The Gathering

enterprise_admin · SCI-FI 'SPACE' GENERAL

When "The 4400" returns for its fourth season on June 17 on the USA Network, the controversy and battle over the use of promicin -- the chemical believed to give the characters their powers -- will be central to its story arcs.

Promicin is a fictional neurotransmitter that enables the 4400 abductees who returned from the future to use parts of the cerebellum no human has previously used. In the previous season of the show, the main story arc focused on how the government, viewing the 4400 as a threat to humanity, injected each with a promicin inhibitor to stop them from developing special powers or abilities. The result was that some of the 4400 died, and nearly every person injected with the inhibitor came close to dying.

To further complicate the situation, Dr. Kevin Burkhoff (Jeffrey Combs) developed a way to artificially create 4400 abilities through a series of promicin injections, testing it on himself, that gave him regenerative abilities. In the Season 3 cliffhanger, 4400 messiah Jordan Collier (Billy Campbell) had passed out promicin to anyone who wanted it.

In the fourth season, along with the growing promicin controversy, series executive producer Ira Steven Behr told SciFi Wire the show will answer the big question put forward in the very first episodes: Why exactly were people abducted in a big ball of light, only to be returned with superhuman abilities?

"What most excites me about this season [is] that we finally answer, or may answer, depending on your point of view, what it was all about, what ultimately it's all about," Behr said. "Most shows won't do that and then still feel they have enough credence to continue on. But, you know, I think it's a pretty cool outgrowth of what the original concept series was. And it always bugged me from the very beginning. Why did everyone come back? I wanted answers, you know?"

With the distribution of the promicin, many people also wanting abilities like that of the 4400 are risking life and limb to achieve their goals.

"The first four episodes really talk about what it's like for people who did not get taken in a ball of light against their will and were given abilities against their will: What happens to people who actually risk death and took the shot," Behr said. He also teased that the final three episodes of the season will kick things into "space madness."

"The 4400" returns to the USA Network on June 17 at 9 p.m. ET.