Millennium (TV series)
| Millennium | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Chris Carter |
| Starring | Lance Henriksen Terry O'Quinn Megan Gallagher Klea Scott Brittany Tiplady |
| Country of origin |  Canada United States |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 67 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | approx. 43 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | FOX |
| Release | October 25, 1996 – May 21, 1999 |
| Related | |
| The X-Files The Lone Gunmen | |
Millennium is an American supernatural thriller and crime drama television series produced by Chris Carter (creator of The X-Files), set during the years leading up to the dawn of the new millennium. It aired from 1996 to 1999 on the Fox Network.
Genre actor Lance Henriksen starred in the series as investigator Frank Black, a freelance forensic profiler and former FBI special agent with a unique ability to see the world through the eyes of serial killers and murderers. Black investigated the most horrific crimes and dealt with the mysterious Millennium Group, whose power and sinister intentions become more clear throughout the series. Black's character may have been inspired by the stories of real life FBI agents and criminal profilers such as John E. Douglas, the one-time head of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. While the series started out as a crime investigation series, it became more and more supernatural, like The X-Files, with which it later had a crossover episode.
The series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, though most episodes were set in or around Seattle, Washington.
NBC Universal's horror channel, Chiller, began airing Millennium weeknights at 7PM Eastern (and again at 3AM Eastern the following morning) beginning Monday, February 4, 2008. [1] [2] This is the first time the series has aired on U.S. television in close to a decade; FX aired Millennium briefly from 2000-2001.
In the UK beginning Monday, October 6, 2008, Zone_Horror began airing Millennium week nights at 8PM GMT, commencing with the first three episodes back to back.
Origins
Chris Carter originally conceived Millennium as a series that would present a more mature view of the world from the perspective of a law enforcement officer than was offered in its companion series, The X-Files. To this end, the character of Frank Black was to be portrayed by an actor older than David Duchovny, who played Agent Mulder, the protagonist of The X-Files. Carter wrote the role for Lance Henriksen and pushed studio executives at 20th Century Fox to approve Henriksen's casting. Carter also pursued Henriksen personally and finally persuaded the actor to take the role of Frank Black by leaving a copy of the pilot script outside the door of his hotel room. Henriksen signed up based on the strength of the writing.
Carter pitched Millennium to Fox as "Seven in Seattle." The setting of a dark, rain-soaked city and a world-weary detective's hunt for a religiously-inspired serial killer have clear parallels with the pilot episode. The pilot served to introduce the Black family, consisting of Frank, wife Catherine (Megan Gallagher) and daughter Jordan (Brittany Tiplady). The family is depicted returning to Seattle where Frank was born and raised because Frank wants to protect his family from the evil with which his job as a criminal profiler with the FBI brought him into daily contact. The end of the episode sees Frank receiving a series of Polaroid photographs of his wife and daughter in an envelope with no return address, setting up a stalking thread that would be resolved in the second season. It is often misconstrued that Frank is "psychic", but Chris Carter has reiterated in commentaries on the Millennium Season One DVD that Frank simply had "a gift", which Frank also stated was "a curse." The video skits that accompany Frank's insights are for illuminating the audience, not to show what Frank sees. Nonetheless, his daughter Jordan turns out to have inherited her father's "gift", suggesting that Frank's abilities are not entirely derived from the knowledge and experience he gained from his work as an FBI profiler. In the pilot, Frank has accurate flashes of a murder from simply viewing the victim's corpse zipped inside a bodybag, visions which could not possibly be attributed to a typical profiler's talent. Like Fox Mulder in The X-Files as well as Will Graham in the novel Red Dragon Frank frequently "just knew".
Characters
Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) -- A criminal profiler with an expert ability to see into the mindset of criminals. Frank has seen the worst humanity has to offer and has suffered two mental breakdowns because of it.
Catherine Black (Megan Gallagher) -- Frank's wife. As a social worker, Catherine is no stranger to the darker side of humanity. Though she is initially supportive of her husband's work, she eventually comes to resent the Millennium Group for their secrecy. She dies after contracting a modified Marburg Virus.
Jordan Black (Brittany Tiplady) -- Frank and Catherine's daughter who has inherited her father's gift.
