Still hankering for an “X-Files” fix after rewatching all nine seasons of Chris Carter’s most famous show, I decided to finally check out “Millennium,” which in my head was like a second-rate, but still good, “X-Files.” (It is also technically part of “The X-Files” universe due to the Season 7 crossover episode.)
Relentlessly dark
It took me only the first episode — and not even the whole 44 minutes — of Season 1 (1996-97, Fox) to be disabused of the notion that I was going to get “X-Files”-style fun. Starting with a serial killer who reads French poetry under his breath at peep shows and then kills the strippers, “Millennium” is dark stuff, visually and thematically.
It doesn’t have monsters and aliens to escape to; in their place are serial killers and Biblical demons representing undiluted evil. It also has no humor whatsoever (although that trait makes it kind of morbidly funny).
“Millennium” Season 1 (1996-97)
Fox, 22 episodes
Creator: Chris Carter
Stars: Lance Henriksen, Megan Gallagher, Terry O’Quinn
Carter’s second-most-lauded show starts off firmly in the Serial Killer of the Week (SKOTW) mold, but I get a sense that Carter expected that formula to work better than it did. The first 12 episodes have already blended together in my head. “Millennium” breaks free of the formula in a big way in episode 18, “Lamentation,” the first hour to explicitly feature a supernatural character — and it’s an angel on the trail of the Devil, no less.
I should clarify: That angel, who strikes down demons with bolts of lightning (although bystanders see him as firing a gun), is the first supernatural GUEST character.
Psychic serial-killer tracker
The show’s MAIN character, Frank Black (the outstanding Lance Henriksen, without whom “Millennium” would not work at all), is psychic: When he examines a victim’s corpse as a member of the Millennium Group, he sees flashes of their murder. That makes him darn good at catching baddies, especially when combined with his criminal-profiling skills.
Despite my feeling that many of the early SKOTW episodes are too similar to each other, “Millennium” got under my skin. I was slightly more depressed than usual after watching too many of these episodes in a row. Yet I was compelled to keep pressing play on the next installment because of “Millennium’s” overall addictiveness.
This comes about from Mark Snow’s mesmerizingly sad score (the theme song has to be on the short list of the all-time greats); Frank’s resigned determination to make a bad world a slightly better place; the sunny contrast provided by Frank’s smart and loving wife, Catherine (Megan Gallagher), and adorable little girl, Jordan (Brittany Tiplady); and even the regular chats about the nature of evil.
I also appreciate the fact that while “Millennium” operates in the real world (albeit a grim version of it), everyone is unfazed by Frank’s gift; thus we are spared “Medium”/“Ghost Whisperer”-type scenes where people accuse Frank of being full of crap.
Opening up about evil
Frank doesn’t have a steady partner in Season 1 — the closest would be his Millennium Group contact Peter Watts (Terry O’Quinn, later of “Lost” fame) — so some of the Partners of the Week (POTW) talk to Frank about how their job is eating away at them. I guess Frank just has the kind of face where new acquaintances feel comfortable opening up about Evil. Episode three, “Dead Letters,” is an especially strong entry due to the guest turn by James Morrison (later of “24” fame).
Ideally, I think “Millennium” should’ve been structured like “The X-Files”: Standalone POTW/SKOTW episodes alternating with grand mythology episodes featuring the Devil. But the first myth ep doesn’t arrive until episode 13 (“Force Majeure,” which features clones a la Samantha Mulder, yet manages to make even less sense than the “X-Files” myth arc), so at that point Season 1 seems to make a jarring shift in style, as opposed to the smooth back-and-forth of “The X-Files.”
It’s great, scary stuff in “Lamentation” when the lights go out in the Blacks’ house, Catherine finds a human kidney in the fridge and the intruder slowly descends the staircase and briefly morphs into the Devil. The sequel, “Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions,” is similarly high-stakes, high-energy fun.
