[1] Attracting approximately 7.4 million viewers,[3] the episode became basic cable's most watched première[4] since The Dead Zone.

[3] "Pilot" introduces the show's premise of 4400 people being abducted in the past, beginning from 1946,[5] and all being returned to the present day in a flash of light at Highland Beach.

[6][7] A comet suddenly changes trajectory and is heading towards Earth, apparently coming in for a "landing", 4400 people assumed dead or missing reappear.

A young girl, Maia Rutledge (Conchita Campbell) of Crescent City, California, is with her parents in their car.

A fellow soldier then drops a photo booth strip on the floor; the pictures are of Richard with a young white woman.

In 1979, Orson Bailey (Michael Moriarty), a partner at an insurance firm, is preparing to leave his office to take his wife on a date.

Next, teenage cousins Shawn Farrell (Patrick Flueger) and Kyle Baldwin (Chad Faust) are on a beach at night in the year 2001, drinking beers and talking about their personal lives.

Elsewhere, Diana Skouris (Jacqueline McKenzie) receives a call on her cell from Dennis Ryland (Peter Coyote) telling her to "Get over here, now!"

Diana asks to be brought up to speed, and an unnamed co-worker tells her that the comet is no longer a fly-by; it is heading toward the earth.

As she tells Ryland the co-ordinates of where the comet's trajectory will land it, Dennis states that it is near Mount Rainier, their "back yard."

Diana looks on as the comet slowly comes in to land, hovering over a lake and causing ripples to form in the water.

The CEO is the son of Orson's former partner, and welcomes him back, but informs him that there are no available positions, and that his partnership was paid out to his wife when he was declared dead.

Later that night Orson takes a taxi to the CEO's house where he rings the buzzer at the gate and becomes agitated when it is not answered.

He rattles the gate and yells, and as he becomes more agitated, glass shatters in the house and the CEO clutches his head before collapsing onto his coffee table where he is impaled through the chest with one of the legs.

Dennis attempts to question her on why she was returned, but she does not give him any specific answers, seeming to take her foster mother's warning to heart.

After school, they get into a fist fight where Shawn appears to have superior physical strength and dexterity and seems to pull life from the boy.

His brother's girlfriend Nikki takes a special interest in his well being, providing him with comforting words and a burned CD of modern music that he can listen to in order to catch up with pop culture.

The building shakes, lights shatter and medical devices start flying around the room, with multiple nurses and orderlies witnessing.

When they refuse, he again becomes agitated, causing the building to shake, objects to fly and nose and ear bleeds in himself, Diana and Tom.

However, he visits his cousin in the hospital and briefly wakes him from his coma by grabbing on to him, thus realizing that he has some sort of supernatural ability.

[11] The USA Network was approached with the series, and after reading the script, the show was greenlit for a two-hour pilot episode.

[11] In an interview with writer and executive producer, Ira Steven Behr, he notes that there are no religious aspects to the episode and that he does not believe religion will play any major part in the first season, stating "I have my beliefs, and you have yours".

[14][15] Sci Fi television critic Kathie Huddleston rated the episode as a "B", stating "The 4400 feels more like a drama than a science-fiction show.