hunters!) and I might give it a shot one of these days…

But I’m quite pleased about the Eureka pickup.

Wow. Talk about a season finale.

In some ways, it did wrap things up a little too neatly. They sure got Evil Future Person out of Tom rather quickly and managed to save Jordan Just In Time.

But that’s OK. Let’s be honest here — would you have wanted Tom to stay an EFP? Or even have Jordan become a EFP? I thought not; neither would I. So I can live with it.

I never thought I’d be sad to see Isabelle die, but I was.

Megalyn Echikunwoke once again acted her socks off, once again becoming the truly evil Isabelle we all knew and hated. But in the end, she realized she did have a choice and when it came to killing the man she loved and who loved her right back, despite all the bad things she’d done in her life, she just couldn’t do it.

The old Isabelle could have (remember what she did to Shawn?) killed Kyle. She knew she was giving up her life to save others, and she did so completely willingly. She even killed Sherry Palmer Rebecca Parrish.

Overall, the finale really set up the next season (haven’t heard anything yet, but there’d better be one!). The 4400s and government are going to have to (finally) learn to work together. No more of this “you take promicin and you’re a criminal” nonsense. The present can’t live without the 4400s any longer. They’ve reached the tipping point, and Shawn’s brother, Danny, brought them there.

Speaking of, poor Shawn. One by one, he’s lost everyone who ever meant anything to him. All he has left are Tom and Kyle. It was really nice to see Shawn and Kyle make up. They were always like brothers, and it was sad that they couldn’t see eye-to-eye on Jordan.

And Jordan, well, I’m glad he’s not an EFP and he’s going to make up with Shawn to “cure” the other Marked. The question, now, is whether the EFPs can find some other way to come back to the past. One would think they could.

Why do they believe promicin is so bad? Are they the descendants of those who did not take the shot because it would have been fatal and so hate the Positives who have come to rule their world? Are the Positives truly the good people (it seems apparent that the EFPs are, indeed, evil, but does that mean the Positives are, indeed, good?)?

Now, you know that the Positives won’t just give up control of Seattle (foreshadowed in the “Welcome to Seattle Promise City” sign at the city limits). What is the place for NTAC in this city’s future? Now that everyone (except Diana and, until he takes the shot, Tom) left at NTAC is a Positive, how can they continue along the same path?

I liked seeing the NTAC folks’ new powers. Marco can teleport? Garrity can clone himself? Meghan can … turn things into flowers? OK, that one was weird. Though if the feds try to nuke Seattle, she can probably turn the bomb into a shower of daisies.

Kind of a bummer that Diana won’t/cant have a power. How creepy was it, though, when Maia said she was glad Jordan had prevailed, “We’re in charge now.”

I don’t think we had nearly enough of Maia this season, but she totally made up for it with that one scene last night. At least, I thought so.

As for Meghan, she was the surprise of the season. Totally expected her to turn out to be bad; instead she seems to be looking at things from the right angle. She doesn’t seem to see in black and white only; she sees all the shades of gray, and they trouble her. As they should.

A last note: The fact that Joel Gretsch and Megalyn won’t be nominated next year for Emmy awards for their performances this summer is just criminal.

I do loves me some cross-pollination on my favorite shows.

Episode 6 of Jericho’s Season 2 will be directed by Scott Peters, according to the official Jericho production blog.

Who’s he? None other than the creator of The 4400.

In other news, the Jericho crew goes through 15 to 20 pots of coffee and 25 cases of bottled water a day.

Is it just me, or are Joel Gretsch and Megalyn Echikunwoke acting their socks off this season?

Let’s face it. Up until now, their characters, while not one-dimensional, were rather (well-acted and) predictable.

Tom Baldwin, though torn between his love for his 4400 wife and nephew and what the future folks did to his son, plus his job, has always been a wee bit predictable. He always, in the end, does the Right Thing. He loves his country and his family and wants to make sure he does the best he can for both.

But Tom with Evil Future Person inside him is a revelation. He really is acting like a totally different person. When he’s with other EFPs, he’s very clearly one of them. When he’s with Diana or Meghan or other regular ol’ NTAC folks, he’s very clearly trying to be just good old Tom.

What I liked most about the title to this episode was that it applied on multiple levels.

First, of course, you have the guy in the coma who’s screwing with the computer systems of Ubient, the fictional equivalent of Microsoft. He’s the “real” ghost in the machine.

