I’m a fan of the series, which I’ve consumed only on DVD since I don’t have cable, and was a little apprehensive when it came time to take in this last season, which got canceled during its hiatus without any warning. Ratings, I guess, had been on the decline since the spotty but still wonderful third season and the writers were obviously scrambling to get everyone’s attention back… my edginess was justified.

There is still, especially in “The Marked” a good bit of the quirky brilliance that hooked me on this show. “The Marked” is a great episode both as a stand-alone (the freak-of-the-week writes bizarre conspiracy-shattering screenplays as his 4400 ability) and as a continuation of the overall story arc (learning more about Matthew Ross and the baddies who sent him - and Isabelle - into their past) and it made me cheer.

That said, well, it was only one thread in a great big tangle of stuff. An unnecessary office romance. Interesting but ultimately dropped tales of new abilities on the part of early adopters of the shot. The establishment of a 4400 colony deep in the blight zone of Seattle. A political campaign to combat the “p-positive” movement with Sean Farrell as its figurehead. The effort to develop a test to see who would survive the shot…

Sure, every season of every half-decent show juggles a lot of chainsaws in the air, but this felt like too many of them. Maybe it’s just a side-effect of knowing the show was canceled, of bracing myself to hit the wall of irresolution, but I just found this season a mess.

Nice try on wrapping it up and pointing where they’d wanted to be going with the final episode “The Great Leap Forward,” though. I gather from talks with fellow fans that this never got aired. A pity. It shows they did have some plans to go nuts with this.

Mostly I’m just sad it’s gone. Even at its worst/silliest, it was a hell of a lot more fun than most TV out there. And at least we got three and some seasons before the ax fell, instead of, say one (Surface, Odyssey 5, etc).