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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