Why is it some people can make consistently better choices than others when outcomes are evaluated. Is it a question of intelligence, intuition, childhood background, education, experience, divine intervention? I believe it is having the right mix of all these and more, except into relation to the latter when from experience I understand that intervention is not in the form of human understanding but the ability to keep within a balance of forces which make up the universe.
When I discovered that the second disk of the series the 4400 was missing with its three final episodes of the first series I was tempted to continue with the remainder, expecting it could take some time to replace the duplicated first disk. I decided to contact the gift provider and amazing quickly the good customer relations of Amazon had supplied not just the disk but a replacement full set. Although watching West Wing had been my priority, I elected to start with the 4400 in the run up to the Christmas Season.
(section deleted as not directly applying to 4400)
So having digressed about the exercise of choice and its outcomes, back to the 4400 and where the whole series appears to hinge upon the choice that of one young man three years before the date when the series is set after 9/11 and the formation of Homeland security in the USA
First I had to remind myself that the series is about 4400 people, (will we learn the significance the number or was it just a creative notion which sounded good?) who are returned from where they have been after having disappeared for up to a century but interestingly not longer. Was this because the creators were limited in their imagination or because it would have been difficult for those from previous generations to have made an adjustment to the present had society accepted their return There return is associated with a Comet which become a large white light cylinder in shape and subsequently has the form of a white electrical charge.
It was evident from the two episode pilot and the one that which followed that the series would follow the experience of three distinct groups of people and this was confirmed from watching the three episodes of the second disk to complete the first season on Friday afternoon.
The first group are the investigators/monitors. There are three of these who work for the new Threat Assessment Unit part of the Homeland Security Service in the USA. Tom Baldwin, played by Joel Gretsch works for the government and is assigned to monitor what happened when the 4400 are released into the community after it is legally decided it would be unconstitutional to hold them for longer in quarantine. The reason why the 4400 are considered a threat and ostracised by the society generally is because the public becomes aware that they have extra terrestrial, Godlike or devil like powers.
Tom’s role becomes more significant when we learn that his son was one of those intended to have been taken three years before but his cousin moved him out of the white light force/electric charge and takes his place. This is the exercise of choice with profound consequence for both of them. The son Kyle, is played by Chad Faust and lived with his mother Linda (Lori Ann Trioli),until the event which has left him in a coma who is estranged from her husband, but they really love other and it appears to be his work which has caused the rift. More on the significance of the choice when I have covered everyone and everything else that has occurred to date. She appears to have no control over what and when she sees.
Tom works closely with Diana Skopuris (Jacquline McKenzie) a single woman who can barely cope with her own life but appear to be good as her job. She befriends the youngest of the returnee Maia born 28 Feb 1938 and disappears in 1946 aged 8. She is the first often returnees to attract the interests of the authorities because of her uncanny knack of predicting what is going to happen with infallible accuracy. She begins to write her visions in a diary.
This duo are commanded by Denis Ryland (Peter Cope) who heads National Threat Assessment Unit. Because the majority of the 4400 chose to settle in the area of his posting. Washington, we learn has doubts about his abilities and sends someone to keep an eye on and potentially take over as the first season progresses.
The second grouping are the majority of the 4400, who we never learn of their backgrounds or their role in the mystery although a selection become the main subject in every episode. The third group are the core returnees, five todate who are to have an on going role, or at least this is what the first series indicates with Maia already mentioned..
Lily Moore Tyler (Laura Allen), is a young woman who finds she is pregnant when she returns and that her husband has had her declared missing believed dead and remarried and where his new wife is bringing up Lily‘s child as her own. She was character born August 1966 and disappeared May 26th 1993. Her grandmother had an unrequited relationship with Richard Tyler born 1922 (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), who was abducted May 11th 1951 15 years before the birth of Lily, after being framed for assaulting a white girl when it became known he had a white girlfriend. Richard is amazed at the progress in race relations and rights since his abduction and he is struck by the similarity in appearance between Lily and his former love and when both find they do not fit in and do not have relatives with whom they can relate they establish a relationship even though Richard knows Lily is pregnant, assumed by her former husband. Lily has the ability to communicate with her unborn child. There is the possible parallel of Lily being the Virgin Mary, Richard is Joseph and the child, well we shall see! However the twist which emerges towards the end of the first season is that the unborn child has the same DNA as Richard. What does this mean?
