Reviewed: Gehenna

Contributor: David

It is still relatively rare to watch a follow on episode from a pilot show and not sense that complacency, lack of integrity or both has crept in. Pulling in an audience or winning over executives is one thing, continuing in the focused and committed manner that resulted in this thing being achieved is quite another. Thankfully, MillenniuM proved to be a series which went along for quite a while before any change in focus, commitment or integrity was detectable. Even then, it has to be commended for its imagination and explorative concepts.

From its opening scenes, MLM-101_Gehenna, lets us know that once again we are about to be taken into that realm where the world that begins in flesh tapers off into the ethereal zone where mind and body dance their baffling reel ‐ a reel which has caused disturbance amongst our species' greatest minds - minds such as Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Sigmund Freud and okay; the Wachowski brothers in their Matrix days. But this is also a realm where hallucination is easy to diagnose and demons are easy to dismiss (or promote). Whilst this realm is often a lovely place to drift through, it is also a potentially terrible and dark valley - akin to Hinnom (where a constant fire consumed the detritus of man and animal alike near ancient Jerusalem). It other words it is the realm upon which Gehenna is founded.

MLM-101 introduces us to the idea that the inhabitants of that realm can reach out into the world of flesh, disguising themselves as hallucinations and human beings but are ultimately discoverable through humanity's greatest blessings; their capacity to see beyond the disguise, beyond the hallucination and beyond the human being. These blessings (or curses as suggested elsewhere in MillenniuM) are crystallized in the character of Frank Blank which is why the MillenniuM Group are interested in him. This episode also cranks up the historical background to Frank and his association with the Group. The reference to a Polaroid-taking stalker, Frank's facility, his breakdown and his paralyzing fear for his family all add a deeper dimension to him; a dimension that ultimately reaches into the Gehennian realm referred to earlier. Frank is not a man who relates to the world as those who run the numbers-driven call centre in the episode would desire. Instead, he has admitted the idea of evil into his deepest consciousness and suffered the consequences. Yet this is his utility for the world. He can see those who would venture out of Gehenna and in this episode he sees that one of its citizens has indeed ventured out, causing him to reassess his ideas of evil.

St Augustine believed that evil is released at exactly that moment a human being decides to choose his own self-centered will over a greater other-centered will. This may be true but in Frank Black it is difficult to see a self-centered man at work and yet evil apparently inhabits his very consciousness; hence St Augustine's views are able to be challenged. It is difficult to argue against the premise that any episode of any TV shows which are capable of challenging the views of a theological giant like St Augustine are shallow fare ‐ on the contrary this episode again shows MillenniuM is of a category seldom seen on TV; Spiritually Superior! Perhaps the episode itself smells what WH Auden did; “blood and an era of prominent madmen”.