BillQS

I was a bit confused with Watts being in Virginia with his family a first,but then I started to think of this this way,Watts moved to Virginia to be with Frank to lure him back to the group. It hit me when I saw Peter's car had Virginia plates in Good By To All That.Watts had said that Frank was his candidate and was now in the end protecting him from the group.It just seems odd at first to me because dropping everything and moving across the country is something you wouldn't do unless you had a real purpose in it.

That's entirely possible. The Sound of Snow references made me think differently as I said above, however, that doesn't rule out that Peter Watts might have moved, after all his daughter was going to college in Virginia and he could make a case he was moving there for family reasons.

There's a line I've always clung to spoken by a character called Avon in Blake's 7. "I have never understood why it is necessary to become irrational in order to prove that you care, or why it should be necessary to prove it at all." Not quite Frank, but I've always liked the notion that just because we don't see evidence of someone's pain or loss, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We know Frank cared for Lara, and I agree that the final scene between himself and Lara in TTIN really was enough to cement that bond and offer a farewell. We know, even if the show doesn't mention it, he cared - so I've never had much of an issue how he doesn't reference her again. If we wanted an in-fiction reason, I'd say there is little about that day he cares to remember - or reference.

Cool, Blake's 7 quote! I think you hit the nail on the head about the whole Lara and Frank's caring for her. That was similar to what I was trying to say only yours is closer to the point and more eloquent.

I just watched Antipas on Chiller network and I just love Lucy Butler heh...its to funny to me actually , Mcclaren never believes Frank yet by the end of every episode he is proven 100 percent right...next episode , there's Mcclaren not believing Frank again...Millennium is on every night at 7pm on Chiller ( EST ) and this saturday there will be a marathon of episodes...about 9 in a row.

I think the ever present unbelief of McClaren is a conceit of Millennium much like Scully's continued skepticism even after hundreds of encounters with the paranormal in X Files. It's a way to let casual viewers in on the basic premise of a show and to produce good standalone episodes that can be aired in syndication out of order and still be understood.

Off topic- but I always thought the X Files would have been even better had they thrown in a Scooby Doo ending at least 3 or 4 times a season. Why should Mulder be right EVERY time! (Scully: We've caught the bog monster, now lets see who he really is... Mr. Porter the gardener!)

Robert Shearman's a good author. I'm familiar with his work on Doctor Who and it's excellent. I just went to the website and it can be ordered right now for $15.95, although it's not due out till May.

Should make for a good guide!

Unlike people who see the fall of Frank's family as inconsistent and a back-stab to season one, I think it was something, which was suggested from the start. We know that the Black's were in danger; we knew that Frank cannot get over a sense of dread. Pepper warned him that things will get difficult for his family if he won't accept Legion's offer. The rest: Catherine's abduction, their splitting, Frank being accused for child abuse and finally Catherine's death was the consequence of his refusal. That's what makes him a hero; no matter how bad thing are he will not sell his soul. I wonder what would happen if he did accept the offer; Lucifer would appear out of nowhere caring another vaccine?

I think you really hit the nail on the head with this post! Although, I liked Catherine, I still think the death served to show Frank the greater hero for surviving... and like you said, no matter the cost he wouldn't sell his soul.

I don't think Lara's forgotten as much as there are just too many things going on in Season Three for Frank to have time to go back and eulogize Lara. Lara's one of my favorite characters, but she wasn't Frank's wife and she didn't have the long history Frank had with Bletcher. Frank was there by her side after her breakdown in TTIN and thanked her for being the only one that really understood him. His persistence is probably the only reason Lara didn't end up dead.

A show has to walk a fine line between coming up with new ideas and bringing up old stories, situations, and characters. If a show gets too self-referential newer viewers have a lot of trouble getting into the show.

I think they are two different angels, although it is certainly possible that it could be a continuation of the same angel PPTD... but in a different form and with a different personality (which doesn't make much sense.) This Sammael is much more cocky certainly in the beginning, but I think that works well for a contrast when he makes his sacrifice at the end of the episode so that Jordan can live. How can you fathom what kind of responsibility the Angel of Death has... especially if he has a limited power to give some but by no means all or even most some extra time... which later he must recollect? It's a really interesting dilemma.

Well, I looked but I couldn't find a place to vote for Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense!

Seriously, my vote went to Saturn Dreaming of Mercury because the whole way Jordan was manipulated and Frank's genuine confusion and fear made it scary for me.

I do also have to say that Lamentation is terribly frightening as well, although Kingdom Come also sends shivers down my spine.

Excellent post, Zeus! I agree that the only way the Millennium episode of X Files could work was as an X-Files episode. I personally enjoyed the tale, zombies and all, as well as the glimpse it gave of a Frank Black no longer on the run. (This last observation was a point made originally by someone else on another thread.)