When they find life in the community difficult with bomb attacks on some of the returnees they seek the help of another returnee Jordan Collier. He is featured in the first season episode (4) Becoming, A real estate financier and developer he disappeared in April 2002 and when he returns he decides to take on the government and society by declaring that he is a returnee and offering a new luxury private housing estate as a refuge for other trainees and he offers to provider a home free for the Lily and Richard and a job as head of security for Richard. However his support becomes suspect when he takes an intense interest in finding out what is happening to the pregnancy and when he attempts to separate the couple. They break out of the estate with the help of the unborn child and going into hiding until the baby is born. How they manage to fund their life is not explained and I learn that their fully furnished log cabin they use was found abandoned!
The main focus of the episode Becoming is the suspicion that another of the returnees Oliver Knox was a serial killer before he disappeared and is responsible for a further series of killings since his return. What emerges is that Oliver is able to get other men to kill victims he identifies to them and to then take the blame for the original killings thus taking the pressure away from himself. He is however apprehended. It is a relative of one of the murder victims who starts the bombing campaign against 4400 returnee and he and a associate are caught before their attack on Jordan Colliers property refuge takes place. Oliver disappeared in 1983 and uses mind control through speech.
The pilot is a double episode and in the second the main story focus is on Orson Bailey a partner in an insurance firm who disappeared in 1979 only to find on return that he has been removed from his company which is now being used in a corrupt way. When put under stress and frustrated Orson finds that he has awesome telekinetic power in the form of shaking vibrations to the extent of causing a minor earthquake and the death of the man who has taken over his company. However when it appears that his power is out control is shot by homeland security but lives and is taken into secure custody.
The third episode also is about a character, Carl Morrissey, the New and Improved Carl Morrissey, a minor Supermarket employee, also some who disappeared recently and returns to live with his wife and his old job. He is presented as someone who accepts what life throws at him but rebels when eh finds that the part where he courted his wife has been overrun by drug addicts, and gangs including rapists. He finds that he has developed great strength and movement and sets about cleaning up the park at night. He is the first to communicate the idea of being on a mission, However he misunderstands his abilities and is killed when taking on several hooligans at the same time. However this is not the end of his mission as the community responds to his death by getting together to reclaim the park. This can be viewed as an episode message that it is up to communities to band together to sort out similar situations but also alerts the viewer, and the investigators that the returnees are on a mission but which we have seen appears to have contradictory purposes ranging between extremes of good and violent evil.
This brings me to the significance of Tom’s son Kyle who was drinking beer on a beach at night in 2001 when the white light strikes him but on appeal to his drinking companion and cousin Shawn Farrell, it is Shawn who pushes Kyle out of the way and takes the full force of the light and is abducted. Kyle remains in a coma visited by his parents until Shawn returns.
On his return Shawn discovers he has the power to heal which eh finds it difficult to admit to and this includes healing the hand of the girl friend of his young brother who has a relationship with a girl at the High school who had a crush on the disappeared brother before his departure. This leads to a violent confrontation with his brother and taking teh decision that he needs to take refuge run by Jordan Collier who previously had taken an interest in the young when realising the nature of his powers. Shawn is upset to find the condition of his friend and on a visit to hospital places a hand on Kyle who appears to make progress which does not last. When eh visits again Kyle appears to regain full control over himself but cannot remember anything or anyone of his past including his father and mother. He claims that he is not their son and appears driven towards searching for someone or something. Meanwhile the person placed to watch over the activities of the Special Task Force takes Kyle into protective custody and for study and Tom and Diana embark on a plan to break the boy out of quarantine and into a place of safety with his mother. They are successful but the young man forces them to take him back to the beach where he was abducted and where father and son become transfixed by the white light which appears tom hold them in a trance like state. We the view know that this is not the situation as the being who has taken over the son is having a conversation with Tom. This is not evident to both the head of the unit and the man planted to take over when they arrive or to Diana, however the spy in the camp pulls a gun a shoot Kyle and breaks the white light connection. The episode is called The White Light. Kyle recovers from the shooting after the being inside him leaves and he appears fully recovered but to where he was three years previously.
And the conversation between Tom and the being ? We learn that the being is not an alien but a human, from the future, unstated time, and that the human race is dying out and that the time travelling was take the selected 4400 and return them in order to change things to change the future. So there is a mission which the 4400 must be allowed to undertaken. Kyle had been selected as the one to communicate the task when they returned but because of the intervention of Shawn he had not been taken and had been kept in the coma state until the appropriate time. They were therefore using Kyle to communicate with Tom and given him the responsibility of protecting the 4400 and the in so doing the future saving of humanity from extinction. Hmm!