Peter Watts (Terry O'Quinn) -- Initially Frank's partner and good friend. A full fledged member of the Millennium Group, Peter realizes too late that the group has spun out of control due to the demonic influence(s) of "Legion". Initially seen as one of Frank's enemies in season 3 - Frank holds the group, and by extension Peter, responsible for the death of his wife in the last episode of season 2 - it is revealed later in season 3 that he has, in fact, been protecting Frank and Jordan from the group, which now had designs on Frank's daughter as well due to the early maturity of her own "gift". He is shown murdered by the group in the series finale after giving Frank the group's file on Frank and Jordan.
Agent Emma Hollis (Klea Scott) -- (season 3) Emma is a young FBI agent who becomes Frank's protege when he begins working in Virginia. She struggles to understand the criminal mind, as her sister was murdered by a man with no motive. Emma also has to deal with her father's bout with Alzheimer's disease which coerces her into cooperating with the Millennium Group.
Lara Means (Kristen Cloke) -- (season 2) A Millennium Group member who shares visions similar to Frank's, but in the forms of angels, which are bringers of warning of imminent danger. She works with Frank on several cases. She is eventually inducted into the Millennium Group, but goes insane due to the secrets they reveal to her.
Dr. Cheryl Andrews (C.C.H. Pounder) -- The Group's brilliant medical and forensic advisor in season one. In subsequent seasons she is portrayed as either betraying or betrayed (and killed) by the Group. Her body is placed in a mass grave under a highway construction site.
Lt. Robert Bletcher (Bill Smitrovich) -- (season 1) A homicide detective for the Seattle police. Best friend of Frank's and often enlists him to consult on cases. He is murdered by Lucy Butler and hung from a rafter in Frank's basement.
Det. Bob Giebelhouse (Stephen J. Lang) -- Seattle detective with a cynical view of humanity and a penchant for gallows humor. Initially Bletcher's partner, he becomes the head of Homicide in Season 2.
Det. Teeple (Brian Markinson) --(season 1) Seattle detective, and Giebelhouse's relatively silent partner.
Assistant Director Andy McClaren (Stephen E. Miller) -- (season 3) An FBI Assistant Director who worked with Frank when he was an agent. He makes contact with Frank during season 3.
Special Agent Barry Baldwin (Peter Outerbridge) -- (season 3) An FBI agent who works on the Critical Incidents Response team. Approaches every case with a smarmy, ex-captain of the football team bravado. He is killed in an ambulance by someone he believes to be a paramedic after surviving an explosion.
Lucy Butler (Sarah-Jane Redmond) -- The first and most dangerous of Frank's supernatural opponents, Lucy is described as "The Devil's Liege" by a terrified serial killer. Lucy can change shape, and has superhuman strength. It is unclear whether or not Lucy Butler is just another manifestation of Legion. Certainly, the demonic and elusive Lucy bears little resemblance to earlier human menaces Frank comes up against who have been said to be part of Legion. What is clear is that she is a malevolent supernatural being, quite possibly the Devil, or something even worse. Her appearance makes it impossible to argue that the supernatural is not part of the Millennium universe.
Brian Roedecker (Allan Zinyk) -- (season 2) A computer specialist for the Millennium Group, Roedecker had a quirky sense of humor and was a clear fan of classic science fiction (e.g. Soylent Green and 2001: A Space Odyssey). He is fired from the Group when they start to become more cultic.
Doug Scaife (Trevor White) -- (season 3) An FBI computer specialist, Scaife appears throughout season three, becoming especially prominent during the final few episodes. This character acts as a replacement for Roedecker.
Mabius (Bob Wilde) -- (season 3) Seen working for the Millennium Group in season three in a variety of evil roles. In his final appearance it is implied that he is a manifestation of Legion.
Polaroid Man (Paul Raskin, Doug Hutchison) -- (season 1-2) Though he only actually appears in a two-part episode, the pilot episode establishes that this mysterious figure had been stalking Frank for several years, by taking Polaroids of his family. All that is known about the Polaroid Man is that he served in the military, and that he is a former Millennium Group member.
Mike Atkins (Robin Gammell) -- (season 1) Atkins was responsible for Frank's initial introduction to the Millennium Group. While investigating a doomsday cult in San Francisco, he is seriously injured upon stumbling into a crematory oven (episode "Gehenna"). He later became the final victim of Alistair Pepper (episode "Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions").