But then you have Tom Baldwin and Ubient’s founder and CEO, Drew Imroth. They are the true ghosts in the machine, inhabited by Evil Future People.

Have I mentioned that Joel Gretsch is acting his pants off? I no longer even see him as Tom Baldwin. What I’m curious about, though, is how, exactly, the Evil Future People manage to extract the essence of their fellow Evil People from the dead vessels that once were not-so-bad people. We already knew they could, as Tom is home to the same baddie who led Isabelle down the road to Evilness previously.

The fact that she has a fail-safe switch inside her makes me wonder about the “last tests” they had to give her before releasing her. Was that administration representative one of the Marked (or at least working for them?). It makes me think that Kyle is totally being used by the Evil Future People, too. (OK, I’m just going to refer to them as the EFP now.)

OK, I’m just all over the place on this one, so I’m going to back up and try to spell out what I think is happening.

Kyle’s “ability” is Cassie, his red-headed familiar. She gained his trust by helping him save Shawn. She made him believe and snag the book that contained the prophecy of Jordan Collier.

She led him to Isabelle and to Jordan and to Richard Tyler. She helped him get Jordan to trust her so that upon her return to being P-positive he wouldn’t suspect anything.

Now, she made it clear to Kyle that getting Richard Tyler captured was only Part I of rescuing Isabelle. But his being in custody is the weapon the EFP can use against Isabelle, threatening his life if she doesn’t cooperate.

But is Cassie an EFP herself? Is Kyle’s ability merely the ability to communicate with EFP and Cassie’s the one they’ve chosen to speak to him? What exactly is Kyle’s ability?

This is all quite interesting, and baffling.

Other thoughts:
• Maia’s visits to Promise City to visit her parents are definitely going to cause problems with Diana. And exactly what are her parents? Is Lindsey Hammond projecting them? If not, who is?
• Jordan’s completely gone over the cliff. Kidnapping Kevin to keep him from developing a test just so no one will be prevented from taking promicin? You know that Tess is coming to Promise City next week. Go Shawn! Loved it when he instructed his secretary/whatever she is to get a hold of our favorite former schizophrenic.
• Diana and Meghan—I called it. I know, some still suspect Meghan of EFP connections, but I really don’t think so. And I had accused her of it from the beginning, so I’m no pollyanna. Could Meghan still be partly bad, perhaps connected to Ryland, as poster Mike suggested last week? Mayhaps. But a member of the Marked? I don’t think so. That scene with them and with Tom at the end of the episode was beyond creepy.
• Tom—Kyle saw something in his father that disturbed him. You could see it in his face when they were all standing around in Promise City. Diana and Meghan know something’s not quite right. Is there any way to reverse the injection of an EFP? Can they ever get Tom back or is he gone for good?
• How cute is Marco for suddenly dressing like he’s out of GQ with the help of new geek/hottie Abagail?

Unfortunately, we’ve gotta wait two more weeks for the answers.

Then we get “Tiny Machines” on Sept. 9 (Spoiler alert: Curtis Peck, writer of the movie “The Marked,” is in this one, and Tess indeed is back and in P.C.) and then the season finale (already?!?!), “The Great Leap Forward” on Sept. 16. I’m not going to spoil that for you, but if you want details about what’s going to happen in that episode, check this site out (not really bad spoilers, just enough for you to know what’s going to happen without knowing what’s going to happen).

Being on vacation last week and catching up (ever try to plow through 570+ e-mails in one day?) yesterday, I’ve been rather remiss on my blogging duties on The 4400.

And that’s a shame, as the last two episodes have been truly great. The return of Richard Tyler, his efforts to restart his life with a baby Isabelle, his hallucination of Lily; all terrific. Richard Tyler was one of the most interesting of the original 4400s, a true fish out of water, on a level similar to Maia’s difficult readjustment to society.

But the true star of these two episodes was Tom Baldwin/Joel Gretsch. His slow transformation into one of the Evil Men of the Future was a testament to Joel’s acting chops. And how great was it to see one of the truly evil women of television, Penny Johnson Jerald (the conniving Sherry Palmer of 24, just one of her memorable roles), as another baddie?

Because I have so much to catch up on, I’ll be brief.

