By Steve Krutzler / 09:26, 17 August 2006 / TrekWeb Features

Ira Steven Behr's The 4400 heats up as it heads into the final two episodes of its third summer season, with the return of one of its most enigmatic and popular characters: mogul returnee Jordan Collier. Played by Billy Campbell, Collier was assassinated in the middle of last season, thrusting the young and inexperienced Shawn Farrell into the center seat at the 4400 Center, which Collier founded at the beginning of season two. But in the startling conclusion to last season, Collier turned up alive on the lake shore where the 4400 were deposited in the first place.

Collier's absense was due to Campbell's adventurous ways -- opting to sail around the world as a crewmember for the last 13 months. But two weeks ago, Collier made a mysterious reappearance and is slated to play a big role in the final two episodes of the year.

"Ultimately it’s the audience members who will decide how they feel and what they believe about Jordan Collier," says Ira Steven Behr. "He definitely has, from the very beginning of season one when he showed up, had a very striking mojo and that just seems to have increased with the various events that he has been forced to live and die through."

"The fact is Jordan Collier is a very important part of this series and for the past two seasons we’ve been kind of working with and around that character. The show is easier to write when he’s around than when he’s not around. I certainly look forward to the day when we know we have him and we can plot out more of a full season with that presence."

For Campbell's part, the actor says he was elated the production accomodated his trip.

"I thought for sure I’d never hear from those guys again," Campbell recalls. "I felt they are probably going to cut me off but it never happened and I was thrilled."

The character's absence set the course of the series just as much as his presence, according to Behr.

"It makes us stretch a little bit and we sometimes grumble about it but ultimately it makes for some interesting moves. Last season if Jordan Collier hadn’t been assassinated, Kyle Baldwin would not have gotten into that trouble and thus Tom would not have had to react to that kind of stress, which made for a very interesting second half of the season. If that had not happened we would not have quite felt the need to come up with the Alana character. It makes us put on our collective thinking caps and say 'OK this is the barrier we have to surmount and get across and let’s do it.'"

Despite the result, Behr admits he quietly hoped that Campbell would tire of his adventure and return to work sooner than he let on.

"To be honest I was not sure he would stay the whole time," Behr says. "We knew he was going and we hoped deep down inside that after eight months he’d say 'ok that was great' and come back. But we always knew once we agreed to it that there was a chance that we were not going to have him for quite a long period of time."

The producer says there was never any doubt that Campbell would remain a part of The 4400.

"A lot of times writer/producers and studios don’t always agree on things and a lot of times it’s on actors; who we might love but they might be lukewarm to etc. But that wasn’t the case with Billy. Everyone was really excited about the character and about what he had brought to the character and it was more of when he does come back we want to make sure that he does come back and doesn’t say 'I need a period of adjustment and cool it.' We really wanted him back for this season. If we had not had him for the entire season that would’ve been a tremendous loss to the show. This way, what I told the staff was we’re going to basically do a full season of Jordan Collier stories in three episodes."

Behr refers to the set of episodes that have already begun airing. Last week we learned that Collier has returned as a sort of Messianic figure, claiming to have traveled the past and future and witnessed the catastrophe that the 4400 were sent back to avert in the first place.

"Obviously the chance to have Jordan Collier back -- none of us wanted to blow that opportunity. And it seemed like a chance to really expand and play with the franchise a little bit and take a major step, make big moves in the storyline. Jordan’s return is going to have a big impact on the people closest to him and the audience and beyond. It’s going to have a major impact on society and heralds the next phase of storytelling," Behr foreshadows.

And there's plenty more 4400 to tell. Behr is confident USA Network will renew the series for a fourth season, perhaps even sooner than it was decided last year. Accordingly, the writing staff has charted out quite a ways.

"If everything falls into place and there are no huge surprises in terms of cast and any kind of strange network dictate that comes out of nowhere, easily we have another two seasons kind of thought out and we could move forward from there," Behr announces. "The way TV is right now and the way the network works you have to be prepared for anything. I would say we are comfortable looking ahead for two more seasons and if we had any incentive we could keep going."

That kind of confidence comes from the enormous success of the series, which still defies easy classification. Is it a character soap or is it a genre high-concept show?

"What really makes the show special and what the industry is realizing more about the show and what other writers who don’t work on the show are responding to is that it is a genuine character-based television show. There are a ton of shows that claim they are character based. This is a show where character leads the story. Delving deeper into the existing characters and finding new characters who we can get excited about and explore makes the show pretty unique and fun to write and rewarding to write."

And although he doesn't enjoy the carte blanche that he did when steering Deep Space Nine through seven tumultuous seasons, Behr says the 4400 is more satisfying in another way.

"We have an audience that is not necessarily consider themelves a genre audience," he explains. "I've been through many years in my career that people I know who I like and respect did not watch what I was doing because they were not into sci-fi and they had told themselves they didn't want to see space ships and all that, and it didn’t matter whether the show was good or bad. We seem to get a lot more diversity in our fan base with this show so I think that’s kind of nice."

For the next two weeks, Behr promises plenty of moving pieces surrounding the return of Billy Campbell. And Campbell it settling back into work.

"Twenty-eight hours after I had been cleaning a toilet onboard I was in front of a movie camera!"

But does playing an adventurer-slash-prophet-slash-Messiah compare to his swashbuckling real life?

"I would say the adventure in playing Jordan Collier precisely has to do with not knowing whether he’s good or bad," Campbell says. "Once I got over needing to know and let go of that it became so much more fun to play and so much more adventurous.

"I don’t have any complex plan for playing the character. All I try to do is not make too many bad guy faces and not ever try to seem too good. I just try to put it in the middle somewhere and hopefully that works out."

The 4400 airs Sunday nights at 9p on USA Network. The season finale will air August 27th.

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