Millennium

I don't think I've ever fully gotten over the cancellation of Millennium. Re-watching the old episodes on the FX channel, you can really see how well written most of the episodes were and the characters were all memorable and likeable. Right up until the very last season, where I personally feel the writers ruined the series. The two episodes, the cliffhanger before the last season, were incredibly well done, I'd even say masterpieces, titled "The Four Horsemen" and "The Time is Now". But they missed the point when they came back the next season. We were expecting to see the series go in the direction of Frank and his daughter trying to survive a holocaust and instead they copped out. We could have had an amazing survival story there. What a shame. But, I highly recommend watching the reruns of this series if you can. It really was so much better than the X Files. And it will forever be sorely missed. The character of Frank Black did guest star on an X File episode after Millennium was cancelled and I'm still hoping for at least one more appearance. It's so hard to let a good character go forever.

Now that all the three (3) season have been released on DVD, it's time to look into this Chris Carter show always overshadowed by The X-Files.

I always thought Millennium was always more realistic of the two. Sure, sometimes there was some paranormal stuff going on, but not in a way that in x-files. Millennium has more of a horror-thriller-like vibe, where The X-Files focuses on UFOs and extraterrestrial activity.

There IS a sort of a continuous storyline included, so i totally recommend getting at least the two first seasons, and watching as many episodes in a row as possible. Definitely darker, and more violent than the X-Files.

How do you make a great, spooky television series? Well, here is one recipe for success. Take a pound of flesh from the 1995 movie 'Seven', with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, add a little demented serial killer from 1986's 'Manhunter' with William Peterson and Dennis Farina, and place it in an industrial sized microwave oven for a few minutes. Then add a slice of 1992's 'Silence of The Lambs', some fava beans and pop the cork on a nice bottle of Chianti. With this recipe, you have the hit Fox TV series that ran from 1996 to 1999 Years before TV shows like CSI' or 'Cold Case Files' and 'Law and Order SVU' were even thought of, there was this remarkable show. It was called MillenniuM.

MillenniuM was a series about a profiler named Frank Black. He could see into the mind of serial killers and offered us a glimpse at the world of the criminally disturbed. He worked for the Millennium group, an investigative firm that worked in the private sector. Every week, violent crimes, as well as the disturbing images they create, were the primary focus on this great series. The first season was superb. We all got to meet and know Frank, Catherine, and Jordan, who lived in their big yellow house in Seattle, WA, and we could almost feel the dampness and heavy rain that Seattle is famous for. However, after the haunting opening theme and the awesome boomp-boomp that led us into each segment with the white screen, we all immediately looked to the bottom of that screen to read the type-writer font, and see where this week's episode was taking us to. We would usually meet a member of the Millennium group within the first 15 minutes, and usually that character was Peter Watts. Looking like a Marine and always in control of his emotions, he quickly learned to trust Frank's feelings on most issues.{Peter Watts was played by Terry O'Quinn, and now stars on the ABC series "Lost" as John Locke.}These two made an excellent team, as well as the others from the group, and these relationships really made the show. Frank also had his demons, as all great heroes do. He was in search of a way to suppress his gift, for the love of his daughter, who may also be cursed with the visions. Frank was also working on his marriage, which was, as most marriages are, a daily battle. Frank Black was uncomfortable with his chosen profession, but he also knows it was his destiny to do this job, which he did so well.

That's enough about the show. If you are reading this review, you are already a big fan. Let's talk about the DVD's.

Besides the fact that I want to tell Fox thank you and it's about bloody hell time, this DVD set is great. All 22 episodes are in crisp, clear and in vivid color, and that awesome theme song before each episode. Sweet! I highly recommend this DVD to anyone who is a Chris Carter fan, as well as CSI fans and any fan of current TV programs that review evidence and solve crimes. Give it a try. You will not be disappointed.

Thanks, Brian R. Collins {BC}

P.S. As I am writing this the date is September 1, 2004 and I just received word that MillenniuM Season 2 will be released in the UK on September 27, 2004. So it can't too far behind for the good old U.S. of A.

BC

Very few people understood what Millennium was about, but for its fans, it remains a very stirring drama. A lot of critics misrepresent Millennium as some kind of gloomy police drama, when the cases that Frank Black investigated during the course of season one were merely vehicles in which to explore the grayer shades of humanity.

Only about half of the twenty-two episodes during the first season were concerned with just serial killers--far less than critics like to think. Look closer and you'll see that episodes like the pilot, "Gehenna," "The Judge" and "Sacrament" had supernatural/apocalyptic elements to them, which make them far less mundane than some might initially think. ("Gehenna" even had visuals of a winged beast, or Legion as the fans dubbed him, descending from the sky.)

Regarding those other, say, eight or ten serial killer episodes, Millennium addressed the big questions: What made these men? What can society do to stop them? You won't hear the investigators on CSI or Law & Order ask these questions, unless in a glib, sarcastic way. Those programs are all about police procedure. To me, *that's* depressing. When Frank looked 'into the minds of killers,' he was trying to understand them, sometimes even sympathize with them. These killers weren't evil people. They were tragic people that did evil things--most were victims themselves. Millennium gave human faces to ghastly perpetrators.

The latter season one episodes stray from the serial killer motifs. "Force Majeure" involves a man in an iron lung who preaches about a planetary alignment that will have cataclysmic consequences. "Walkabout" sheds light on Frank's past when he participates in a clinical trial for an experimental drug that might suppress his 'gift.' "Maranatha" takes Frank to the Russian district of New York in pursuit of Yaponchik, who may be the Antichrist. And then there's the stunning "Lamentation"/"Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions" two-parter, in which devils and angels aren't merely a concept, but physically exist alongside Frank and his colleagues!

Millennium also isn't relentlessly gory or downbeat. Look at the endings of "The Well Worn Lock," "Powers," or especially "The Wild and the Innocent"--still one of the most uplifting hours of television I've seen to this day. A lot of the show's early work is about criminals taking responsibility, victims learning to heal, and how Frank, and his family and friends, come to an understanding about Why Bad Things Happen. Don't be so dark, critics. Millennium--seriously!--is not.

Season two of Millennium is nothing short of brilliant, but the foundation is laid here. Strong scripts, talented actors, exceptional production values, and timeless themes (the tolls of work on family life, humanity's struggle with evil, temptations of the Devil, faith and religion, corruptions in governments and organizations) make all three seasons of Millennium a MUST BUY. Don't let mistaken critics, or lackluster DVD sets (a show this rich needs more commentary!), dissuade you from owning one of the best shows of the 90's, nay, of all time.

Fantastic mixture of drama, suspense, action, horror, and mystery. Raises the bar of Television to a whole new level. The masterful combination no-tell-all driven plot and detailed personal characters creates a canvas on which great things have come. The dark photography and surreal flash scenes surpass current mystery and horror series. The detailed historical and mythological connections interwoven within the story line is commendable. This series does not rely on a physical monster, but the monster within everyone. The horror of pure evil and the evils of mankind. The music of Mark Snow is an excellent backdrop to this type of setting. His use of synthesized strings in thick chords compliments the dark visions of the drama. Snow also uses sounds and alterations of the human voice to set effect. The use of a solo violin in the main title and though out the series reflects the struggle of a single man (Frank Black) against the undeviating force of evil in the world. Together, Carter's vision for a dark, artistic drama has come to life.