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

Millennium: Season Two (2005)

The team of Glen Morgan and James Wong took over writing duties to the second season, penning 12 of the 23 episodes and overseeing the production and direction taken by the remainder. I guess they're to blame for what unfolded.

The focus shifted away from Frank and the psychological drain his visions placed on him, into a more esoteric dead-end. The two producers heaped on a barrelful of supernatural intervention, quasi-religious cult bullshit, conspiracy theories and shady organisations, with endings pretending to be open to viewer interpretation but which are really the product of bad scripting that make little sense in themselves; if I wanted that I'd watch the X-Files. Even series creator Chris Carter (who was busy elsewhere and had virtually zero input) admitted to not having watched all of the episodes.

Morgan and Wong turned Frank into a dupe. They brought the Millennium Group to the fore; turning them into something they were never conceived to be. They struggled to deal with the relationship between Frank and his wife, Catherine. The amateurish direction that took tore the show right down the middle, removing the reason for Frank's initial involvement with the Group. Detective Bob Giebelhous is turned into an asshole Noir beat cop. The furthering of the religious motifs made sense but the way it was integrated was clumsy, overblown and painful to watch.

There are a number of 'comedy' episodes, which are the worst hours of TV I've ever forced myself to watch. Normally I'd hit stop, but I made myself endure every agonising minute. Glen Morgan's brother Darin was responsible for two of them.

Both Morgan and Wong refused an invitation to appear in the accompanying documentary; I'd be ashamed to show my face, too, if I were them.

23 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

2 Millenniumistic is not a word out of 5

Millennium: Season One (2004)

Millennium is set in the late 1990s, in the years preceding the turn of the last millennium. Frank Black (played by Lance Henrikson, not the Pixies vocalist) is an ex-FBI agent trying to keep his family safe from the real horrors of the world. He may be officially retired but he's not out of commission. He's a member of the mysterious Millennium Group, a collective set up to aid police when the rising eschatology that Y2K heralded manifests in acts of seemingly arbitrary violence, planned ritualistic murder, sacrilegious torture, etc. Frank witnesses all the nasty things that we pretend don't exist.

He has a gift/curse that lets him experience traumatic visions, placing him in a killer's mind at the time of an attack. By working backwards, anticipating forwards, profiling and forensics, he's able to get a clearer picture of a criminal and their crime.

It's fair to say that the series went to some very dark places. It was grounded in reality but is ultimately a dichotomy in that while it strives for realism it asks us to accept that Frank has unexplained visions. If you're willing to accept that, there's much to enjoy in Season One.

Besides the occasional and incidental pairings with his wife, Catherine, and regular team mate, Peter Watts, the drama required Frank to be alone with his thoughts, as he was alone with his visions. Consequently, it lacked the buddy dynamic of series creator Chris Carter's other TV show at the time, The X-Files. But where X-Files used conspiracy and aliens to mask its occasional lack of a satisfying conclusion, Millennium had no such crutches, so when it fell flat it did so openly. Conversely, when it worked it was like a small screen version of David Fincher's Se7en (1995).

22 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

3½ ouroboros' out of 5