Happy Dance! Happy Dance!!!

The Official Fox Millennium WebSite
http://www.foxhome.com/millennium/

"I become capability. I become the horror-- what we know we can become only in our heart of darkness. It's my gift. It's my curse. That's why I retired." --Frank Black


Millennium was that other great show Chris Carter did besides The X-Files. Where The X-Files had a decidedly twisted Science Fiction based view of the world with it's aliens gone wild in tin foil hats complete with all those big brother-esque government conspiracies run amok. Millennium on the other hand went in the direction of Horror with crazy serial killers that may or may not have actually been demonically possessed and bloody 'end of times' biblical prophecies all slathered with assorted bloody gore galore.

Millennium aired from the fall of 1996 to the spring of 1999. Three seasons of the series were produced, making a total of 67 individual episodes. Frank Black was played by Lance Henriksen and his wife Catherine was played by Megan Gallagher around these two people an interesting tale of paranormal events and paranoid conspiracies was intricately woven, complexly knotted, and all focused and ready to take some unknowable form upon the coming of the year 2000. For all three seasons we eagerly watched the adventures of Frank Black, a former FBI investigator, as the world tilted and twisted spinning closer and closer to the year 2000.


"Paranoia is just a kind of awareness, and awareness is just another form of love." –Charles Manson


I whole heartedly loved the first two seasons of Millennium. The first though a little slow, episodic and disjointed with very few overall story lines, to keep it moving cohesively in some direction, was rich with beautiful scenery, details and backgrounds and honestly at times it just seemed to take friggin forever in setting up the characters and the underlying motives we would later see explode in the series.

Here in Season one you will see The Millennium Group providing assorted services, financially supporting Frank Black, but not really demanding Frank to become a full member... YET.
Catherine, Franks loving wife, gives us the first real concerns over Franks continuing involvement with the secretive Millennium Group and it is in her constant questioning that we see the realistic and grounded point of view that Frank needs in his life to survive the craziness of the world he lives in.
Jordan, Franks daughter, starts to show that she might have inherited Franks gift in the episode Sacrament. This will eventually lead us along to the episode Walkabout where Frank comes to terms with his true uncomfortable feelings concerning this gift he has and how it might effect his daughter.

Then BAM! there is the all time peak episodes to set our course for the next season Lamentation with the first visit of the most excellent evil one Lucy Butler, be afraid, be very afraid. Never before has anyone threatened Frank or his family in 'The Big Yellow House'. Now, before you can catch your breath along comes Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions. Our boy Frank is beginning to see that Catherine just might be right and something far more dangerous might happen with his continued involvement with The Millennium Group.
Could there be something sinister and organized about all these exotic killers and crazies he is tracking down?
Stick around and find out.

In this crisp, clean, gorgeous, transfer to DVD of the first season you will only catch brief unfocused glimpses of the mythology and mysterious conspiracies that would start becoming important later. There is some continuity to be found here but it is not always readily apparent. None of these underlying motives will hit you over the head the first time around but after seeing the episodes in the years to follow these carefully planned inclusions will become apparent. Think of it as the dim still twilight before the raging darkness that would grip the world of Frank Black in the coming second season.


"Let us go in; the fog is rising." -- Emily Dickinson, her last words, 1886


About This DVD Box Set
BRAVO! As I stated above the picture is crisp, clean and gorgeous. I can see every crag on Lance Henriksen's face and after 5 years of old VHS tapes that I meticulously saved and stored I my friends am in a happy horror ecstasy.
This box set is the first time I have seen them using those ultra thin plastic DVD boxes so that you can simply open one single plastic box to get the DVD you are looking for instead of unfolding a whole cardboard package. Pretty nifty! You get 22 episodes on six DVD's in all with about 5 episodes per disk. The first two episodes The Pilot and Gehenna have added Chris Carter commentary (Which is dry and boring to me but someone may like it.) and there is a couple of 'making of' documentaries on the last disk to give us more insight into the world of Millennium.

A Brief Summary of The First Episode
After moving to Seattle and the "Big Yellow House" with his wife Catherine and daughter Jordan, former FBI agent Frank Black finds himself consulting for The Millennium Group and assisting the local Seattle PD in the apprehension of a murderer who is leaving mysterious messages about the coming apocalypse. French graffiti and dark rainy nights abound and Frank gives the viewers their first glimpse at his horrific bloody visions complete with a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack.


"CREATE DESIRE" "EVERYBODY WANTS BEAUTIFUL HAIR" "FACILITATE ENVY" "WORK WILL SET YOU FREE" -- Gehenna


Millennium in Retrospect
I am not your typical TV junkie, really, I am not. This honestly is the only show I have ever spent time and money taping and watching over and over again. I continue to find Millennium fascinating and scary, how the thoughts spoken and the dark visions still linger with almost real world relevancy and echo with teeth rattling truths. The show is scary to me because it is so close to what you see on the evening news and what you suspect you are not being told.
The shadows in Millennium are much darker and more realistic because of what they are not showing the viewer than any special effects they could have given us.

Then there is that unexpected sick subtle humor like the second season episode Beware Of Dog that used a Carpenters song Close To You as the soundtrack to a murder of an old couple in a Winnebago by a pack of vicious, demonically possessed, wild dogs. That one twisted, messed up moment makes me laugh every damn time.

In looking back at all three seasons of this show it is very clear to me that Chris Carter wanted to do something very different than The X-Files. You see that in the first season Millennium as it tries hard to distance itself from the type of trademark storytelling we saw early in The X-Files. Then in the second season you will see a change, a compromise, and a redirection pointing to the stronger characteristics of The X-Files with the addition of a more focused mythology arc and recreating characters making them more mysterious and dark if not out right dangerous.
And as for the big second season 'end of the world' blow out finale complete with the leaving of the producers? Well let's just say the less said about the ill fated season three the better.

Sad to say in the end as with other shows Chris Carter built he created a dark, deadly world and interesting, fragile and paranoid, edgy characters and after a while he lost interest and let other people kill the dang show by seriously editing the original story that was being told, with plot holes bigger than a bread box, and softening up the characters with cheap sentimentality, or out right killing off 2 major pivotal characters.
Hmmm, sounds a whole lot like the The X-Files does it not?

Poor Chris will he ever learn?

Anyway Frank Black and Millennium never made it to the year 2000, unless you saw The X-Files episode which I refuse to acknowledge. The show for all concerned was promptly sent to the trash heap of cable programming on the FX channel and forgotten by the FOX big wigs.
That hateful rip-off of a show Profiler seems to still be shown in reruns on TV. But we hate that blond bimbo, she is no Frank Black.


For Further Information And Millennium Goodness
http://www.fourthhorseman.com/Abyss/


This site I am linking to here The Millennium Abyss is the embodiment of true fan devotion and shows the type of excitement this show created among its viewers when it was on and the power of that same excitement that keeps peoples interest in this deliciously depressing dark show going long after it finished airing.

The Millennium Abyss includes the Millennium FAQ and a complete mapping and links to reviews of all three seasons episodes. Several interesting links including a fan written imaginary season to complete all those loose ends left untold in the original show, all done up in slick graphics and the latest news and gossip about all things Millennium. Damn they are fanatical!


"...thinking about my parents, my grandparents -- forty or fifty years ago... they never locked their doors, day or night. We seem to have accepted it so... gracefully, so naturally -- the security systems. We've allowed ourselves to become almost besieged by our own fear." - Frank Black

Anyone need a old VCR?

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older