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‘I’ve Never Watched HEROES’!! Herc Meets & Chats Up 4400 Mastermind Ira Steven Behr!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
I am – Hercules!!
The Wednesday after Memorial Day, a bunch of entertainment journalists and myself were invited to the Hollywood offices of “The 4400,” which returns to USA this Sunday.
The first episode of the season, “The Wrath of Graham,” deals with a newer breed of superhumans, the “extra-crispies.” These individuals were not part of the “original recipe” 4400; rather, they are non-abductees who have elected to risk their lives in pursuit of superpowers - by injecting themselves with “promicin,” the mitichlorian-like substance found in all of the “original recipe” 4400.
There are other changes. NTAC (the National Threat Assessment Command) has a kindler gentler boss (Jenni Baird), who will also serve as Tom Baldwin’s love interest. Gone is both Samantha Ferris, who played the director of NTAC for two seasons, and Karina Lombard, who played Tom’s old love interest. Returning to regular status are Tom’s son Kyle (Chad Faust) and Jesus-y 4400 messiah Jordan Collier (Billy Campbell), both of whom missed a good part of last season due to other commitments.
Some other interesting facts gleaned from our roundtable discussion with “4400” showrunner Ira Steven Behr:
* Behr said we will finally learn this season why forces from the future abducted and altered the title characters.
* The new season’s first four episodes will deal with the new promicin-enhanced “extra-crispies.”
* Episodes five, six and seven will delve heavily into the series’ “mythology.”
* Episode eight was described by Behr as something to “cleanse the palette.”
* Nine and 10 will see the return of Isabelle’s dad, World War II relic Richard Tyler.
* 4.11, 4.12 and 4.13, according to my notes, will deal with “space madness.”
* At the time we interviewed Behr on May 30, nine episodes had been shot and 11 had been scripted.
* Behr said some initially questioned the wisdom of focusing on the promicin-enhanced “extra-crispies,” since the name of the show is “The 4400.”
* Behr has high hopes for Meghan Doyle, the new NTAC director. He said the first NTAC director, Dennis Ryland (Peter Coyote), never really blossomed as a character until he entered the private sector. Behr described Ryland’s successor, Nina Jarvis, “neither fish nor fowl,” and too much of “a one-note finger-pointer.”
* Behr said he abandoned several years ago the original series finale he had in mind for “The 4400.” He would not specify what that original ending entailed.
* Current plans called for Jeffrey Combs to appear in six episodes. His companion, played by Summer Glau, will appear in four or five – despite the fact that Glau is now a regular on Fox’s new “Sarah Connor Chronicles” series.
* Behr says he spends six weeks before each season developing a presentation for approval by USA execs. These gameplans, however, often have to be altered due to things like budget restrictions and cast availability.
* Behr, “half-kidding,” said the perfect writing experience would be one in which “the only people watching the show were the ones who were writing it.”
* Though Karina Lombard’s visage makes a cameo appearance in 4.1, Behr admits her character, Alana Mareva, will likely never return to the series.
* Behr said he has not seen NBC’s “Heroes,” and has no plans to. (He points out also that he never saw “Babylon 5” while he was serving as showrunner on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” either.)
* Behr said he does (or did) have “season passes” on his DVR for these series:
. “The Office,”
. “The Venture Bros.,”
. “Rome,”
. “Deadwood,”
. “The Sopranos” and
. “30 Rock.”
* Behr said he spends more free time with books and movies than with TV these days. When asked which recent movies particularly grabbed him, he singled out Tommy Lee Jones’ “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s “28 Weeks Later.”
* Behr admitted cast absences last season inspired plotting. Had the actor not committed to an extended boating excursion, he said, “Kyle would never have shot [Jordan Collier].”
* Budget restrictions apparently led to the demise of Laura Allen’s character, Lily Moore, at the start of last season.
* Behr admits he misses the “Deep Space Nine” days, when he could visit the sets of the show he wrote. The fact that “The 4400” shoots in Canada, he said, makes his job “less fun.”
* Asked what he thought of the plan to revisit the early days of Kirk and Spock in the next “Star Trek” movie, Behr only offered he was not generally a big fan of “moving backward” and that he thinks the “Trek” franchise has been moving in that direction since the first episode of “Voyager.” “When they put Starfleet uniforms on the Maquis, that to me was the first sign we were receding from the high water mark.”
