Mini reviews of Television seasons old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. Occasional bunnies.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Millennium: Season Three (2005)

After the mess they made of Season Two, neither Glen Morgan nor James Wong were invited back to contribute to Season Three. Good. Two new guys (Michael Duggan and Chip Johannessen) were given the task of cleaning up the apocalyptic shit-stains. Series creator Chris Carter also made a brief return, contributing by co-writing three episodes and overseeing some parts of the production.

Mostly the format returned to standalone episodes. It mimicked and attempted to recapture the psychological aspect that had made Season One a success. The event that ended the previous year is largely ignored; I've never been so pleased to have such an inconsistency.

Frank gets a new partner who's characterised by her overzealous enthusiasm in early episodes. But as the season progresses she takes on more useful traits, and by the end she becomes an integral part of the proceedings.

The Millennium Group are still sniffing around crime scenes, but the focus is primarily on Frank and his new role, which causes a minor internal conflict within him. His attentions are split unevenly between his daughter and his job. It seems as if the situation will elevate, but it peters out too soon and remains underdeveloped. There was something potentially sinister there that could've been brought to the fore but wasn't; perhaps they were holding that back for future seasons? We’ll never know.

There's another crap Hallowe’en episode, and an Xmas episode, but most of the bad comedy was excised; I'm pretending the episode with KISS didn't happen.

Extras include the Millennium/X-Files crossover. It was a great idea but it's a bad story with a very weak ending. It would've been nice if the writers had used the format to offer some kind of resolution or closure that the series was denied, but they didn't; it's simply an excuse to feature Frank Black in the X-Files.

22 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

2½ chips off the old block out of 5

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