Synopsis
Season one
Frank has recently resigned from the FBI and has moved with his family to Seattle, hoping to get away from the horrors of his former life as a criminal profiler. However he has also joined the Millennium Group - an association of former law-enforcement professionals who are called in to consult on crimes by other law-enforcement agencies. With them he investigates various serial killings, including some that have supernatural or religious connotations. He also encounters clues that the apocolypse is coming in the year 2000, including a man believed to be the antichrist by Russians, who was responsible for the Chernobyl disaster.
Season two
Frank begins to see how the group has become religiously fanatic, after they begin to obsess over what they believe is the oncoming apocolypse at the year 2000. They send Frank on the hunt for religious artifacts such as a piece of the True Cross and the Hand of Saint Sebastian. In gathering these, he often comes into conflict with a group known as "The Family", who are alleged to be the descendants of Mary Magdalene.
Eventually the Group splits into two opposing factions, the Owls and the Roosters. The Owls believe in a secular Millennium where mankind can be guided through the potential disasters of the year 2000 and prepare for an astronomical event that is due to occur in the 2060s. Conversely, the Roosters believe in the Biblical "end times" foretold in the Revelation of St. John the Divine. They believe that mankind cannot avoid the destruction that is foretold at the dawn of the new Millennium. Eventually the Roosters take over, and the Owls are purged.
Frank becomes increasingly dissasociated with the Group, as he discovers that they seek to control the destruction in 2000 through the release of a modified Marburg virus to which they have an antidote that is given only to select members. The motives of Frank's patron in the organization, Peter Watts, are called into question when it is revealed that Watts has received protection for his family from the viral contagion, but has not moved to protect Catherine and Jordan Black from the plague. Frank however, after being immunised himself manages to gain one extra vaccine for his daughter.
Frank's wife dies of the Marbug virus as an outbreak occurs in the north-western United States in which 80 people die. Frank, distraught, turns against the Group and vows to expose them for what they are.
Season three
The final season shows Frank living in Quantico, Virginia and returning to profiling work at the FBI, after abandoning the Millennium Group after what they did to his wife. Frank is joined by a contrastably younger, female partner, Emma Hollis.
The Millennium Group is shown at a distance as Frank is alienated from Peter Watts. The episode "Skull and Bones" depicts a mass grave in the path of a new freeway that contains the bodies of former members of the Group, and later, in the episode "Collateral Damage", it is revealed that the Millennium Group developed the Marbug virus, experimenting with it by using it on US soldiers in the Gulf War, before using it on civilians. Later in the season, in the episode "Seven and One", the demonic entity who fans have dubbed "Legion" assumes the form of one of the Group's security men, implying that the Group has become corrupted by the very evil it was intended to fight against. Despite Frank's warnings and the evidence of her own eyes, Emma makes a commitment at a moment of personal weakness that sees her isolated from all non-Group assistance and Frank is last seen escaping from Virginia having taken Jordan from school.
The X-Files : "Millennium"
Episode 4 of Season 7 of The X-Files, entitled "Millennium", sees Lance Henriksen and Brittany Tiplady (in a cameo appearance) reprise their roles as Frank and Jordan alongside Mulder and Scully in a tale of necromancy and zombification of former Millennium Group members on the cusp of 1999/2000. This episode pulled the Millennium saga to a close, though many fans have been critical of it, claiming that it lacked substance due to all the series' plots being brought to an end in just one episode.[citation needed]
Future motion picture
On 2 March 2008, Lance Henriksen was asked at the Scandinavian SciFi Convention about the future of Millennium. He answered that based on what he had heard from Chris Carter, Carter's next project after the release of The X-Files: I Want to Believe in 2008 would indeed be the Millennium motion picture. The rumor of a film proved even more possible by a user uploaded video link from http://millennium-thisiswhoweare.net/millennium_movie_faq.php.
In response to the heightened interest in the character generated by Lance's comments and those of Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz a campaign was subsequently launched within the heart of the Millennium Community with a view to returning the character to the screen. The website backtofrankblack.com was created as the campaign hub to coordinate the efforts of fans and admirers in direct response to the words of the franchise's creators. On the 30th of September 2008 Frank Spotnitz displayed his support for this campaign by allowing a press release to feature as an entry in his blog.
