History Series / TheFortyFourHundred

* MakeMeWannaShout: In "Try the Pie", Billy gains the ability to produce a sonic scream after injecting himself with promicin. He uses it to incapacitate Tom so that he can't escape from Evanston.

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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the-4400-main_a.jpg]]

!!''The 4400'' provides examples of the following tropes:

** Alana, who's AmbiguouslyBrown (played by a woman of Native American and European descent), possibly meant to have Tahitian ancestry as she was born in Tahiti.

The main characters are Homeland Security Agents Tom Baldwin (Creator/JoelGretsch) and his partner Diana Skouris (Jacqueline [=McKenzie=]). Under Dennis Ryland (Creator/PeterCoyote), they are members of the National Threat Assessment Command, which investigates the 4400. Tom's nephew Shawn Farrell (Creator/PatrickFlueger) is an accidental 4400; he took the place of Tom's son, Kyle (Chad Faust), when he was about to be abducted several years ago. Shawn's return causes friction in the relationship with his brother, Danny (Kaj-Erik Eriksen), as he gets close with his girlfriend, Nikki Hudson (Creator/BrookeNevin). Other 4400 include former USAF pilot Richard Tyler (Creator/MahershalaAli), empath Lily Moore (Creator/LauraAllen), and Maia Rutledge (Conchita Campbell), one of the earliest people to be abducted. There is also Jordan Collier (Creator/BillyCampbell), a charismatic and enigmatic man interested in the potential usage of the 4400's powers. In the second season, Ryland is succeeded by Nina Jarvis (Samantha Ferris) as NTAC leader, reality-warping 4400 Alana Mareva (Karina Lombard) is introduced, and Lily conceives Isabelle, a daughter with whom she was mysteriously impregnated during her disappearance, who becomes an important character in the second half of the series (played by Creator/MegalynEchikunwoke). In the final season, the NTAC is taken over by Meghan Doyle (Jenni Baird).

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Between the main and [[MonsterOfTheWeek randomly encountered]] 4400s, various NTAC agents, government agents, and regular humans, it's no wonder the showrunners subtitle each 4400 with their name and date of disappearance.

* SocietyMarchesOn: {{Played with}} in the series. Richard Tyler, an African-American who was brought forward in time from the Korean War era, is sitting in a cafe having a cigarette when he notices he is getting a lot of dirty looks. He assumes it's because he's in a Whites-only establishment but in reality it's because the cafe is non-smoking and people want him to put it out. He's also later pleasantly surprised to find that Lily is happy with the prospect that he'd fathered her baby (via {{mystical pregnancy}}) and they later get into a relationship without his being Black or her White an issue, whereas he was nearly killed for being discovered to have dated a White woman, before his transport into the future. Richard still holds the standard views of his time on many things however, asking Shawn what his intentions are toward Richard's daughter Isabelle as they grow close (he'd probably have been appalled to discover they were having extramarital sex).

The basic premise is that four thousand, four hundred people from the past century have been abducted, then TouchedByVorlons, and returned to the present day. They have not aged and they do not remember their abductions.

Many of the returnees discover that they have new abilities, such as telekinesis, mind control, clairvoyance, or [[AppliedPhlebotinum unnatural control of phlebotinum]].

The main characters are Homeland Security agents investigating the 4400. A small group of 4400s are regular characters. Episodes combine the MythArc with a "Freak of the Week".

** In "Becoming", Oliver Knox, a serial killer known as the Friday Harbor Killer who disappeared in 1983, has the ability to persuade people to do anything that he wants using only his voice. As he was already a suspect in the killings before his disappearance, he uses his ability to convince Philip Lopez and Charlie Staley to kill Theresa Baron and Gayle Keating respectively. Both men were totally convinced that they were the Friday Harbor Killer and confessed to the eight murders that Knox committed in 1983, which is what led Tom and Diana to suspect that he had powers. Knox later convinced Aaron Mitchell to kill Felicia but he was stopped before he could do so. The Friday Harbor Sheriff's Department and NTAC had witnessed Knox talking to Mitchell as they started keeping tabs on him after the two confessions. He tries to kill Felicia himself but Tom prevents him from doing so. Knox is then imprisoned in a soundproof cell in NTAC Headquarters so that he can't use his ability on anyone else.

* MixedAncestry: Isabelle is biracial, having a Black father (Richard) and a White mother (Lily) by a {{mystical pregnancy}}.

In 2021, [[Series/FortyFourHundredCW a reboot]] was ordered straight-to-series by Creator/TheCW.

In 2021, a reboot was ordered straight-to-series by Creator/TheCW.