When I discovered that the second disk of the series the 4400 was missing with its three final episodes of the first series I was tempted to continue with the remainder, expecting it could take some time to replace the duplicated first disk. I decided to contact the gift provider and amazing quickly the good customer relations of Amazon had supplied not just the disk but a replacement full set. Although watching West Wing had been my priority, I elected to start with the 4400 in the run up to the Christmas Season.
(section deleted as not directly applying to 4400)
So having digressed about the exercise of choice and its outcomes, back to the 4400 and where the whole series appears to hinge upon the choice that of one young man three years before the date when the series is set after 9/11 and the formation of Homeland security in the USA
First I had to remind myself that the series is about 4400 people, (will we learn the significance the number or was it just a creative notion which sounded good?) who are returned from where they have been after having disappeared for up to a century but interestingly not longer. Was this because the creators were limited in their imagination or because it would have been difficult for those from previous generations to have made an adjustment to the present had society accepted their return There return is associated with a Comet which become a large white light cylinder in shape and subsequently has the form of a white electrical charge.
It was evident from the two episode pilot and the one that which followed that the series would follow the experience of three distinct groups of people and this was confirmed from watching the three episodes of the second disk to complete the first season on Friday afternoon.
The first group are the investigators/monitors. There are three of these who work for the new Threat Assessment Unit part of the Homeland Security Service in the USA. Tom Baldwin, played by Joel Gretsch works for the government and is assigned to monitor what happened when the 4400 are released into the community after it is legally decided it would be unconstitutional to hold them for longer in quarantine. The reason why the 4400 are considered a threat and ostracised by the society generally is because the public becomes aware that they have extra terrestrial, Godlike or devil like powers.
Tom’s role becomes more significant when we learn that his son was one of those intended to have been taken three years before but his cousin moved him out of the white light force/electric charge and takes his place. This is the exercise of choice with profound consequence for both of them. The son Kyle, is played by Chad Faust and lived with his mother Linda (Lori Ann Trioli),until the event which has left him in a coma who is estranged from her husband, but they really love other and it appears to be his work which has caused the rift. More on the significance of the choice when I have covered everyone and everything else that has occurred to date. She appears to have no control over what and when she sees.
Tom works closely with Diana Skopuris (Jacquline McKenzie) a single woman who can barely cope with her own life but appear to be good as her job. She befriends the youngest of the returnee Maia born 28 Feb 1938 and disappears in 1946 aged 8. She is the first often returnees to attract the interests of the authorities because of her uncanny knack of predicting what is going to happen with infallible accuracy. She begins to write her visions in a diary.
This duo are commanded by Denis Ryland (Peter Cope) who heads National Threat Assessment Unit. Because the majority of the 4400 chose to settle in the area of his posting. Washington, we learn has doubts about his abilities and sends someone to keep an eye on and potentially take over as the first season progresses.
The second grouping are the majority of the 4400, who we never learn of their backgrounds or their role in the mystery although a selection become the main subject in every episode. The third group are the core returnees, five todate who are to have an on going role, or at least this is what the first series indicates with Maia already mentioned..
Lily Moore Tyler (Laura Allen), is a young woman who finds she is pregnant when she returns and that her husband has had her declared missing believed dead and remarried and where his new wife is bringing up Lily‘s child as her own. She was character born August 1966 and disappeared May 26th 1993. Her grandmother had an unrequited relationship with Richard Tyler born 1922 (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), who was abducted May 11th 1951 15 years before the birth of Lily, after being framed for assaulting a white girl when it became known he had a white girlfriend. Richard is amazed at the progress in race relations and rights since his abduction and he is struck by the similarity in appearance between Lily and his former love and when both find they do not fit in and do not have relatives with whom they can relate they establish a relationship even though Richard knows Lily is pregnant, assumed by her former husband. Lily has the ability to communicate with her unborn child. There is the possible parallel of Lily being the Virgin Mary, Richard is Joseph and the child, well we shall see! However the twist which emerges towards the end of the first season is that the unborn child has the same DNA as Richard. What does this mean?
