The fourth season may fall a little short of the three that preceded it, but The Dead Zone remains one of the smartest, most intriguing series on television. As its adherents well know by now, the show, based on Stephen Kings 1979 novel of the same name, was adapted for TV by Michael and Shawn Piller, with actor Anthony Michael Hall whos also one of the producers starring as Johnny Smith, who recovered from a horrific car accident and resulting sixyear coma to find that his fiancee Nicole deBoer is now married to the town sheriff Chris Bruno, whos helping raise her and Johnnys son. Whats more, Johnny is now possessed of some remarkable and unsettling powers: simply by touching another person, or objects touched by others, Smith experiences visions that illuminate events that have happened, will happen, or are simultaneously taking place elsewhere. It must be handy to know which elevator button to push when youre looking for someone whos in trouble, or to realize that its okay to jump off a hundredfoot bridge because youve seen yourself surviving the fall, but Smiths visions are rarely comforting and not always reliable, leading to moments of genuine suspense and intrigue.