Bonus Features

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

Man Oh Man..., I can't WAIT until I get to the MillenniuM episodes; GEEZ, it seems like friggin' FOREVER since I've seen them. I just, uh..., acquired the first two seasons (I already had the 3rd) so, as soon as I get through the 100 seasons of X-Files I'll be all ready!

Ohhh, I see you've "acquired them".... ahem....cough . Yes, getting through all 9 seasons of the X-files would be quite a project and keep a person occupied for quite some time. Speaking of not having seen something in a long time, it's been a while now sense I have seen any of MM season three. Right now I am kind of taking a break from Millennium after a journey through season one. It wont be long before I get the craving again, but I still don't know what season will feel right, although I have been craving S3 episodes like Borrowed Time and Darwin's eye recently. Also, I miss my lil Emma. Of course, being on S1 so long, I miss my lil Lara too. Midnight of the Century sounds nice and cozy for tonight.

[Guest Prophecy]

Anyone knows why exactly Morgan and Wong declined to get involved?

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

Anyone knows why exactly Morgan and Wong declined to get involved?

Well, that is a very long story, but there has been some speculation that there was a bit of a falling out between Morgan & Wong and Chris Carter. I don't know if you have noticed, but Morgan and Wong were absent from season 3, and they might have been offended by Chris Carters remarks and/or implications that he wasn't happy with where Morgan & Wong were taking the show in S2. I don't know if it has ever been established whether M & W quit because they didn't want to work with CC, were fired because CC didn't want them involved in season 3, or simply left to work on a different project. I guess we might never know for sure, but their decision not to be interviewed for the discs leads me to believe that they were not happy campers. Then again, maybe they just thought they had better things to do with their time.

[Guest Prophecy]

Well, that is a very long story, but there has been some speculation that there was a bit of a falling out between Morgan & Wong and Chris Carter. I don't know if you have noticed, but Morgan and Wong were absent from season 3, and they might have been offended by Chris Carters remarks and/or implications that he wasn't happy with where Morgan & Wong were taking the show in S2. I don't know if it has ever been established whether M & W quit because they didn't want to work with CC, were fired because CC didn't want them involved in season 3, or simply left to work on a different project. I guess we might never know for sure, but their decision not to be interviewed for the discs leads me to believe that they were not happy campers. Then again, maybe they just thought they had better things to do with their time.

Thanks for info I guess it´s allways a bit tricky when there´s a lot of producers and different views..

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

Thanks for info I guess it´s allways a bit tricky when there´s a lot of producers and different views..

Yes, not to mention all those big egos.

[Libby]

This is all as far as I can tell from articles and interviews (and I think I've mentioned some of this before):

M&W were contracted to work on Season 2, but not beyond, as part of their contract with Fox. All the principal people had contracts with Fox rather than 1013 so not only were they not sacked, but if they had been they wouldn't have been sacked by 1013.

After their work on season 1 of the X-Files, they had a contract with Fox to produce three shows of their own, the first being Space: Above and Beyond, the pilot of which was filmed during X-Files' season 2. That show lasted one season and then they returned to the X-Files (part of season 4) and worked on Millennium (part of season 1). They left half way through that season to produce the pilot of Notorious 7 for Fox, which didn't get picked up.

The following year they worked on season 2 of Millennium as we know, and I believe their contract included a clause that they would return to 1013 shows if Notorious 7 didn't get picked up.

The year after Millennium season 2, they produced a pilot (Skip Chasers) which would have been aired by CBS but was made under the supervison of 20th Century. This didn't get picked up and they then worked on the movie Final Destination.

For the 1999/2000 season, they produced another pilot (The Wonder Cabinet) for Fox, but again this wasn't picked up. They also produced the pilot for The Others for NBC/Dreamworks, which premiered in February 2000 but was cancelled after 13 episodes. They then left Fox to work for Dreamworks.

I can understand M&W's reluctance to provide any commentaries for Millennium - they must have been pretty pissed of with Fox by then. Fox would have known the quality of their work (writing and producing) and would have known the premises of M&W's pilots from the scripts, so if they didn't like the pilots why did they agree to the pilots being filmed. It must be pretty galling to put the amount of effort required into producing a pilot, only to have it rejected. And to go through that more than once is pretty disheartening.

If there was any real antagonism between M&W and CC (beyond what would be expected between strong-minded individuals) then it could have stemmed from M&W's season 4 X-Files episode 'Musing of a Cigarette Smoking Man' which originally had the Cigarette Smoking Man killing Frohike. CC vetoed that and made changes to the script, adding voice-overs by Frohike to make him the "narrator" of the episode rather than CSM, and also changing the title from "Memoirs" to "Musings" to make it less canonical. M&W filmed their preferred ending as well as the revised one, in the hope that once CC saw their version he'd agree with them, but that piece of film mysteriously disappeared. Having worked on their own show (S:A&B) it must have been difficult to go back to the situation where they weren't making the final decisions.

As many of you know, I'm not a fan of MM S2 mythology episodes, but I do think that M&W are talented people and that Fox treated them pretty shabbily and I wouldn't be surprised if M&W thought that Fox didn't deserved the time and effort they would have put in to providing MM commentaries.

----

Edited to add: I've just noticed that this was my 1,013th post. And it was all research. What can I say? I do it all for you.*

* A virtual light cream cheese bagel for anyone who spots this reference.

[Guest Prophecy]

Thanks Libby

[Guest Thomas]

I'm glad that "Millennium" made it to DVD, but I must be honest: there could have been more bonus features.

Here's my thing. Often times I like the bonus material better that the movie or tv episodes. The bonus material can double the value of the dvd - to me. No one else in this house feels that way but I hold to it strongly.

They can always bring out a delux, then Super delux, then Ultimate versions. Bourne and Bond know how to do this. The point is that they already have the shows. That real expense is behind them. Now they could sit around and tell us some of the things we would love to hear about and it should be easy to collect various opinions. Even by phone. You certainly don't have to do retakes for this sort of material.

Another thing... When a series is being made have someone go around and just film the actors. Some of it is going to be good. All of it is going to have some value.

Therefor, I would like to see/hear a lot more from Lance. His voice has value if he was just moaning from a sick bed. I want to know what he likes and thought about the scenes. Every actor in the series has value to me and I would appreciate any comments that they want to make. Terry added so much intelligence to the series.

I want to know more about the music composition. (Consider the Hannibal extras on that dvd)

I want to know about the locations.

It was a great series and I am so happy that this website exists to promote interest in it.

[Guest Benocles]

Friends,

Perhaps there will be more extras one day, you never know. But in saying that, I doubt there will be as they would have placed them on the boxsets for us; people love that stuff and if there was more, they would have included (for sales especially). Hence, I doubt there will be any more extras as they simply don't exist. What we saw is what we have. The only thing that can be done now, is a fan effort; compiling all known television interviews and placing it on a single disc.

On a side note, I really like the documentaries on each boxset. Very interesting and made me want to rewatch the entire series all over again (and I just finished doing so a month ago...lol)!