When they find life in the community difficult with bomb attacks on some of the returnees they seek the help of another returnee Jordan Collier. He is featured in the first season episode (4) Becoming, A real estate financier and developer he disappeared in April 2002 and when he returns he decides to take on the government and society by declaring that he is a returnee and offering a new luxury private housing estate as a refuge for other trainees and he offers to provider a home free for the Lily and Richard and a job as head of security for Richard. However his support becomes suspect when he takes an intense interest in finding out what is happening to the pregnancy and when he attempts to separate the couple. They break out of the estate with the help of the unborn child and going into hiding until the baby is born. How they manage to fund their life is not explained and I learn that their fully furnished log cabin they use was found abandoned!
The main focus of the episode Becoming is the suspicion that another of the returnees Oliver Knox was a serial killer before he disappeared and is responsible for a further series of killings since his return. What emerges is that Oliver is able to get other men to kill victims he identifies to them and to then take the blame for the original killings thus taking the pressure away from himself. He is however apprehended. It is a relative of one of the murder victims who starts the bombing campaign against 4400 returnee and he and a associate are caught before their attack on Jordan Colliers property refuge takes place. Oliver disappeared in 1983 and uses mind control through speech.
The pilot is a double episode and in the second the main story focus is on Orson Bailey a partner in an insurance firm who disappeared in 1979 only to find on return that he has been removed from his company which is now being used in a corrupt way. When put under stress and frustrated Orson finds that he has awesome telekinetic power in the form of shaking vibrations to the extent of causing a minor earthquake and the death of the man who has taken over his company. However when it appears that his power is out control is shot by homeland security but lives and is taken into secure custody.
The third episode also is about a character, Carl Morrissey, the New and Improved Carl Morrissey, a minor Supermarket employee, also some who disappeared recently and returns to live with his wife and his old job. He is presented as someone who accepts what life throws at him but rebels when eh finds that the part where he courted his wife has been overrun by drug addicts, and gangs including rapists. He finds that he has developed great strength and movement and sets about cleaning up the park at night. He is the first to communicate the idea of being on a mission, However he misunderstands his abilities and is killed when taking on several hooligans at the same time. However this is not the end of his mission as the community responds to his death by getting together to reclaim the park. This can be viewed as an episode message that it is up to communities to band together to sort out similar situations but also alerts the viewer, and the investigators that the returnees are on a mission but which we have seen appears to have contradictory purposes ranging between extremes of good and violent evil.
This brings me to the significance of Tom’s son Kyle who was drinking beer on a beach at night in 2001 when the white light strikes him but on appeal to his drinking companion and cousin Shawn Farrell, it is Shawn who pushes Kyle out of the way and takes the full force of the light and is abducted. Kyle remains in a coma visited by his parents until Shawn returns.
On his return Shawn discovers he has the power to heal which eh finds it difficult to admit to and this includes healing the hand of the girl friend of his young brother who has a relationship with a girl at the High school who had a crush on the disappeared brother before his departure. This leads to a violent confrontation with his brother and taking teh decision that he needs to take refuge run by Jordan Collier who previously had taken an interest in the young when realising the nature of his powers. Shawn is upset to find the condition of his friend and on a visit to hospital places a hand on Kyle who appears to make progress which does not last. When eh visits again Kyle appears to regain full control over himself but cannot remember anything or anyone of his past including his father and mother. He claims that he is not their son and appears driven towards searching for someone or something. Meanwhile the person placed to watch over the activities of the Special Task Force takes Kyle into protective custody and for study and Tom and Diana embark on a plan to break the boy out of quarantine and into a place of safety with his mother. They are successful but the young man forces them to take him back to the beach where he was abducted and where father and son become transfixed by the white light which appears tom hold them in a trance like state. We the view know that this is not the situation as the being who has taken over the son is having a conversation with Tom. This is not evident to both the head of the unit and the man planted to take over when they arrive or to Diana, however the spy in the camp pulls a gun a shoot Kyle and breaks the white light connection. The episode is called The White Light. Kyle recovers from the shooting after the being inside him leaves and he appears fully recovered but to where he was three years previously.
And the conversation between Tom and the being ? We learn that the being is not an alien but a human, from the future, unstated time, and that the human race is dying out and that the time travelling was take the selected 4400 and return them in order to change things to change the future. So there is a mission which the 4400 must be allowed to undertaken. Kyle had been selected as the one to communicate the task when they returned but because of the intervention of Shawn he had not been taken and had been kept in the coma state until the appropriate time. They were therefore using Kyle to communicate with Tom and given him the responsibility of protecting the 4400 and the in so doing the future saving of humanity from extinction. Hmm!
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