I'm with some others here. I don't think Lucy was meant to be Lillith in Lamentation though she was meant to be evil. I think the writers drew more on the succubus myth for Lucy's subsequent appearances.

As for Lucy's brief appearance in Saturn Dreaming of Mercury, Lucy assumed the form of Lucas (name similarity anyone?) to follow through on a promise to Frank at the end of Antipas- to make him fear her in the only way she could get to him, through Jordan.

Yet I still wonder was it actually initiation that sent Lara Means crazy? Or was it evil that messed up with her...

I think it was a little from column A and a little from column B as far as Lara goes. Thematically, the idea of someone with a gift similar to Frank going mad shows off both how strong Frank is to be able to have the gift and still function and also how dangerously on the precipice having a gift like that is.

As to the original question in the thread, while I believe that both the Gehenna Cult Leader and Mabius are manifestations of evil, and both are played by the same actor, I don't buy them being the same "person or entity". It does lead to a lot interesting fan discussion, but I don't believe Peter would work with the Gehenna cult leader. Even though Mabius is actually on screen even more evil than the Gehenna guy, to Peter's rationalization if not honestly held belief, Mabius is doing "good" by eliminating "threats". By the time he figures out the truth he is most likely the body behind the desk in Peter's house at the end of GAAT.

Welcome, Gabriel... I'm pretty new here, but these folks are the best around!

I got the distinct impression Lance would prefer a movie to a TV show, though he said something for HBO would be acceptable as well. Then Frank could use all the bad language he wasn't able to use on the TV show.

Seriously, while he loved the show, I think the 8 month a year of 70 hour weeks really got to him.

I would love to see more Frank Black in any situation. I think 2012 is probably an X files date. I would personally want the Owls to be correct... that way we'd have 50 years more of the Millennium/Frank Black/Jordan Black mythos to look forward to!

I really did love this episode, however, I really felt it was in need of a final act to set things aright.

I picked up on the brothers and it bothered me, most especially because in Midnight of the Century they almost make it seem as though Frank were an only child, even though we had met his brother in Sacrament. Now we had two brothers and I guess it was sort of a "reverse Chuck" from Happy Days (In Happy Days Chuck is Richie's older brother who was just dropped from the show and never mentioned a few seasons in.) In this case they were adding brothers rather than taking them away.

The reason I feel it needed more than the poetic end it had is because of reconciling the body count and the shadow cast over Frank's reputation. If Frank were the the last person to see the FBI therapist alive and she was killed with Frank's knife, it would seem like he would be a prime suspect in her death. I take it we will have to accept Laredo's excellent conjecture as what happened as Frankss back in the saddle the very next week in Nostalgia.

A nice short coda to the episode, even by telephone would have worked:

Andy: (by telephone) Frank why aren't you back at work?

Frank: What are you talking about, I'm on suspension.

Andy: Well (pause) it seems the case against you literally evaporated. Agent Del Boxer's disappeared. There are no case notes about his investigation and Agent Boxer's fingerprints are on the knife of our FBI therapist. But that's not the weirdest part.

Frank: Agent Del Boxer died a few months ago, hundreds of miles from here.

Andy: How the hell did you know that?

Frank: Let's just say I've seen the M. O. before.

Maybe that's tying it up too neat, but at least then you could explain his being back to work. I really think just ending it the way it did was sloppy writing on an otherwise excellent episode.

I enjoyed Nostalgia very much and I think you did a great job of pointing out what a good episode it is. It is an episode overlooked because of it's placement in the season. Therefore, it suffers a similar fate to "Broken World" from Season 1.... of being a stand-alone right before the big guns that propel the backstory come to the fore.

(That being said, Nostalgia to me, at least, is much better than Broken World, although the finale in the Meat Packing Plant has some great visuals, otherwise BW is just flat to me.)

I think in that light "Millennium" makes a nice gap to a series which should have gone longer but failed to do so. It would have been nice if it really had filled in these blanks in the script, but actually if you work what we know in GTAT and "Millennium" we actually get a rough overview of what must have gone down to make the two shows work in tandem and thus bring a certain closure - even if its closure which can be rewritten in the future.

Thanks for stating how I feel about the Millennium X Files episode in far better words than I could have constructed! I was really surprised to find out how many people really hated or were disappointed in the episode. Just shows the truth in the maxim "Your Mileage May Vary"...

I think bardo works on a pretty much literal level as well as a much deeper level. Although I understood the alchemy references (though not nearly as clearly as Eth has stated above) I also took it to be a scientist who's dying trying to escape an assassin who is doggedly pursuing him. On this "face-value" level the red lacquer bowl could be seen as a clue in locating the scientist.