Awards
Won
- 1996 People's Choice Award for Favorite New Television Drama Series
- 1997 Canadian Society of Cinematographers Award for Best Cinematography in a Television Series (Robert McLachlan)
- 1997 Genesis Award for Outstanding Communication of Animal-Rights in Dramatic Television Series ("Broken World")
- 1998 Canadian Society of Cinematographers Award for Best Cinematography in a Television Series (Robert McLachlan)
- 1998 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Television Drama Series by a Young Actress (Brittany Tiplady)
- 2000 Canadian Society of Cinematographers Award for Best Cinematography in a Television Series (Robert McLachlan, "Matryoshka")
Nominated
- 1996 People's Choice Award for Favorite New Male TV Star (Lance Henriksen)
- 1997-1999 Golden Globe Awards for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series (Lance Henriksen)
- 1997 American Society of Cinematographers Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in a Pilot (Pete Wunstorf, "Pilot")
- 1997 Saturn Award for Best Genre TV Actor (Lance Henriksen)
- 1997 Saturn Award for Best Genre Network TV Series
- 1997-2000 Young Artist Awards for Best Performance in a Television Drama Series by a Young Actress (Brittany Tiplady)
- 1998 American Society of Cinematographers Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in a Regular Series (Robert McLachlan, "The Thin White Line")
- 1998 Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing-Television Episodic-Dialogue & ADR
- 1998 Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing-Television Episodic-Effects & Foley
- 1998 Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Clarence Williams III, "Sense and Antisense")
- 1998 Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series (Charles Nelson Reilly, "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense")
- 1998 Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series ("Owls")
- 1998 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Television Drama Series by a Guest Starring Young Actress (Lauren Diewold, "Monster")
- 1999 Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing-Television Episodic-Sound Effects & Foley
- 1999 Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Screenplay (Darin Morgan, "Somehow Satan Got Behind Me")
- 1999 American Society of Cinematographers Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in a Regular Series (Robert McLachlan, "Skull and Bones")
- 1999 Saturn Award for Best Genre TV Actor (Lance Henriksen)
- 1999 International Horror Guild Award for Best Television
- 2000 American Society of Cinematographers Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in a Regular Series (Robert McLachlan, "Matryoshka")
Merchandise
Books
Several novels based on Millennium episodes have been written:
- The Frenchman, by Elizabeth Hand (1.00 "Pilot")
- Gehenna, by Lewis Gannett (1.01 "Gehenna")
- Force Majeure, by Lewis Gannett (1.12 "Force Majeure")
- Weeds, by Victor Koman (1.10 "Weeds")
- The Wild And the Innocent, by Elizabeth Massie (1.09 "The Wild And the Innocent")
Some titles were also released as audiobooks read by actor Bill Smitrovitch.
DVD Releases
20th Century Fox has released all 3 seasons of Millennium on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. On October 28, 2008, FOX will release Millennium: The Complete Series - an 18 disc boxset featuring all 68 episodes of the series.
| Season | Nr of episodes |
Extra features | Release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st (1996-1997) |
22 | Commentary by Chris Carter on The Pilot, Commentary by director David Nutter on Gehenna, "Order in Chaos: Making Millennium Season One" documentary, "Chasing the Dragon: A Conversation with the Academy Group": a look at real-life profilers, Creating the logo and title sequence, Pilot TV spots. |
July 20, 2004 | |
| 2nd (1997-1998) |
23 | Commentary on two episodes by director Thomas J. Wright and writer Michael R. Perry, "The Turn of the Tide: Making of Season Two" featurette, "Academy Group: Victimology" featurette. |
January 4, 2005 | |
| 3rd (1998-1999) |
22 | Commentary by Lance Henriksen and Klea Scott on The Innocents, Commentary by director Thomas J. Wright on Collateral Damage, Bonus episode: The X-Files season 7 episode "Millennium", "End Game: Making Millennium Season 3" documentary, "Between the Lines" featurette. |
September 6, 2005 |
External links
- Fox's Millennium website
- The Millennial Abyss
- Millennium - This is who we are
- This is who we are (TIWWA) - Millennium Message Board
- The Rogue's Eye View
- Millennium books at FantasticFiction
- Lance Henriksen Magic - Millennium
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| Related | |||||||||
- 1990s American television series
- Apocalyptic fiction
- Drama television series
- Fox network shows
- Series of books
- Television series by Fox Television Studios
- Television shows set in Virginia
- Television shows set in Washington
- Vancouver television series
- 1996 television series debuts
- 1999 television series endings
- Crime television series
- The X-Files