* Behr said he was negotiating to have a female member of his “DS9” cast appear in one of this season’s last episodes. While he declined to name the actress at the time, he later confided that Penny Johnson Jerald, who played captain Kasidy Yates, had agreed to guest-star.
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i did't really like heroes initially because i thought it was a 4400 knock-off. And now 4400 is finally back! that was a long wait.
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and here i was thinking i didn't really check this site THAT much.
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Last season really was blah. Hopefully, this one will be an improvement, including Isabelle's acting ability.Laura Allen, not Laura Harris, played Lily, and bailed because she got a better offer (Dirt on FX). I could see how it's easy to mistake the two, both in name and appearance.
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when i first saw the mini, i watched it despite the hokeyness of some of the acting and the general air of cheese. By the end of season 1, it'd ended out to be one of my favourite shows. It's kinda a shame that its concept (ensemble show about ordinary folk exhibiting special powers, with an overarching conspiracy in the background) is now so overshadowed by Heroes - i like both shows but i confidently predict that somewhere on the internet there's already a Heroes v 4400 flame war going on. It's probably a good thing too that Behr don't watch it because otherwise it'd almost be impossible to avoid repeating some of its cleverer tricks, even inadvertantly. I also like that such a major plot point as the shooting of Jordan Collier, came about from something as basic as the availability of the cast. Shame that Karina Lombard won't be around with her strange-euro-hotness in season 4, but at least we get more episodes with Summer Glau.
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It's not a perfect show but I love it nonetheless. The outline for season 4 sounds great - let's hope it delivers in its execution. Last season was pretty hit and miss I found.
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See what I did there? Zing! No? Okay, whatever. Tough crowd...
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... for a cable show
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But heard a lot of good stuff about it. Plus he likes The Venture Brothers. He cant be all bad!!
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since the HEROES show is now mega-popular, which storylines/characters/powers/etc will the show rip off from HEROES?
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i mean season 4.
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since when?
and why wont he watch HEROES? is he jelis? -
Seeing the future? Reading minds? Implanting suggestions? Shapeshifting? All powers used in Heroes that appeared in 4400 first. Truth is that, after several decades of DC and Marvel, pretty much any power you name has been done before by somebody. Except that guy whose special power is to scratch the numbers of lottery cards with his mind. I'd never seen that one before.
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I mean DAMN. Forget the rest of the irrelevant characters - I just want an hour of her every week.
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Because that's the cool thing to do. Looking forward to it's return, actually.
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I can buy him not watching Babylon 5, but the Heroes thing is a load of crap. In this industry, he's never watched the show most closely associated to his? I don't buy it for a second.
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4400 has been running since 2004. Heroes has been running since late 2006. Would you expect the makers of ER to watch every medical drama that's come after?
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With your ER analogy...no, I don't think that the producers watched every medical show to come on after theirs, BUT...I do think they definitely tune in to the ones generating more buzz then they are, so I'm sure they've watched Grey's Anatomy, and to a lesser extent House. Heroes has been the most buzzed about new series from '06, and it's on one of the major networks - I just can't believe that Behr or any of the other producers have not watched and said "we do that better than them" or "they do that better than us." In the end, producing these shows is about making money, and anyone that wants to make money ALWAYS checks out the competition. It's not a bad thing - I'm totally happy with having both Heroes AND 4400 on tv, because they can BOTH learn from the other.
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I *might* buy that Tim Kring has never seen 4400. But then again, he says he's never read comic books...and I found that statement to reek of BS too.
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Wish I could say the same.
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...read on...
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This is not trolling. These are facts. Behr rips off JMS everytime he can. OF COURSE he won`t admit it. Who would? Such an uncreative tool...
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There's no sense of who the cast is. Characters just disappear for long stretches. Now there just ditching the Alana charcter?
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Been watching the show since the beginning, they keep it interesting.
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He didn't say that any of the other producers or story editors or writers, etc hadn't. If he did claim that, I wouldn't believe him either. And I agree that it would be foolish if none of them had. But i find it perfectly credible that Behr hasn't watched Heroes - he's a busy guy, he spends his day making tv, probably the last thing he wants to do in his downtime is watch a more successful, network version of the same type of show. i certainly find that a lot more credible than Tim Kring's claim never to have read a frakking comic book.
