JULY 23, 2006
BLINK
by Craig Sweeny
We didn't want to go all the way through Season 3 without doing any "one-shots" whatsoever. One shots are self-contained episodes; we meet a new 4400, deal with their ability in some way, and end the story within the course of a single hour (more like 41 minutes, actually).
We did lots of these stories in the first two seasons, and though we've moved away from them in Season 3, I miss them sometimes. They tend to be a bit lighter, and it's always fun to think up new abilities.
And thus, Blink. The original idea for the episode actually did come to me in a dream. Kind of hard to write that with a straight face, but there you go. I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea for a 4400 scam episode.
The notion: there were three 4400s working together, using their abilities to bilk an unsuspecting public. One guy has a kind of telepathy; when he talks to you, he can divine the source of whatever psychic pain you happen to be carrying around. More often than not, a member of your family is the source of that pain. Think about it: where do your issues come from?
The second guy has the ability to induce hallucinations -- if the person who causes you pain has passed on, he sends you a hallucination of that person, convincing you that you're either going insane or being haunted by a ghost.
The third guy is the businessman. He finds you, and offers you help getting rid of your ghost problem. They charge you to get rid of a problem that they themselves have created.
We've always wanted to introduce Tom Baldwin's father, and this story idea seemed like a way to do it that hasn't been done hundreds of times already. He's dead, he's a hallucination, but the issues he brings with him are still real.
Unfortunately, we could never quite make the "ghostbusters" version of the story work. I still think it's a clever idea, but we kept getting hung up on the mechanics of the scam. And so, the "Maguffin" gradually morphed into a drug, synthesized from a 4400 ability, that forces you to interact with the source of your psychic pain until your issues are solved.
Once we decided on this, we didn't want to leave Diana out of the fun. We decided to dose her, too, and came up with the notion that she was once engaged, and spurned by her fiancé just before the wedding.
Diana and Marco's relationship was a casualty of this storyline. It was sad to end it, but it seemed that Josh was speaking directly to her inability to commit fully to Marco. We still love Marco, and he'll figure prominently into some storylines in the near future.
On a completely unrelated note, I spoke on a panel about The 4400 at Comic-Con this past weekend. Ira was there as well, along with four of our actors. I couldn't believe the turnout when I walked on stage. There were something like 2500 people in the room, and they tell us that more than a thousand people were turned away.
I was extremely nervous, but it wound up being a good time, if a bit surreal. Nothing like turning around and seeing your fugly face projected onto a 25-foot high TV screen. Thanks to everyone who came -- the chance to meet and talk to fans is the highlight of our working year.
The Q&A session at the panel was regrettably short. A lot of people who were waiting in line didn't get to ask us anything. So, for them -- and for the people who didn't make it into the room -- we'd like to open this blog up for questions.
Got something you want to know about The 4400, or about writing on a TV staff in general? Send me an email at sweeny4400@yahoo.com, and I'll do my best to answer it in this space in the coming weeks. Please put "PRODUCER'S BLOG" in the subject heading so your email doesn't get mixed in with the hundreds of spam emails touting cures for male pattern baldness that constantly clog my inbox.
I look forward to hearing from people. Have a great week.
Past Entries:
- (7/16) The Home Front
- (7/9) Graduation Day
- (6/25) Gone
- (6/18) Being Tom Baldwin
- (6/11) The New World, Parts I & II
- (6/1) Ira Steven Behr's Season 3 Sneak Peek
