MovieChat Forums > The 4400 (2004) Discussion > I can see why this show was canceled. Pa...

I can see why this show was canceled. Pathetic Season 3

posted 10 years ago by fp_ff_fp
4 replies | jump to latest

So after a stellar Season 1 and a good follow up Season 2, I'm not sure what happened. Was the writers strike on then? Did they change the writers and directors?

Season 3 started off stupid, continued stupid and ended stupid.

The whole Isabelle baby growing up as a teen (she puts on ~18 years but her mom from whom she apparently stole those years which itself made no sense in the context of that universe ages 50+ years inexplicably and gets killed off).
And look! oh yay, Shawn teaches Isabelle how to drive, how to mate, how to whatever because she's a "Baby". WTF.
Richard Tyler was just a colossal waste. Should've killed him off as well. Matthew was appearing sinister and just as something was to go with his background/story, he gets killed off.
The whole NSA/NTAC vs Nova group was stupid.
Just when the Nova group was going somewhere as the evil X-men faction, they get all killed off.

And in one episode, they have hallucinations via cookies and don't even recognize the lady is a 4400? They take her to the 4400 HQ and *then* she introduces herself as a 4400 with an ability and they all seem like - oh yeah, ok, that makes sense now..
Morons. So they get a bunch of cookies strangely from their partner who they chat with at odd hours of the day without problem and whats the first thing they do? If you said call them, you'd be in for a shock... NO, they just eat all the cookies. Supposed NTAC agents working with crazy 4400s, enemies like Nova Group, fighting their own like Dennis Ryland and the NSA and they instantly eat the cookies. Gaaah....

Every episode bordered on cringeworthy writing and scenes. The whole Skouris/Marco romance was wretched, forced and just plan stupid. It's almost as if they just wanted to start pairing people - Shawn/Isabelle, Shawn/Nikki (who comes back for free miracle healthcare and free $60K payment for her father plus more), Skouris/Marco, Tom/Alana etc.

The 4400s should now be 4200s or so given the loss of so many...

Also, 4400 people got abducted over 60 years. Thats 73 people a year or 6 every month. That's about 1-2 abductions a week!!! What were the future humans thinking? How were they abducting at this rate???

I have a suspicion either the writers quit or changed or something else happened because the story has gone stupid now. If I would've watched it live, I would've tuned off which I suppose is what happened leading to the show getting canceled.

Other thing majorly annoying is that the show is 42 mins long, then they have a 1 min intro music (although it is good) with a 2min recap and another 40-60second ending credits.
That is 4 mins wasted (10% wasted) in a supposed 1 hour show.
Just so annoying that they shoot only 38mins and even that is filled with junk at times..

Lets see how Season 4 goes...

Reminds me of Heroes - good first season (7.5/10 except final one) leading to just garbage (rated around 1/10 and 2/10) followup seasons.

[–] fp_ff_fp 10 years ago

Want to mention that Season 4 is just as wretched and pathetic as Season 3.

I cannot believe how well Season 1 started and Season 2 was also quite good. Seasons 3 and 4 are just junk.

And there's no final resolution either so it was all for nothing.... Wish they'd have made a final episode actually explaining what they were thinking and bringing final resolutions to major threads. Ended just as abysmally as Lost did, another great show with awesome start and just ended with the most garbage final 20mins

[–] Poweranimals 10 years ago

Weird. I actually liked season 4 the most. The show started with an interesting premise. I kinda liked it when I thought they were abducted by aliens. The promisen storyline with Collier was where things started to take more of an interesting turn. I would've liked to see where a season 5 went.

"I guess it never hurts to 'shake it up'."

[–] godsgirl41718 10 years ago

Couldn't agree more! I just binge watched this over the past few days and really enjoyed the first two seasons, but 3 and 4 felt like a completely different series. I think I was left with more questions when it ended than when I started the show :-/ Intriguing concept, just poorly executed.

[–] mafrie 9 years ago

This show was a big deception in the sense that it was promoted as a sci fi mystery - but it was nothing of the sort. Just a vehicle for telling everyday tedious stories of relationships gone awry, with bad acting mostly. It's by-the-numbers soap opera scripts with unimaginative characters some of whom have run of the mill "paranormal" abilities. What you'll see is mostly tedious: relationships between unlikeable officials and/or between the "put backed" people. There's also a smattering of varietal behaviors, a murder, some racial disharmony and then harmony, divorce, high school hijinks, and a creepy cute kid thrown in for good paranormal measure. It's a let down if you're expecting a science fiction story like Close Encounters or time travel or something along those lines. It's more like a series of
individual soap opera-y regular boring relationship stories.