TVSquad

You know, I was really concerned about this show in the new post-Heroes landscape. I was worried that Heroes had made a show like The 4400 irrelevant.

But I've been very pleasantly surprised. The 4400 has managed to maintain it's own feel and I never think of Heroes when I'm watching it.

I have to disagree with Jen about the religious angle this show has taken. It really only follows that any situation like the one in this show would lead to an embracing of religion and looking to religion in an attempt to explain and categorize what was happening.

As a Christian, I don't think there's anything in it to either get me excited or angry. It's just another show using the generic "God" in its storyline, and drawing on obvious Christian imagery, especially Jordan Collier as Jesus Christ, right down to tonight's scene of him emerging from the river. It was subtle, but the visual parallels between Jordan/Jesus, and Kyle/John the Baptist was interesting.

The only objection someone could have to the generic talk of God and religion on this show is if one was utterly opposed to ANY talk of God or religion.

Personally, I think it's a great angle and a natural next step in the evolution of this show. (Yeah, I'm a Christian and I used the word "evolution" in a sentence. Get over it.)

What I love most about this show, and what continues to separate it from Heroes, is that it isn't afraid to tackle wide-open, public knowledge of these super-powered people. I'm so tired of these incredible events on other shows taking place in a vacuum. On Heroes, except for those in the know, the knowledge of superpowers is kept hidden, and that makes for weaker stories, ultimately. The 4400 embraces the idea of finding out what really could happen to society of super-powers were an injection away.

I'm just happy to live in a TV landscape that has both Heroes and The 4400, and both shows are great in their own way.

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I think the show is sending some mixed messages. When April took the shot, the "message" of that episode was that promicin may give you an ability, but you are still the same person you were before. But then in this episode, the message is completely contradictory.

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The reason why utopias don't work is because of the human condition. Promicin changes the human condition and as such maybe does make a utopia possible. Probably not as it doesn't change it that much, just kind of spices it up.

Here's what I like about the presentation of religion. No one has thought that this could be a tool of the evil future to get everyone to use promicin and lead the world to chaos. Nope, of course a book from the past with a messiah and prophetic writings must be intended for the good of humanity. I really hope in the end religion gets painted as a tool of control and manipulation.

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Well, The 4400 seems to be shooting nothing but net this season. I'm happy to say I now look forward to it every week.

What scifi show doesn't touch on a religious plot sooner or later anyway? It's interesting that *now* we see a religious plot in the show, but it already did the religious worship thing in the first episode of the season with Graham Whatsisname.

Now we're seeing perhaps the beginning of some redemption for Isabelle, too.

You'd think Tom would've been a bit better at social engineering to find out what the deal with Kyle's car being in the shop was, though. A bit over the top, out-of-character, done for the sake of plot.

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Discosis, nah, as a dad, Tom did what you would expect. That bond is stronger than anything. He just blew a gasket thinking the guy had his son.

The show is great, as usual. It is a shame it isn't on one of the main four networks, it would have done well. This is much preferred to all the reality crap on the major networks.

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The episode was called Try The Pie. The Marked is next week.

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"The Marked" is next week's episode. This week's episode was titled "Try The Pie."

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/the4400/

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I think Victor brought up some great points on the whole Religious angle…Jen, I’m surprised you didn’t see this coming—I mean after Jordon mysteriously came back and was becoming some profit on the street it was pretty much setting up for this direction. JEN, if you’re uncomfortable w/it maybe you should pass the blog over to someone else who won’t interject their own personal views on it. while I totally agree that ‘religion’ over the years of the human existence has brought much pain and horrible things have been done in the name of ‘religion’ but many wonderful things has as well—so it’s not fair to just make a blanket statement that religion “my experience that, if anything, religion divides people in some pretty serious ways.”

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This show has gone down hill and this season, it has hit a new low. Read my full recap at:
http://www.recapist.com/2007/07/16/the-4400-try-the-pie

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I kind of have to agree with Jen on this one. Religion has divided people as much as it has united people. I don't see why she would have to give up doing the blog for The 4400 just because she thinks that. This is a blog that is supposed to generate discussion/comments about a tv show. Anyone who writes a review about any tv show is going to inject their own spin to it.

Cults have a religious aspect to them. To me they are turning Jordan and his followers into a cult more than a religion. You get caught up into the movement to the point it's almost like brainwashing and you follow blindly. I'm sure power is going to go to someone's head and Jordan has always had that look about him (to me anyway) that he craves power..... his comment about religion fits into that. He sees Kyle's book as a way to get back into the good graces because it's now a "religion" so you have to accept me.

To me this will come down to a good vs evil.... Sean vs Jordan. Sean seems to want to do the right thing, the positive thing, the correct thing.... use his power for good and heal people. Show the world they can live with The 4400. I just don't get the feeling that Jordan wants the same things even if he says he does.

Anyway, does the fact they are talking about God and religion bother me.... no, not at all.

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The funny thing is that I can't recall the last time (if ever) I saw religion portrayed accurately on a TV show or movie. Religion is always presented as a surrogate for either magic, or corruption, or ritual. There's always a prophecy that must be fulfilled, or a prayer that miraculously makes everything better, or an angel that stands in for all things Christian.

Granted, real Christianity is much more boring than that, and I doubt I'd want to watch a show about the boring lives of everyday Christians. But as a Christian, it just gets frustrating to have to contend not with the legitimate criticisms of religion/Christianity, but with the silly representations in the media that have come to stand in for faiths of all kinds. 99% of every debate I've had with someone over religion has been about either this false portrayal in the media, or about a specific bad experience they had at a church in their youth which soured the whole opinion of religion for the rest of their lives.

The 4400 to me falls in the mostly harmless category of Christian/religious disinformation.

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I thought that this was a good episode, but hot damn, is Kyle getting creepy. I'm getting pretty well convinced that the bad future people are messing with him again.

As for Maia's dream-- I'm very surprised that no one considered that she got yanked out of time in the mid 1940s. The concentration camp motif wouldn't really be that strange a turn for her nightmares to take, given the obvious parallels.

I'm not saying that her dreams couldn't be visions, just that it's a little wacky for that to be the only explanation they're seriously considering.

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