As far as reboot series go, The 4400, which ended its original run in 2007 after four seasons, seems like an odd choice for The CW to be reviving as the imaginatively titled, 4400. The story of 4400 people who vanish and reappear years later without aging seems like a cut and dry plotline that once you have done it, you can’t really do it again…at least not unless you are going to take the idea, change the numbers and add in a plane and call it something like Manifest. However, as The CW have now released the official synopsis for the rebooted show, it looks like there has been a few tweaks to the plot compared to the original series, but will it be enough to make it work a second time around?
In the new iteration of the show, rather than seemingly random selection of people to have vanished an returned, this time around all of the missing are those who were “overlooked, undervalued and otherwise marginalized” in society. How that plot point is evolved throughout the series will be something that we will have to wait and see, but it would suggest that whatever is behind the disappearance is linked to these people for a reason, and its explanation is the only thing that seems like setting this series apart from its predecessor.
This is the official pilot synopsis:
“Over the last century at least four thousand four hundred people who were overlooked, undervalued, or otherwise marginalized vanished without a trace off the face of the planet. Last night, inexplicably, they were all returned in an instant to Detroit having not aged a day and with no memory of what happened to them. As the government races to understand the phenomenon, analyze the potential threat, and contain the story, Jharrel (Joseph David-Jones), an empathetic social worker, and Keisha (Ireon Roach), a hardened community corrections officer, are among the civil servants called upon to deal with the uncanny refugees.”
“The new partners clash in ideology and approach, but gradually find they have more in common than they thought as they become familiar with those under their care, including Shanice (Brittany Adebumola), a lawyer and resilient young mother from the early aughts, whose unexpected reunion with her estranged husband Logan (Cory Jeacoma) and suddenly teenaged daughter Mariah is immediately rocky; Andre (TL Thompson), a WWI Army surgeon fresh from the Harlem Renaissance; Claudette (Jaye Ladymore), an influential hidden figure from the Mississippi civil rights movement; Isaiah “Rev” Johnston (Derrick A. King), a black sheep reverend-scion born to a notable televangelist family in 1990s Chicago; LaDonna (Khailah Johnson), a seemingly shallow but misunderstood D-list reality TV star from Miami, circa 2015; and two wildly different unaccompanied teens, Mildred (Autumn Best), a vibrant girl, whose bell bottoms give away her 1970s upbringing, and Hayden (AMARR), an introspective, prescient boy, whose origin remains a mystery.”
“These unwilling time travelers, collectively the 4400, must grapple with their impossible new reality, the fact that they’ve been returned with a few…upgrades, and the increasing likelihood that they were brought back now for a reason they’re only beginning to understand. Janice Cooke directed the episode written by Ariana Jackson.”
4400 will get its premiere on October 25th, with new episodes being released each Monday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. Episodes will be available to stream online at CWTV.com or on The CW app the following day. The original series of The 4400 is currently streaming on Netflix U.S.
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