Because of this I wasn't that perplexed on the episode as a whole, except I wanted Frank to "do" something that might save the scientist's life. That being said, the fact that he quit questioning the scientist and helped him find inner peace was very poignant.

It was also obvious that Mabius was on a "Do not kill" order for Frank otherwise, given his penchant for gratuitous violence on the Japanese Antiquities dealer I would have figured you'd have another Skull and Bones moment with an entire temple full of dead monks including Frank.

As to being perplexed, I'm FAR more perplexed at how Seven and One ends (or rather lacks any kind of denoument) than I am this episode.

I think that Frank's refusal to tell Emma about what he and Jordan had seen also played a role in Emma's being receptive to the offer from the Millennium Group.

As I watched it I kept saying to myself, "You're shutting her out!"\

After all, in a way she had a right to know as she was intimately involved in the events of Antipas and I think she could have handled something of the truth.

I can see Frank's motivation, but I also think he should have opened the door for her at least a bit.

(BTW, maybe I'm in the minority here, but I liked Emma's character and I thought she was a good partner for Frank.)

I found Season 3 to be excellent. Even the episodes a lot of people don't seem to care for worked for me. The last half of the season was especially good. If only they could have renewed it for 13 episodes to end on the Millennium it would have been cool.

We need to thank Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter for giving us some sort of resolution in the X- Files. It was good they didn't forget the Millennium fanbase.

It might be worth doing some more careful research... However, the scene is certainly powerful as filmed. Maybe he hitched a broom with Lucy Butler to get across country instantaneously.

I'm not sure he actually anticipated being taken. His initial response to me at least seemed to indicate that he thought he was still in a hospital. It seemed that his biggest fear was that they would kill him on the operating table because he used to kill nurses.

Still your theory is just as valid. It makes for delicious irony that the predator becomes the prey- thinking he was in control while in reality Lucy was always in control.

I got that impression from The Sound of Snow:

HOLLIS: There was somebody who worked with Frank here, in the Millennium Group.

GIEBELHOUSE: Peter Watts.

HOLLIS: Yeah. He was in Seattle at the time of the outbreak. He survived the virus. His whole family did. So did Frank, so did Jordan, but not Catherine. Can you imagine the guilt he must feel.

It's more an inference now that I read the transcript...

I just finished GTAT and as such have officially finished Season 3!!!! I must say season 3 as a whole is unjustly maligned. I found many riveting captivating stories in this season and the last several episodes were just one gem after another... especially the two part ending.

It's obvious that the paramedic who killed Baldwin was a Millennium Group operative and as such wanted the chain of command freed for Hollis to take over.

The fall of Hollis and the redemption of Peter Watts were both profound in my view and motivated by deepseated character actions. I just never bought Peter as a heavy.

I do have one continuity question which is niggling and doesn't take away from my enjoyment of the episode but it is this... Frank sees the tape of Jordan in Virginia and next scene is smashing through the window of Peter's house in Seattle? Has he taken on Lucy Butler's ability to span coasts immediately?

It really would have been interesting to see a 4th season to see how things would have played out, but I did enjoy the X Files Episode. I saw it when it originally aried and at that point I had only seen one episode of Millennium, Collateral Damage, which I loved. It was great seeing Frank and Jordan at the end... and a great X Files ep to boot.

All this makes me hope for a Millennium movie even more.

On my trek through the third season I watched Skull and Bones. I thought it was a really good episode, very chilling.

I had a couple of questions, though. Wasn't Cheryl Andrews the one who turned on Frank and Peter in The Hand of St. Sebastian in Season 2? If so, how/why was she set free to continue working, and why was Frank so worried when she almost had Peter and He killed?

Also, at the end of the episode Peter admits to the group's involvement in the killings by talking about the "elimination of 43 threats". I don't see how this opens up a dialogue for Emma getting closer and closer to the group. I also don't see how 43 execution style bodies could that easily be swept under the rug after there is media present (if I remember correctly.) It seems the FBI couldn't just say, oh well we found all 43 corpses... our work here is done. Did that strike anyone else as odd?

That being said, I did love the episode, and really have enjoyed Season 3 much more than I thought from a good bit of what I had read of it.

This wasn't one of my favorites. It had some funny moments mixed in, (especially Frank's declaration "I'll catch this killer even if it drives me insane... for the third time! and also Frank building profiles of all the slashers in the films Emma showed him.) I also really liked the reference all the way back to the Pilot, however the whole vibe just didn't work for me, especially the end. I could tell since we were not looking at the front of "Frank's" head that it was probably the actor who was playing him in the movie.

Looking back, I didn't hate it. I just didn't love it.