But I found the finale, “Paper Dove,” hard to watch because Mike Starr (the Gas Man from “Dumb and Dumber”) is so completely convincing as a killer who has lost his sanity. At that point, I kind of missed the more innocent, brooding, and comfortably flawed SKOTWs from early in the season.
Unpredictable and addictive
Whereas “The X-Files” knew what it was from episode one, “Millennium” is all over the place. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself here, but it’s hard not to notice (after some light Internet surfing) fans’ consensus that “Millennium” was always all over the place. Some have said that each of the three seasons feels like a completely different show.
Still, like I say, it’s addictive. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to “X-Files” fans, because human (natural) monsters aren’t nearly as fun as inhuman (supernatural) monsters. And as an analysis of evil, “Millennium” falls short of the genre’s high point, “The Inside” (2005, Fox). (On the other hand, you can easily find “Millennium” on DVD, whereas “The Inside” hasn’t been released.)
It’s probably not a major spoiler to say that by the end of Season 1, Frank and his Millennium Group colleagues have no solid answers about the Nature of Evil. Still, the questions are compelling enough that I’m going to start on Season 2 right now.
Here are my top 10 episodes from the 22-episode first season:
1. “Lamentation” (episode 18, written by Chris Carter)
The first out-and-out scary sequence finds the Devil (or at least Lucy Butler, a thinly veiled stand-in for Lucifer) invading the Blacks’ home. And we know things are serious when she kills Bob Bletcher in the Blacks’ basement.
2. “Dead Letters” (3, Glen Morgan and James Wong)
The first half of the season was all SKOTW hours, and this was one of the best, thanks to the partnership of Frank and James Morrison, the guy who played Bill Buchannon on “24.”
3. “Pilot” (1, Carter)
The episode that started it all sets the stage for the first half of Season 1 — it’s a pitch-black serial-killer story where the only supernatural element is Frank’s ability. It caught me off guard when I first saw it — I thought, “Uh, oh, this show might not be for me.” But the series’ twists and turns since then have given the first episode an innocent, nostalgic appeal. Also, it has that great Henrickson delivery when he says the killer doesn’t see the world the way we do, and someone asks “How does he see it?” “Differently,” Frank deadpans.
4. “Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions” (19, Ted Mann and Harold Rosenthal)
In the sequel to “Lamentation,” Frank is offered a job with the Devil (in much the same way Wolfram & Hart would attempt to recruit Angel on “Angel”), further laying out this show’s mythology.
5. “Covenant” (16, Robert Moresco)
The guy who played Kritschgau on “The X-Files” and Pacey’s dad on “Dawson’s Creek” gives a good turn as a guy convinced that he has murdered his entire family. Frank begs to differ, and it’s fun to watch him piece together what really happened.
6. “Blood Relatives” (7, Chip Johannessen)
When you have a new serial killer every week (as “Millennium” did in its early days), you have to get creative. In this one, the killer picks out vulnerable targets at funerals.
7. “Sacrament” (15, Frank Spotnitz)
This time it’s personal for Frank as his sister-in-law is abducted. Also, Jordan shows signs of having inherited Frank’s ability. This is the episode where “Millennium” becomes less of a detached procedural, and that’s a good thing when you have an actor like Henrickson.
8. “Kingdom Come” (6, Jorge Zamacona)
Interestingly, considering that religious fanatics would cause a lot of problems for Frank in future seasons, holy men are the innocents here, targeted by a serial killer.
9. “The Wild and the Innocent” (10, Zamacona)
I gotta put this on my list if only because it borrows twice from the catalogue of Bruce Springsteen. First with the title, and secondly with the plot, which loosely follows “Johnny 99,” about a couple cutting a bloody swath across Nebraska.
10. “Broken World” (20, Moresco and Patrick Harbinson)
Perhaps the best-looking episode of Season 1, it takes place in western North Dakota and makes good use of rural British Columbia. It also has good music from Mark Snow and interesting factoids about horse breeding.
Any “Millennium” fans out there? What are your thoughts on Season 1?