By Steve Krutzler / 20:34, 7 June 2006 / TrekWeb Features

The mind of a writer often takes you to some pretty strange places. Benny Russell dreamed up Deep Space Nine and the entire Star Trek universe—err, that was in the mind of someone else. Ira Steven Behr has never shied away from ambitious ideas, and that was one of ‘em. Yep, the very imagination that brought Star Trek some of its finest and most daring hours wanted to chalk it all up to a figment of one of his characters’ imaginations. Thinking like that is just one way you know Behr is a cutting edge guy—another is his blue goatee.

Breaking rules is part of the job for the writing staff Behr heads at The 4400, which returns with a third season this Sunday, June 11^th. What started as a six-episode miniseries has blossomed into a genre/scifi/drama beyond easy definition. And that’s exactly how Behr likes it.

“Look, this is a show that ended in show six,” he says, comparing the show to more conventional series. “The mystery we gave away would never have been given away, you guys wouldn’t even known that it was future humans. By the beginning of season three you wouldn’t have a freakin’ clue what’s going on!”

The rapid pace of the summer hit has captured the attention of many viewers, who at the end of last season saw the immaculately conceived baby Isabelle turn into a 20-year old before the credits rolled. This is a show, after all, that assassinated one of its most compelling characters half-way through last season, and used an alternate reality episode to transform one of its leads from a romantic wreck into a happily married man of several years in one fell swoop. With that kind of risk-taking, you’d better strap yourself in.

“We knew that Billy Campbell (Jordan Collier) was going off to go sailing for 18 months on his tall ship, so we knew he was going to die and that there would have to be a show after that. So from the very beginning I thought [the next episode] would stop that train at a different station, and I knew this was going to be a show that people were going to love and were going to hate, but it would all be OK because they were all going to talk about it,” he says of the introduction of Karina Lombard as Tom’s wife Alana.

“We really hoped that bringing the show out and making the concepts bigger every week would give you things to scratch your head about. I didn’t know if we were going to be able to sustain that,” he says of the format that gelled last year. “This season so far I’m pretty pleased that The 4400 as a series has gotten more and more in focus.”

Expect to see less of the case-of-the-week episodes this year, and more continuing storylines pertaining to the ongoing character threads. Serialization that Behr once had to fight for on DS9, is now welcomed by a studio and network in the era of Lost and Desperate Housewives, shows that demand attention to continuing arcs.

“When we do meet a 4400, instead of it being their problem it’s usually our problem [now] and that’s what the episode focuses on,” he says. “[It] gives a better through line throughout the season that way. I grew up in an age where there was no serialization – people were falling in love one week and that character was never talked about; their best friend dies in their arms and they’re not in therapy the next week. And it used to bug me quite a bit as a kid. I did not feel that was life the way I lived it, anyway, so I think [serialization] makes the show more compelling.”

Unlike DS9, Behr walks a tightrope between science fiction and character drama on The 4400. Overt sci-fi elements are eschewed in favor of more accessible human elements, and it’s been a winning formula.

“The show has that wonderful schizophrenic double vision of big 4400 stuff, and then the lives of the character themselves and the long term multiple episode story arcs,” Behr explains. “This is a show that has no comfort level for the network,” he explains . “You’re not going to see rays shooting out of people’s eyes or buildings exploding because it’s a different show. And I dig that. I like the fact that it’s life interrupted and we get to do all this character stuff.”

One of the characters fans will undoubtedly enjoy seeing more of is Jeffrey Combs’s Kevin Burkhoff, the brilliant scientist who woke up from a mental haze last season and will appear in several installments this summer. Combs is a fan favorite and one of Behr’s go-to guys for interesting roles. At the end of last season the doctor helped save the 4400 from a government-induced plague, before injecting himself with a green syrum in an homage to Combs’s Re-Animator films.

“Kevin’s experiments that he’s been conducting on himself trying to see if he could be the first non-4400 to develop 4400 capabilities are reaching a climax [in episode 9 of the season] and he is in a great deal of trouble,” he reveals. “A lot of people are looking for him and he is on the run with Tess, Summer Glau, who we met last season. The two of them are off together and there’s a connection with Diana and Kevin that we’ve played throughout his episodes.”

Combs has brought his unique performance to a role that Behr envisioned becoming larger from the very beginning. But even stylistic choices must be in service of the show’s character-centered core.

“I think it’s important that the audience can empathize and sympathize with all the characters, so it’s important not to make him just a compendium of ticks and odd behaviors. This season clearly he has scenes where he talks about what he’s doing and the 4400 abilities, and he has some deep insight into the impact that all this is ultimately or could ultimately have on society.”

Others returning include Peter Coyote, whose Dennis Ryland was brought down in last year’s finale as the head of a conspiracy to thwart growing 4400 powers. Coyote may appear in as many as six episodes, including the premiere, and take on new roles… like become the president? Behr makes the suggestion in passing as part of a joke, but it’s just the kind of thing you can’t rule out of the writer’s toolkit. After all, as the season opener points out, Ryland has a lot of public support for his efforts against the 4400.

And it looks like Planet Earth is going to need all the help it can get. With a splinter terrorist group of 4400s on the loose (called the “Nova Group”), the unpredictable allegiances of the 4400 Center, and a fully grown baby Isabelle, it’s a full plate for the folks at NTAC.

“This year the NSA’s going to be rearing its ugly head, and Ryland’s going be the head of a totally different type of organization,” Behr previews. “NTAC is really 4400-specific and that makes it a little easier. This year we’ll be doing a lot of stuff about who gets taken in and how long you can hold them etc. and it’s going to be a little scary… The 4400 have become ever more present in terms of their impact on society and we keep moving towards some kind of eventual, I won’t say ‘clash’ necessarily, but the world is going to change.”