9 Best TV Shows Similar to The 4400
Cross
When it comes to storytelling, especially when adapting a character that has starred in more than 30 novels and three films, it doesn’t matter if the plot relies on tropes. It matters how one utilizes those tropes. When it comes to the Ben Watkins-created Cross, there are few actors better suited to breathing new life into the Psychology PhD having Detective Alex Cross than Aldis Hodge. Hodge, an actor who engenders goodwill no matter where he pops up, is an excellent fit for the character. He gets the mix of intellect, self-righteous fury, and tendency towards self-destructive isolation just right. Unfortunately, he’s doing it in service of a series that isn’t close to the same level. The good news is he isn’t alone in playing above Cross’s level of quality. Isaiah Mustafa brings a gruff clarity to Alex’s lifelong best friend and current partner on the force, John Sampson. His Sampson seems to get that he’d be the hero in any other story, but as long as there’s Cross, he’ll always be second on life’s call sheet. The performance isn’t heavy with jealousy, though, but rather a frustration that his friend can’t stop making choices that hurt him and his family in the name of protecting them. Alona Tal, as the duo’s FBI contact Kayla Craig, is another standout. Her mix of “one of the boys” attitude and nonstop flirtation makes her a vibrant presence on-screen. That brings important moments of lightness to a show that too often confuses dourness as proof of serious storytelling. Who wouldn't trust Ryan Eggold? Nothing suspicious about his look. (Keri Anderson/Prime Video) As alluded to above, Cross isn’t an especially unique offering. Making the smart choice to tell an original story rather than adapt a specific novel does not lead to the show avoiding most of the genre’s trappings. There is a dangerous serial killer who’s in a cat-and-mouse game with Cross and his team. Like most pop culture serial killers—but very few real-life ones—he has a bizarre gimmick. In this case, he likes to pick victims that resemble executed convicted murderers and make them look almost exactly like killers through force-feeding, haircuts, cosmetic surgery, and more. When he achieves his vision, he murders them in the same manner their look-a-likes were executed. The police, inspiringly, call him Fanboy. Continue Reading →
Sugar
Some shows are difficult to write about because they don’t excite one’s passions. They’re not terrible or great, so they offer little to dig into. Sugar is not that sort of show. Instead, its difficulty stems from a plot development that seems too large to go unremarked upon. And yet, it would be unfair to those who haven’t yet watched the show to spoil it. With all that in mind, I will delicately attempt to navigate a third path. This development is significant. It changes much of what you know about several of the characters. And yet, it largely doesn’t impact the show. I don’t mean it is a waste of time, only that the show’s positives and negatives remain largely unaffected by this development. Take it out, and the story’s heart will remain essentially the same. It’s the rare significant plot point that changes so much without fundamentally altering the series. So, while it would be interesting to write about and explore it, this review is still broadly comprehensive without touching it. Amy Ryan bellies up to the bar and reminds us all she's excellent in noir stories. (AppleTV+) John Sugar (Colin Farrell) is a private investigator specializing in finding missing people. Draped in bespoke suits, he insists he hates hurting people but does so with fluidity and ease. After completing a case in Japan, a message from legendary film producer Jonathan Siegel (James Cromwell) draws him back to LA. Jonathan’s granddaughter Olivia (Sydney Chandler) is missing. Despite a history of substance abuse and frequent absences—as well as the lack of concern from her father Bernie (Dennis Boutsikaris), a producer of…less quality movies—Jonathan is convinced this time is different. A film obsessive, Sugar can’t resist taking the meeting despite reassuring his handler Ruby (Kirby) that he’d rest and recuperate. When Olivia reminds the PI of his missing sister, he must take the case, promise or not. Continue Reading →
Star Trek: Discovery
The 1960s Star Trek show did not have the chance to do a true series finale. All of its successors did though, until now. From The Next Generation to Deep Space Nine to Voyager to Enterprise to Picard, every show had the opportunity to make a final statement and sum up the years of adventures in some fashion. Yet, despite being the primogenitor of the franchise, The Original Series just sort of ends, with the sense of the conveyor belt simply stopping, and its last output accidentally becoming an end, if not quite the end. And yet “Turnabout Intruder”, infamous though it may be, is a surprisingly fitting finale for TOS. It features the good notions and abiding themes of the 1960s show: the idea that this crew knows their captain well enough to sniff out a fake; that become a well-functioning team that can work through even the most unorthodox problems, and that after seventy-nine episodes’ worth of outlandish adventures, they remain open to new and unexpected possibilities. It also features the bad ideas and problematic elements that plagued series time and again: from a mixed-at-best perspective on women to William Shatner’s over-the-top acting. In that, the show’s final outing is an inadvertent but strangely apt swan song for the series. In its new season, Star Trek: Discovery follows in those hallowed, unexpected footsteps. This is Discovery’s fifth and final year on the air, but as reported by the cast and crew, they didn’t know that when writing or filming it until the last minute. Despite the promise of a hastily-shot coda to give the show an air of finality, that makes this last leg of Discovery’s mission an accidental ending, not unlike the one endured by the original Star Trek series. Continue Reading →
