TV: My UNPRECEDENTED look at The 4400

First of all, USA network, get over yourself. The 4400 is hardly UNPRECEDENTED, as you keep insisting (about 8,000 times during Sunday's two-hour premiere, by my count). In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." It's a mini-series. We've seen those before. Airing one episode a week and calling it a "limited series" doesn't change what it is -- nor is that little semantics game UNPRECEDENTED. ABC, for one, did the same thing with Kingdom Hospital. A mini-series, by any other name...

Despite USA's best efforts to irritate the crap out of me, I still enjoyed this first episode. It's a great premise -- all those people who have been abducted by aliens being returned to Earth at the same time. The execution, though, is a bit uneven. There are a ton of characters (not 4400, fortunately, but still a lot), and not all of them are written or acted equally well. Michael Moriarty as returnee Orson Bailey is certainly a stand-out, from both the writing and acting perspectives. (But Moriarty himself worries me a little -- is he really that feeble, or is it just uncanny acting? I kept fearing he would fall over and shatter.) Also interesting is Mahershalalhashbaz (-expialidocious) Ali as Korean Conflict soldier Richard Tyler, who runs into Lily, the granddaughter of the love of his life, among the 4400. And falls in love with her. (Well, not yet, but I'm assuming.) Lily also has a good storyline: she's only been gone 11 years, but her husband has written her completely out of her then-infant, now 12-year-old, daughter's life; her daughter doesn't even realize her stepmother isn't her real mother. And daddy is doing everything to keep it that way. Plus, Lily's pregnant. Man, when it rains it pours.

The returnees aren't all great characters, and their reintegration into the modern world is rife with contrived conflict and melodrama (especially the high school student, who gets picked on by bullies, and wants to steal his brother's hot girlfriend), but that's nothing compared to the two Homeland Security agents heading the case. Do they butt heads at first, but quickly develop a grudging admiration for one another? You bet your ass they do! And that's about the least lazily-written and cliche-ridden element to these two. Joel Gretsch as Agent Tom Baldwin has a certain factory-produced, generic charm, but Jacqueline McKenzie as Agent Dana Scu... I mean, Diana Skouris, doesn't even have a comatose son or divorce proceedings to contend with, as Baldwin does, so she's a cipher. Pretty, but there's zip to make her interesting, other than arguing with and sometimes saving her partner.

And yet I'll still stick with this series. Why? Well, I'm already a third of the way through its six hours -- but that's not it. Despite myself, I've become interested in the story. Where did these people go? Why were they returned? What are these powers some of them have begun to exhibit? Will the aliens come back for them? This first episode had me hooked with the story, and overlooking most of its flaws.

It's not brilliant sci-fi, but it's above average. I'm actually looking forward to the next episode, and finding out what happens to that creepy little girl who can now see the future, or even that high school student, who brought a dead bird back to life. And for a summer series that's... why, it's almost UNPRECEDENTED.