I think it’s clear that the man who once occupied the body of Matthew Ross back in season 2 is the man occupying Tom Baldwin’s body now. His goal is to get Isabelle back into his clutches (seems to be working so far), and I’m supposing the bad future folks have some sort of way to reintroduce promicin into Isabelle’s system without killing her.

How long will it take Isabelle to figure this out is the question. She’s a smart girl/woman/mutant.

Speaking of, I think it will become abundantly clear to many that this is not their Tom Baldwin next week after he tries to kill Kyle. At his character’s core has always been his unconditional love of his son; he’s been conflicted in his relationship with him, but he’s always loved him and would never hurt him. Diana and Meghan (who I now don’t believe is working with the Marked) are going to figure this out and work together to try to save Tom, I believe. Just my guess, though.

Isabelle, having been given a second chance to do the right thing by Jordan and Kyle, won’t so easily turn on them. But with her father’s freedom at stake, she might yet do it.

I’m so bummed that Lily was just a figment of Richard’s imagination. I loved their relationship and Lily was so sweet and real.

But didn’t we all wonder exactly how it was that Richard and Lily had a baby together?

Shawn’s ability to cure Tess of her schizophrenia is wonderful. I love Summer Glau and I want her to continue to appear on The 4400 (Sarah Connor Chronicles notwithstanding). Taking away her mental illness opens up her character to a whole new world and actually enables her character to grow. And she and Kevin can move forward together, too.

Very interesting plot point with Jordan believing the only way to move forward is for half the people on the planet to die. He always said he only wanted people to take promicin if they wanted to. What he didn’t say was that he wanted everyone to want to and didn’t care if half of them died. He truly believes that’s better than having two classes of people – positive and negative.

Of course, that brings us back to Tom Baldwin. We already know he can survive the shot — Kyle’s prophesy says so. And now Tom’s body is occupied by Evil Future Man. Now one of the Marked will be able to take promicin with a guarantee of being able to survive (and he’s not such a public figure that it would be a scandal if he took it, like some of the other Marked are). He’ll be able to develop an ability, bringing them on an equal footing with The 4400.

This season is careering toward an incredible finish.

Now that summer’s rapidly drawing to a close (yeah, yeah, it doesn’t officially end until late September, but find me anyone who doesn’t consider Labor Day weekend to be the end of summer), I’ve finally caught up on some of my summertime DVR selections and, well, let’s just say I’ve freed up a lot of space without having to watch an awful lot of it.

That’s not to say there hasn’t been some highlights and even some spectacular shows. Read more of this entry »

This week’s episode was really top-notch, focusing almost entirely on the show’s really important characters — Tom, Diana, Kyle, Maia, Shawn, Isabelle, Jordan, Marco and Meghan, plus Marco’s office-mates.

Anyone who doesn’t consider Marco a really important character on the show hasn’t been paying attention. Besides his former relationship with Diana, he’s the go-to guy whenever Tom and Diana need to figure anything out that a computer or some sort of programming can even remotely help with.

The power P.J. has developed by taking Promicin is to create a virtual game in the minds of all who are involved, once they’re all asleep. Only once everyone works together to achieve the necessary objective can everyone escape the game. It takes them a little while, but they finally figure out that the objective is to “kill” the NTAC building before it kills them all.

Meghan is the first to die, electrocuted by a door lock. Then the building turns on Shawn, shredding him with shards of glass from a window that explodes for no reason. P.J. himself is third in line, squashed by the door he must walk through in order to end the game before the objective is achieved.

What I especially liked about the episode was that, though I love Tom Baldwin’s character, he sees things as too black and white. He refuses to see any gray at all when it comes to the 4400s, despite his personal experiences with Shawn and others. He’s not evil black-and-white, but he just knows that it’s illegal to take promicin, so it’s bad of people to do it. He can’t emotionally understand the draw to taking it, because he’s so hard-wired to obey those who are his superiors. When he’s disobeyed orders in the past, it’s taken a toll on him.
I also liked that Isabelle and Maia and Isabelle and Shawn managed to come to some sort of detente. And even Tom and Jordan managed to at least begin to treat one another civilly. So P.J.’s power turned out to work pretty well, I guess.

Next week should be the really good one — “Daddy’s Little Girl” — with the return of Richard Tyler. Rumor is that this story arc could result in Isabelle once again being able to have promicin powers. I always liked Richard and I look forward to his return.

