Welcome to the inaugural entry of the all-new Virtual Season 5 blog.

This will be the place to get an inside look at the production of the VS5, what we’re working on and how it’s going. Needless to say, there will be a lot more updates once we’re actually airing episodes from January, at which point I will make every effort to do a weekly entry that digests the episode just gone and looks ahead at the one to come. Until then, there will probably be just a few sporadic posts that keep you informed of our progress in the lead-up to the big premiere event on January 5th. Comments will be more than welcome, but please refrain from posting general thoughts about the VS5 – keep that for the forum. Comments should be about the content of the blog, not the content of the show.

Right now’s a good time to kick this off, since the BVC network which we’ll be airing on has just been officially announced. If you haven’t seen the links in the forum, go check them out to get the low-down on the new network that promises to be a terrific platform for a number of great virtual shows. There’s been a string of other recent releases marking some of Millennium’s landmark dates, including the poster which you see to your right on 10/13 (Chris Carter’s birthday and production company), and the video promo which debuted on the massive tenth anniversary last week. I should take this opportunity to lavish praise on our fantastically talented art director, JT Vaughn, who was responsible for both of those. If you see a new VS5 image or video in the coming months, chances are Vaughn’s behind it. He really is a gifted and invaluable guy, and I’m constantly grateful for – and jealous of – his skills.

At present, all the VS5 staff are hard at work on their first writing assignments. We know what we’re going to be doing for each entry of the season, and now we’re starting to turn them into scripts. Our two-part premiere which Tony Black and I collaborated on, the first of which entitled “The Begotten” is due to air on Friday January 5th, is pretty much in the can now, but might take a few more last edits before it’s done and dusted. For my part, I’ve since pressed on with my draft of Episode 6, and am now well into the scripting of Episode 10. Other staff-members’ first drafts are due to start rolling in fairly soon, so it’s an exciting time.

I’ll move on to address some of the board-members’ questions, which I’ve asked for in the forum and hope will continue to get filled out with queries that can get put into the blog:

colts45

heres a question what got you guys to think about doing vs5?

It was fellow Executive Producer Anthony J. Black who first came up with the idea, and when he mooted the subject on TIWWA, I was interested in getting on board. I write scripts anyway, so being a huge Millennium fan it wasn’t hard to get tempted by this project. I think there’s plenty of ground left to cover in the show’s universe, and plenty more tales to tell in the life of Frank Black, plus I feel the show’s style of storytelling is still very relevant to today’s world. Some of our episodes and concepts are almost ripped form the headlines the way things are these days, so that’s one source of constant inspiration, but there’s also a lot of other things that really get us thinking about doing more Millennium. Some may feel it’s an old show long dead, but the community of fans here has kept it alive, so there’s always a desire for more.

Old Man

What it is, when it is set, who its written by, how it fits in with existing seasons and vs 4, where the episodes can be accessed and when

I’ll take this one step at a time. I think you get what it is by now, so moving on...

2. When it is set

It’s set in the present day, so that’s 2007 when we kick off. We thought about this when we first started, whether to literally follow on from the VS4 and go into the year 2000, but there was really no way to make that work with everything we know about the world in the present year. Also, that would have made us a bit less relevant to current events, which is something we touch on now and again but isn’t the thrust of every episode by any means. Instead, we’re bringing Frank and those around him up to the present day, and we’ll explore how his life has changed in those intervening years, and what someone like Frank would be doing in the here and now.

3. Who its written by

We’ve got a good-sized staff of writers who will each write a varying number of episodes for the season. In this respect, just as in virtually every other, it’s just like a real TV show. Tony and I worked on “The Begotten” together, and that essentially carried over into part two (although I ended up writing the majority of the script pages for that one). Elsewhere we’ve got Jeremy Daniels, who is also known to TIWWA as “A Stranger”, Brendan M. Leonard, Paul Robinson, Robert L. Torres, and Angelo Shrine. Originally, we had more TIWWA members on staff, but in the end we couldn’t get that organised in a way that was going to produce results, so had to broaden out. Those contributors in the early phases were still very much appreciated though, so I should take the time to thank the likes of JoeM, Walkabout, MaxFenig, RavenWolf and others.

4. How it fits in with existing seasons and VS4

We’re definitely treating ourselves as the fifth consecutive season following on from all those before. Ideally, we would have wanted to do this back in 2000 to be as much like a real TV show as possible, but we have to compromise on that because the idea to keep going came later. As for VS4, we’re treating it as canon (or “fanon” if you will), but we’re not looking to emulate their style of directly pick up on their stories. We’re going for our own unique approach, in much the same way that you can feel the unique approach of Season 3 when juxtaposed with Season 2, and likewise Season 2 when juxtaposed with Season 1. Each brought in a new creative control to take charge from one to the next, and that’s what’s happening again, so you’re going to feel that same kind of transition from VS4 to VS5.

5. Where the episodes can be accessed and when

If you’ve read up on BVC by now, you’ll know that it all goes live and on-line from New Year’s Day, January 1st 2007. When that happens, there’ll be a website where all the shows including VS5 will be showcased and episodes in PDF format can be downloaded. There will also be a big set of forums, with sub-boards devoted to each show, so you can discuss everything you see and read in there in addition to the forum here at TIWWA. Come January, those website URLs will be flashed about all over the place, so you need not worry about missing out. More promotional material will be coming out about BVC and its shows in the mean time, so just keep your eyes on the VS5 forum for updates.

That about wraps it up for the first blog entry, so I hope it hasn’t been too much of a long haul. Things will get going into a proper rhythm in January when we’ve actually got episodes to deconstruct and preview, but until then I will try and remember to blog... honest.