If You’re Planning to Watch ‘4400,’ Here’s What Happened to the Original 4400
Published Oct. 25 2021, 8:13 p.m. ET
An old sci-fi show that aired in 2004 on USA Network titled The 4400 is set to reboot on the CW with its new title, simply 4400. The show has an interesting plotline, and if you want a refresher before catching the new reboot, here’s why the 4400 were taken and how that might play into the new show.
Why were the 4400 taken in the original show?
The original show first premiered on July 11, 2004, and it had a really unique storyline that enticed the viewers in. In the pilot episode, a ball of light falls from the sky, and out falls a group of 4400 people. The people were dropped in the United States at the Cascade Range foothills, close to Mount Rainier in Washington.
These weren’t just random people, though. Instead, the humans who randomly fell from the beam of light in the sky had previously gone missing. Like they vanished from thin air, way back in 1946 when a similar random bright light took them away.
When they reappeared back on Earth, none of the people aged a single day from when they went missing, even though several decades had passed in between. It quickly became apparent that the people who had been returned to earth weren’t exactly as they had been before.
Instead, many of the humans reappeared with dramatically different abilities. These new skills ranged from precognition to enhanced reflexes, teleportation, or cloning oneself.
The people who returned, while they possessed new powers, they had no memory of what happened to them from the time they disappeared to returning. And they had a hard time reacclimating to the new world after so much time had passed.
But why were those 4400 people taken? It turns out each person who was a part of the 4400 were undervalued, overlooked, and marginalized people.
The people chosen to disappear for a hundred years without leaving a trace weren’t likely to be people that someone would miss. So, it made the mission a whole lot easier in that regard.
The 4400 ran for four seasons, with its last episode airing on Sept. 16, 2007. The show wasn’t one that was massively popular, but it was considered a cult favorite, particularly among fans of The X-Files and The Twilight Zone.
The reboot of the show, now titled ‘4400,’ was announced in February 2021.
According to Deadline, a revamp of the show was announced, making a comeback to the CW network. It’s a reimagining of the original show and had co-executive producer Ariana Jackson from Riverdale and Anna Fricke from the Walker, Texas Ranger reboot on board for the project.
The show was a straight-to-series order, meaning there weren’t pilot episodes shot to see how those performed before ordering a full season. The network originally planned to release a reboot for the 2018 to 2019 season but ultimately shelved that to the back burner until pairing up with different producers and writers.
The new reboot is likely to take a similar storyline and plot as the original, with the 4400 people taken also being marginalized and overlooked.
4400 premieres Monday, Oct. 25 at 9 p.m. EST on the CW.