The other thing that interested me about next week was — did you catch it? — the flash in the preview of Tom and Meghan kissing, with her fondling his ear. The ear behind which he has the “mark.” Coincidence? That doesn’t exist in the world of The 4400.

The 4400’s season is really picking up steam now.

Warning: Spoilers follow; don’t read if you didn’t watch.

Jordan Collier’s land grab in Seattle was a stroke of genius. No one without an ability can get in; and even if an enhanced soldier does, Jordan’s ability means he can take that ability away from him or her (in yesterday’s case, all hims).

This puts the 4400s and non-4400s in direct conflict, which in turn puts Shawn’s campaign for City Council on the ropes. I thought the way Shawn handled both the sex scandal and Jordan was masterful, though I fall more on Jordan’s side than Shawn’s.

Whether or not the ultimate goal is to bring heaven to earth; Jordan does seem to have the greater good of mankind at heart. He is still Jordan Collier, however, and it takes Maia’s lies about war to convince him not to retaliate by killing anyone.

That was one of the more interesting aspects of the episode, I thought. Maia is truly growing up. She’s learning when she needs to reveal her visions and how to truly use her power for what’s best. She believed her mother to be right about war and she used the credibility she had to convince Jordan to listen to Diana.

I’m glad she was such a big part of last night’s episode, too. Maia’s always been one of the more interesting characters and is even more so now, as she’s closing in on being a teenager.

Her exchange with Isabelle showed a great deal of maturity on both their behalfs. Isabelle recognized that she not only needed to apologize for her behavior, but also to accept that an apology was not enough. Maia expressed herself exceptionally well and didn’t let Isabelle off the hook at a simple “I’m sorry”:

Sometimes an apology just isn’t enough.

Kyle and Tom continue to be driven further and further apart. Tom really can’t accept the 4400’s place in society. He hates Jordan; doesn’t trust him. He’ll never willingly take promicin, at least not the way he feels now. The main problem is that he’s never decided who’s on the side of right — the 4400s and those who sent them back in time or the other future folk, who now number The Marked among them.

Meanwhile, Meghan got all touch-feely with Tom. Makes me even more convinced that Meghan is indeed one of the Marked, or at least highly caught up with them. She’s trying to get all close to Tom so that when they need to inject him with one of the future people (or whatever it actually is that they need to do), it’ll be easier.

Come to think of it, wasn’t it odd that someone with so little related experience got tapped to head NTAC in Seattle? That was touched on in the first ep of the season. And don’t forget that it was Meghan who was able to direct Tom to the gallery where he saw the painting of Alanna. If she’s not connected to the future folks, how did she know how he could find out Alanna’s fate?

All I know is that I don’t trust her at all.

Meanwhile, over at Comic-Con, cast members Jeffrey Combs (Kevin Burkhoff), Jenny Baird (Meghan Doyle), Megalyn Echikunwoke (Isabelle Tyler) and Conchita Campbell (Maia Skouris); supervising producer Craig Sweeny; and executive producer Ira Behr sat on a panel and discussed promicin and the show.

Basically, everyone was a little cautious about the thought of a 50/50 chance of dying by taking promicin; Megalyn was the only one who said she’d take it. (How ironic, considering her character is now permanently allergic to promicin.)

Combs suggested that the odds on dying if you take promicin might start declining soon. Behr said folks might cease to have a choice in whether or not to take promicin by the end of the season. Now, that could mean a purposeful contamination or some sort of massive spill at the promicin storage facility. Neither really makes sense. I guess we’ll find out.

Photos courtesy of NBC Universal.

WARNING: Some key plot points discussed, so if you didn’t see last night’s episode and don’t want to know what happened, read no further.

Wow. The 4400 is totally back on track.

I was getting a bit bored by the first four eps, which focused on the so-called extra-crispies. Last week’s Try the Pie marked a turn back toward the 4400 of old, but it came roaring back last night.

It’s been quite some time since the “future” storyline has been addressed (it seems that way, at least, with the long hiatus between seasons), and I had a few thoughts about it.