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Yes, and that's why JMS is doing what exactly? How long has it been since he's had a job? Contrasted with RDM running BSG (a far better show than B5), Ira Steven Behr running 4400, Hans Beimler and Robert Hewitt Wolfe running The Dresden Files, and Michael Piller running (before his death anyway) The Dead Zone. Obviously all of these shows were stolen directly from JMS.
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Who can smell the future!! (I'm working on a script treatment)
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It's wildly popular in a way that the 4400 never quite managed, and in a similar genre with similar themes to boot, so of course he's watched at least some of it if only to check it out. Just like I'm sure he watched some of B5 back in the DS9 days. Thing is he'd never admit to watching it, and in fact would actively perpetrate the myth that he hasn't, because frankly that's the smart thing to do. That way he can avoid, or at least severely limit, any claims of idea theft, regardless of whether such use of any similar ideas was deliberate or not. It's just easier this way.
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Good points all around.
Buuuuuut... I love BSG as much as everyone with good taste, and I DO think that B5 is just as good, even though its age shows. And yeah, even though the other guys you mentioned went on to create other successful shows, I find the similarities between 4400 and RISING STARS, and DS9 and B5 quite obvious and not accidental ...dontcha t`ìnk? -
“When they put Starfleet uniforms on the Maquis, that to me was the first sign we were receding from the high water mark.”What an ass.
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You can't be a total prick until you get a show on HBO. USA doesn't count. Them's the rules.
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why does Behr thinking Voyager stank make him an ass? Because Voyager did stink. That makes him cooler in my book.
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As one who is a fellow Venture Bros fan that would be sweet to see a giant blonde brute tear through the new mutants.
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It's about why he thinks Voyager stank: Voyager took something he had a hand in developing (the Maquis) and neutered them. His whole attitude is "everything after me has been a step backwards" with the implied "...because I'm no longer there".
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really? Not hard for Behr to think that it all went to shit after he left ... because it did. I'm not saying that he was the only thing holding it together. But I also don't think it's unfair for him to disparage what they did after he left because, let's face it, Voyager was lame. It lingered around for so long because we all thought it had the potential to be better than it was, but it never did. It was always consistent in its ability to disappoint. And I don't read Behr as saying it stank because he was no longer there. He's saying it stank because it stank. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
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it just went steadly downhill in a x-files rip off format. what could have been.... it turned to absolute tripe, collier getting shot, the head of the unit replcaed and then becoming the bad guy, one of the main characters killed and her daughter growing up to a fulll grown adult. completely ridicolous
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I just found this excerpt on HBO's website which kinda explains everything that's wrong with the show... :
"A couple of years ago HBO executives approached David Milch (the show's executive producer, head writer and creative visionary) with the idea of changing key elements in a series he'd pitched to them some time earlier. Milch's original idea involved a New York City junkie and street scammer whose life takes an upswing when he befriends a gentle stranger with mysterious powers. The network asked Milch to shift the story from NYC to a California surf town, and to make it about a family of legendary surfers." There it is. HBO forced Milch to morph his gritty NYC drug addict show into a anything but gritty Cali Surfing show. Fucking HBO! -
they all come from the x men anyway.
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I remember she went on the run because she helped out the "terrorists". But did they write her out of the show or did she not want to come back, or did she get another job?
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Why would this tool have a canceled show on his dvr season ticket? Does HBO even show reruns anymore? I'm going to set up all first run Three's Company episodes to tape when I get home. What a douche...
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I've read and watched other interviews with Behr and you can just tell he's full of it. I loved both shows own the DVDs and everything but you can see the similarities and there is no way he didn't watch B5. I can believe that he doesn't watch Heroes and if I was writing a great show like the 4400 I might not either so that I don't taint the show.
I know someone might say "Duh well then why would he watch B5 while working on DS9"
Well that's an easy answer because at the beginning of DS9 it sort of sucked and B5 was WAY better then all of a sudden DS9 was having episodes that were too similar to B5. Also if memory serves DS9 went to war at about the same time B5 did.
I get the impression that Behr is a great big giant douche. -
So it would be how did Heroes rip off 4400. Heroes is still a little better, but 4400 wasn't too bad. Sort of a prototype Heroes.