Parish
Theoretically, Parish is an adaptation of the three-episode British series The Driver. In practice, the similarities boil down to “What if there was a driver who used to do crime and might start again?” Considering how standard the plot is—a reformed criminal pushed back into a life of crime—it seems strange to call it an adaptation. To get specific, Gray Parish (Giancarlo Esposito) is a former wheelman who left crime a long time ago. In the time since, he met and married Ros (Paula Malcomson) and started a livery service. He and Ros had two children together as well, Maddox (Caleb Baumann) and Makayla (Arica Himmel). A year before the show’s story begins, Maddox was shot to death, and the killer remains at large. Gray has particularly struggled with the fallout. Additionally, his business is falling apart, seemingly from a combination of his grief and the economy. Into this precarious situation arrives Colin (Skeet Ulrich), a friend of Parish’s from the old days. Colin, barely out of prison, has already gotten in trouble with The Horse (Zackary Momoh), leader of an increasingly powerful New Orleans gang, The Tongais. To keep himself alive, he needs Parish’s help in cleaning out a safe. Out of a mix of loyalty and his own financial desperation, Parish agrees. Unfortunately, one job is never just one job. Continue Reading →
Apples Never Fall
The expression, “The book was better,” has become a truism in adaptation, an assumption where the few exceptions only prove the rule. But what’s a creator to do when the source material is deeply flawed? If you’re Apples Never Fall creator Melanie Marnich, you make several cosmetic changes to Liane Moriarty’s novel. The drama moves from Australia to West Palm Beach. The four Delaney children—Troy (Jake Lacy), Brooke (Essie Randles), Amy (Alison Brie), and Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner)—are no longer uniformly tall and olive-skinned. Quite the opposite, really, on the skin tone front. Relationships are shuffled a bit. Unfortunately, these changes fail to elevate the series. The broad strokes of the plot itself are intriguing. The Delaney parents Joy (Annette Bening) and Stan (Sam Neill) have finally retired from a lifetime of running a tennis center, including their own stints as players and coaches. Rather than a delightful occasion, it churns up all manner of unprocessed relationship issues. Stan is cantankerous and competitive, oscillating between diminishing everyone around him with words and beating them all over the court. Joy, on the other hand, expected to spend her golden years catching up with her children, who lack the time or interest in doing the same. Continue Reading →
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
The ScienceSaru-produced animated series rebuilds rather than retells Bryan Lee O'Malley's beloved comic. Late in the final volume of Bryan Lee O'Malley's 2004-2010 comic series Scott Pilgrim (Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour), once the action's done and the hateful Gideon Graves has been slain, protagonists Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers take a moment to process everything. Defeating Gideon meant facing not only the vicious misogynist swordsman but also their respective character flaws (It's telling that one of Scott's key moments is his realizing just how alike he and Gideon are, and by gaining that understanding, he affirms that, yeah, Gideon has so got to die). There are a few candidates for Scott's actual finest hour in Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour. His after-action conversation/reconciliation/renewal with Ramona is my pick. Bryan Lee O'Malley/Oni Press. As Ramona says, change is one of life's constants, which applies to Scott Pilgrim's ventures into new mediums. Edgar Wright's thoroughly enjoyable movie shifted around characters and reworked some of Scott's flaws. The colorful, impeccably soundtracked, hair-tearingly difficult Ubisoft-produced video game ramped up the goofy save for one particularly pointed ending. And now, with the Netflix animated series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, creator O'Malley—joined by co-writer and co-showrunner BenDavid Grabinski and animation studio ScienceSaru (with episode director Abel Góngora) have changed things up yet again. Rather than retell Scott Pilgrim as it's been since 2004 (a story already told, with riffs, as a comic, movie, and video game), the creative team opts for something more radical. It's a work as much in conversation with the Scott Pilgrim that came before as an adaptation. Continue Reading →
Goosebumps
Do we need another live-action Goosebumps adaptation? After a ’90s Fox Kids series and a pair of 2010s films, one would assume that the ground of turning Slappy the dummy and other frightening beings into flesh-and-blood creations has been well-trodden. Continue Reading →
Loki
One of the common complaints about Marvel’s attempts at multiverse storytelling is that it renders everything meaningless. If there is another Ikaris of the Eternals out there—or a possibly infinite number of them—why should one care if the one in front of us dies? Generally, this writer finds the argument unconvincing. If I told you there were infinite versions of your friend out there in the multiverse you might someday meet, you’d still care quite a bit to see your version die in front of you. Continue Reading →
Quantum Leap
After averting the Apocalypse and stopping a more militaristic Leaper from the near future by leaping into his own past, Ben (Raymond Lee) and everyone else at Quantum Leap expected him to leap home. Instead, he was nowhere to be seen. Continue Reading →