1) Why would Tom and Diana doubt Curtis Peck at all? They’ve investigated so many 4400s and seen so much amazing stuff that why wouldn’t they believe this was his 4400 ability?
2) What, exactly, happened to Curtis? Is he still Curtis? Was he brainwashed? Was his 4400 ability taken away? Was he threatened with it being taken away? Was he bribed? Does he really just want to direct Hollywood blockbusters?
3) Did they really put a future person into Tom? Is the mark behind his ear different from the others because they wanted him to be unsure if he’d been co-opted into the future?
4) Are the Marked really bad? The battle in the future has always been murky. It’s always been unclear exactly whether the 4400s were sent back by the “good” faction or the “bad.” It certainly seems like the 4400s are on the side of “good,” but how do we know?
5) Is Meghan one of the marked? If you think that question comes out of nowhere, did you see the look on her face when they talked to her about the mark? And they made such a huge deal about her having forwarded that e-mail to D.C.
6) By healing his seemingly sworn enemy, did Shawn make him even more likely to go on his crusade against the 4400 or did he cure him of his evil heart? Again, that goes to the whole question of whether one can truly change the future — and does Maia’s ability allow people to change the future she sees?

What do y’all think? Share, share!

All photos courtesy of NBC Universal.

So I missed blogging on last week’s “The Truth and Nothing But the Truth” — otherwise known as The Return of April Skouris (to me, at least). Under the weather and all that. Never caught up during the week.

But if the episode had been as good as this week’s “Try the Pie,” I would have made the time.

Truth (ha!) be told, the first four “extra-crispy” episodes were a little boring. Not nearly enough of the original 4400s in those episodes, just a focus on all these new people and their new powers. I understand the need to explore some of these, but given the relatively short seasons of The 4400, four episodes seemed a bit extreme. And “The Truth” just kind of bored me.

“Try the Pie,” however, was an excellent return to form and an excellent bridge. First, it linked all the extra crispies to Jordan Collier and it had lots of Jordan. And Kyle. And Tom. A decent does of Shawn and Isabelle (separately). And the most of Maia we’ve had all season.

So let’s start with Maia.

First off, Conchita Campbell’s growing up. She is looking less and less like the waif who was the first among the 4400 to be abducted and more and more like the pre-teen she’s become. Maia’s not a little girl anymore, and she pointed that out to Mommy/Diana yesterday

As for her dream/visions: We know Maia’s dreams are not merely dreams. Or do we? She usually gets her visions while she’s awake. Perhaps these dreams are a mix between vision and nightmare; perhaps some of it is true, but her subconscious is exaggerating it for nightmare effect. Even in her online diaries (Entry #7), it’s clear that even Maia doesn’t know if these are truely visions.
And what of Diana going to Shawn about his political opponent? It raises the age-old time travel/soothsayer conundrum: If you find yourself in the position to change the future, can you actually do it? If Shawn chooses not to run for City Council because of the fear that his opponent could get a national stage, does that mean his opponent will win and will more easily be able to climb the political ladder and achieve his goals of rounding up all those who are Promicin-positive? If Shawn stays in the race, is that what will make this future happen?

There’s no way of knowing until it happens, though Maia in her vision didn’t look any different than she does now, if that’s even a hint at all. Could easily be explained away as Maia being unable to imagine/view herself as anything other than how she appears at the time.

I say Shawn should go for it. The 4400s need to start taking some power for themselves and fight the attempts to keep them under the government’s thumb. And that includes the extra crispies.

Speaking of, Evanston (Washington, not Illinois), was a fun detour. First off, it showed Cassie is dead-on and Kyle needs to keep following her directions. That means Isabelle is one of the good guys now.

That shouldn’t come as too much of a shock, though, as Isabelle once upon a time did really want to be good. She tried to kill herself to prevent herself from causing harm. She killed the guy from the future who was her “handler” when he was telling her she was to kill all the 4400s.

Did she have any choice in how things ended up? Perhaps. But it wasn’t as simple as just choosing to do good. She should get some points for having tried. More than once. I truly believe her misguided attempts to force Shawn to marry her were her lasts-ditch effort to remain a good person.

She really wants to have this second chance at being a good person. And it’s not just to avoid being in prison for the rest of her life. I truly believe Isabelle wants to atone.

Jordan, however, is not so willing to forgive, though he did forgive Kyle once upon a time, for killing him. I’m thinking that the fact that he’s not dead is part of why he’s able to forgive Kyle.

Anyhow, I also appreciated the fact that Jordan does not believe himself to actually be a messiah, but rather sees religion as a means to an end to spread the word of promicin and its benefits. One can see him as a rather cynical manipulator of the masses using religion for what some could say is his benefit. One might be able to say that about many religious leaders throughout human history, as well.