** In "The Ballad of Kevin and Tess", Tess Doerner has learned to focus her ability to influence people since going off the promicin inhibitor and taking more effective meds to manage her schizophrenia. She can now convince people to do something by simply telling them to do it, either directly or indirectly. The extent of her power is demonstrated in "Fifty-Fifty" when she tells Richard to sit down and is rendered incapable of moving.
** In "Daddy's Little Girl", Tess' schizophrenia has become so acute that no combination of drugs is able to relieve her symptoms. She takes over a 1950s themed diner and forces everyone there to dance constantly for more than two days as she believes that it is her Sweet Sixteen party in 1953. Most of them eventually collapse from sheer exhaustion. When Kevin tries to convince her what she is doing is wrong, she makes him place his hand on the burger grill, resulting in a severe burn. However, it soon disappears due to his HealingFactor.

* HomemadeInventions: In "Wake-Up Call", Tess Doerner, a schizophrenic member of the 4400 who disappeared in 1955, unwittingly takes control of the other patients and staff at the psychiatric hospital. As a result, they begin to build a structure from satellite dishes, a weather vane and other objects that are to hand. Tess believes the structure to be a communication device and hopes that the people who abducted the 4400 will return for her and take them with her, this time for good. Several NTAC agents sent to prevent the patients and staff from continuing to build the structure are effected in the same way and instead help to finish it. Once the device is powered up, it releases a pulse which has no discernible effect and Tess is devastated. [[spoiler: It turns out that the structure is not a communication device as she thought. It was designed to cure Dr. Kevin Burkhoff, another patient and Tess' self-appointed protector, who had suffered from a severe paranoid personality disorder for decades and had not spoken a word in six years. Prior to his diagnosis, Kevin was a brilliant neuroscientist who is believed to be "the father of the 4400 technology."]]

* VoiceChangeling: In "Ghost in the Machine", one of Jordan Collier's followers has the ability to perfectly imitate people's voices. He lures Kevin Burkhoff into a trap using Tess' voice, allowing Kyle to capture him and bring him to Promise City.

** In "Pilot", Richard initially has trouble grasping the fact that things have improved dramatically for African-Americans since he disappeared in 1951. At a café, he is astonished to see white and black people socialising in public and sitting at the same tables with no one finding it the least bit unusual or objectionable. This hits home as immediately before he was abducted, he was beaten up by the white members of his army unit because he was dating Lily's grandmother Lily Bonham. Richard is also shocking to discover that the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor are both black in 2004.[[labelnote:more]]This refers to Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.[[/labelnote]] The term "black" itself is new to him as he called "Negro, colored or worse" in 1951.

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: In "Pilot", the nations of the Earth fire their nuclear weapons at the incoming "comet". Some strike, but do not deter it. Then the object is shown passing the moon. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles are not designed to be fired into space, and certainly don't have enough power to get to UsefulNotes/TheMoon -- a three-day journey with today's technology.

In 2018, Creator/TheCW announced that it is planning a reboot.

** Alana, who's AmbiguouslyBrown (played by a woman of Native American and European descent), possibly meant to have Tahitian ancestry as she was born Tahiti.

* MagicFromTechnology: Superpowers such as telekinesis are explained with a new neurotransmitter: Promicin.

* MalignedMixedMarriage: Richard was nearly murdered by White fellow soldiers who'd discovered he'd been with a White woman. Later he is quite pleasantly surprised to find interracial relationships have become accepted in the future, and gets into one with Lily, while they also have a child together.

* DreamEmergencyExit: An episode features all of the main characters being trapped in a shared dream where they had to escape from a building that was trying to kill them. This trope is brought up in that the characters don't know whether it's going to be subverted or played straight. It's [[spoiler:played straight; after Shawn is killed by an exploding window and Meghan is electrocuted, both wake up fine at the same time that the others are released]]. It is also mentioned that each illusion has a special 'back door' that will wake everyone up if the ability user steps through.

* EasilyForgiven: In "Rebirth", Maia forgives Aunt April for exploiting her ability to gamble in the previous episode "Carrier". She's upset with Diana for kicking her sister out even when April's clearly sorry, but Diana explains that "sorry isn't enough". Even when she's made aware of April's past misgivings, Maia argues that family should just learn to forgive each other no matter how bad a mistake they made.

** In "Carrier", Maia becomes concerned that her aunt April only likes her because she tells her things that are going to happen, allowing April to place several successful bets on sporting events. April assures Maia that winning doesn't matter and she loves her for who she is. In order to test her aunt's love for her, Maia tells her to bet on UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} even though she knows that UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity is going to win. The sport is not specified. April bets her mother's engagement ring on the Chicago team and is very upset when they lose. As such, she fails Maia's test.