Is it just me or did The 4400 ...
Question: Is it just me or did
The 4400 seem to reach a new level this week with the Rwandan story line and
Hill Harper's performance? I enjoy the show, but have accepted it as a B-level program with poor production values and a cast I rarely recognize. This time around I felt myself perking up and moving past the way it looks and really paying attention. Is it my new antidepressant, or is
The 4400 kicking it up a notch toward the big leagues? BTW, loving
The Closer and
Rescue Me. They are the non-HBO shows getting me through the summer. And I am soooooo glad that Nate Fisher is dead!
Answer: Whoa, thanks for that last non sequitur. I really was going to try to resist tap-dancing on Nate's grave, but since I figure he'll be popping up again as a ghost (like his tiresome dad) in these last few episodes, let me just say that the predictability and morbid ennui of his death scene was exceeded only by the complete joy I felt knowing that
Entourage was coming on mere minutes later. (And how hilarious was it that Johnny Drama was a bigger star than Vince at Comic-Con?) As for
The 4400, this was the first episode I had been able to see after a several-week break for business travel and other reasons/excuses. I agree Hill Harper was an above-par guest star, and his story line involving Rwandan genocide was also more compelling than the recent norm. But the show still strikes me as a disappointment as it plays out its first full season. It's a great premise, and in stories like this lives up to its
Twilight Zone-ish premise of telling ironic, creepy allegories, but the stories involving the regular cast have become almost unbearably trite and flatly acted. I'm with you that
The Closer and especially
Rescue Me, along with HBO's
Entourage, are the class acts of this jam-packed but mostly forgettable TV summer. But let me be fair to those last few loyalists of
Six Feet Under by giving someone a chance to defend it, albeit not with the final word.