I had to say I was shocked when I believed Tom was being injected with Promicin. I really didn’t think Kyle had it in him. And one thing I’ve liked about Jordan through all this Promicin-ocity is that he refuses to force anyone to take it. Even after Kyle tells him these 200 people must take it in order to reach the tipping point, Jordan’s not going to force anyone.

If the world Kyle has found in this religious tome is to become a reality, Jordan truly believes these 200 people will indeed take Promicin at some point. He’s not going to make them do it. They have to choose it.

Which, I have to say, I don’t exactly understand why Tom is so all-fired opposed to it. He’s been working with the 4400 from the beginning. His nephew is one. His (missing) wife is one. His partner/best friend’s adopted daughter is one.

He’s seen the good they can do (and, yes, the bad), but knows they are more often good than bad. He tried the pie, and shared wonderful memories with these extra crispies of Evanston, and enjoyed it. He shed his worries in talking to an extra crispy.

He’s only had a few bad experiences with the 4400. Kyle’s assured him he won’t die if he takes it. Is it just his sense of duty? Does he believe it would kind of be cheating to take it? He’s so vehemently opposed to it; even Kyle couldn’t convince him to do it, though that would mean they’d be together. Finally.

He broke Kyle’s heart by saying no. Even if he takes it at some point in the future, this will always stand between them. This was their last, best chance for being a family again.

Is that it, perhaps? That the 4400 interrupted Tom’s life? Put his son in a coma and disappeared his nephew? Even when Kyle came out of the coma, he was not Kyle. And even after he became Kyle again, he still wasn’t totally Kyle. Then he was in prison, then he went away. Tom lost his son a very long time ago, on a beach on a lake in Washington state. And no matter how much they try to find their way back to each other, something, it seems always gets in the way.

And that something is the future; the future that brought us the 4400.

That was my favorite part of last night’s episode of The 4400 — the title. For some reason, it really struck me as cool.

I’m really glad I read an article about Ira Steven Behr, the show’s exec prod, in which he said the first four eps would focus on the “extra crispies” before going back to the regular folk and focusing on the show’s mythology and giving some answers — because otherwise I’d be kind of ticked off at the slow pace of this season. (I tried linking to the article on Ain’t It Cool News, but the link kept swallowing half this post, so I had to drop it.) Very little of the folks we’re really interested in — did they even show Jordan’s face last night and they couldn’t have given Maia a single line to utter? And what the heck has happened to Tess? Remember her? She wandered off in a schizoid state a couple of episodes back.

But next week we get the return of April Skouris. (And then, I suppose, Diana’s explanation of why she wants to stay in the U.S. and with NTAC instead of going back to Europe?)

Here’s the description from the official 4400 site:

Diana locates her sister, April, who took Promicin and developed an ability that has put her life in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Shawn is approached to run for public office. Catch the all-new episode – “The Truth and Nothing But The Truth” – this Sunday at 9/8C!

While it wasn’t a wholly horrible hour of television (and the last moment with the Isabelle reveal was pretty good), it wasn’t what I was looking for last night. Cool new power — astral projection. But it belonged to a woman who died before the night was through. Like Diana, I actually cared about Audrey Parker. She was delightfully played as an older woman by Constance Towers and as a young woman by Laura Mennell.

The Kyle storyline was the one saving grace. He’s starting to embrace his shaman-ness. It looked like the “bible” he took, though, was not written in English. If it wasn’t, how could he read it? It didn’t look like any language I’ve ever seen.

The one thing I’m not thrilled about, though, is the idea of Jordan Collier, the messiah. If that’s truly where this show is going, it could get a wee bit preachy for me. I dunno.

And my main question: how exactly does Isabelle fit in? How is she going to help Kyle? How can she help Kyle? Is she still indeed connected to the future?

Thank goodness.

I was kind of bummed that Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, the actor who portrays Richard Tyler (otherwise known as Isabelle’s dad), had disappeared from the opening credits of “The 4400” when it debuted earlier this month.

I read earlier this month on Ain’t It Cool News somewhere else (can’t remember; if I do, I’ll provide linkage) that he was going to return to the show later in the season; today I found this on SyFyPortal.

Ali explains that now that Isabelle’s lost her immense powers and has been “humbled,” there’s a closeness between them that was not possible before. Her powers were too strong and she was too willing to use them to advance her purposes and desires that even her father couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t fall victim to her.