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the show, and am looking forward to it coming back on. It's one of the science fictiony shows I like to watch that my wife will actually watch too. She won't watch Heroes at all.
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4400 is about humans investigating the people with powers as much if not more than it is about people with powers. Also 4400 has focused much more on the friction between humans and the 4400. Heroes isn't nearly so clinical and focuses more on the mythic side of it. Both are taking their "inspiration" from X-Men shamelessly, and of the two I think Heroes is better if only because it is not yet as convoluted and inconsistant as 4400 has been (which is not to say it has NOT been convoluted or inconsistent, but at least they're not rewriting the origin of the powers as blatantly as 4400 did with the whole abducted to the future rather than by aliens crap). 4400 is X-Files mixed with X-Men, and Heroes is more Lost mixed with X-Men. They're too different. Also, until Heroes commits the ultra-sin of an insto-teen character, it will always have an advantage over 4400. The only show that I've given a pass on with that is Angel, and they had to come back with their best season ever to make up for it (season 5, season 4 was their worst).
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I haven't watched Heroes since the shit-fest premiere.
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I think it goes to DS9's keeping the Bajoran officers in Bajoran uniforms. They are themselves, Quark is Quark, Starfleet is Starfleet and yet everything can work together. On Voyager, it went back to a concept (kind of a Borg one actually) that to work together and survive they all needed the same uniform. Why? Marquis assimilate or we all die? Couldn't they have worked together and maintained an identity? Oh well. He was right anyway. Voyager was the worst. Enterprise had at least some decent eps in their last season. And I am so tired of going backward. I love Star Trek but this Kirk Spock film is giving me night terrors.
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I watch and enjoy both, but the shows feel very different. 4400 has that slow, low budget, filmed in Canada vibe with forgettable characters that exist only to drive the plot. Everyone of them is replaceable at a moment's notice. There's no equivalent to Hiro, Claire, Peter or Jessica. Bland is a good word for them.
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cause Heroes sucks donkey balls
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it reminds me of my restaurant - "Food in the Dude"
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What a creative con man. As much as DS9 was the only good show from the spinnoff Trek era. The whole thing was an interpretation of B5. Was it better, I don't think so but many do. As for Heroes and the 4400, both are blatant ripoffs of JMS's Rising Stars which was a take on Clairmont's X-Men. We all know there is little originality in hollywood these days and almost everything is plagarised in one way or another but come on Behr should at least cut JMS a check for his career.
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is it canceled or not, I F'kin love that show, and would be extremely disappointed if it were canceled. what the frak is wrong with sci-fi, cut bsg down, canceled farscape, canceled invisible man, canceled first wave, destroyed sliders, canceled SG-1 right when it was getting good again, thanks to the infusion of farscape actors. Painkiller jane sux sweaty donky ballz, BRING DRESDEN BACK DAMN IT, it's far better than Eureka, and they are bringing that lukewarm show back... SAVE DRESDEN
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DS9 premiered in January of 1993, Babylon 5's two hour pilot movie was first broadcast in february of 1993, so DS9 didn't steal anything from B5, I'd say they were both in development at the same time
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I freaking love this, a little better than Heros. I think the characters are alot better.
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Wrong.
While the air dates you mentioned are quite correct, it`s common knowledge that JMS approached Paramount years before with his B5 concept. Also, later war-ridden DS9 episodes are blatant rip-offs of B5. So there. -
But good to read that Kyle and Jodan are now full regulars.
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Right on Brother!!! The list is endless starting with the Premise of a Deep Space Station to The WhiteStar (then coems the Defiant) to the Shadow War (then comes Dominion war) Vorlons (Then comes Species whatever with Similar looking ships and the exact same weapon effect wiping out Borg) And on and on. I also liked DS9 but to deny that almost everything was a blantant(yet often brilliant) ripoff of B5 as well as 4400 and Heroes ripping of Rising Stars is nonsense!!
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Its more of a political and social show than HEROES, which is all about the sexy money shots. Don't get me wrong, i like Heroes, but 4400 asks tougher questions. what WOULD our society do if a handful of ppl had powers? 4400 is a great little bit of storytelling... i hope it goes somewhere fun... "space madness" sounds really gay. i hope 4400 doesnt jump the shark in season 4.
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