Catherine & Frank

[HighPlainsDrifter]

I have no proof, but this is my hunch as well. As I have speculated before, there are a million possible reasons why her character was killed off, and we will probably never know these reasons. At one point I thought Roedecker was cruelly written off for no reason, but then I found out that he wanted to move on to doing work on stage, and the writers obliged him. Maybe she found that participating in a weekly show as a central character to be too demanding of her time. Maybe she wanted to move on to another project. In looking at her filmography, I see that she has had no projects before or sense Millennium that have been steady gigs on series as a main character. This might be the way she likes it. Whatever the reasons, I'm sure her charactor wasn't written the way she was and/or killed off to anger the fans.

If i was a writer i would of had him join The Lone Gunman. I think he would be a perfect fit. Alan Zynk would of loved it

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

I watched The Beginning and The End today while my son took a nap. At the end Catherine basically told Frank what he just did took the happiness and safety out of their house. THis is not a direect quote. I understand her point of view but the writers didnt have to make her this smug. Frank didnt have to leave the house. I know Morgan and Wong is trying to make him a very dark figure, but to put a split between Frank and Catherine is just bad writing. I think the success of Season one was because of the relationship with Frank and Catherine.

Maybe I need to watch The Beginning and The End again, but I had a different interpretation. I thought I remembered Catherine saying something like "I'm not saying I'm not grateful, but I just don't think things can ever be the same again", after Polaroid Man was killed. As was mentioned by another poster, Frank did not have to break in and gut the Polaroid Man, and witnessing this kind of hatred and brutality, not to mention a murder committed by the man she has always known to stop murderers, and be against the taking of a human life, would indeed be very traumatic. Don't forget, Catherine says in "The Thin White Line" "You could no more kill a man in your custody than you could Jordan or I". Then, instead of waiting for backup or trying to apprehend the Polaroid man, he bursts in and kills him in a horrible manner, and she sees a side of Frank that she probably didn't even think existed. I'm not saying that I would not have done the exact same thing, but we are talking about Catherine's reaction. I think it is a lot different to actually witness something like this in reality than to see it on TV where it is an every day thing. Frank himself admits that he had to sacrifice something to get Catherine back. Don't forget, by the beginning of season 2, Catherine has already found a human kidney in her refrigerator, been confronted by a strange man in her house and had no idea if Jordan was safe, found out that Bletch was hanging dead in her basement with his throat cut, had Frank turn up missing in Walkabout, and find out that he could have dead if he wasn't found when he was, and then, to top it all off, she is kidnapped, strapped to the bottom of a car, held hostage and tormented, including thinking Jordan was dead, and then sees her focused, controlled, non violent husband butcher her abductor. Add this to the fact that, as A Stranger said, his work is consuming the family, and he is lying to and deceiving Catherine, and it is easy to see where she would want to separate herself from the situation for a while to sort things out. Also, don't forget that, while they were struggling with things, Catherine never ends things with Frank, and always leaves the door open for the possibility that they might be able to work things out. She is there, and usually civil, right up until the end when she goes to the cabin with Frank in "The Time is Now". I'm certainly not saying that Frank was in the wrong, or that Catherine could not have been more understanding, given the circumstances, but simply that they were having marital struggles, and there is plenty of blame to go around.

[Guest A Stranger]

I watched The Beginning and The End today while my son took a nap. At the end Catherine basically told Frank what he just did took the happiness and safety out of their house. THis is not a direect quote. I understand her point of view but the writers didnt have to make her this smug. Frank didnt have to leave the house. I know Morgan and Wong is trying to make him a very dark figure, but to put a split between Frank and Catherine is just bad writing. I think the success of Season one was because of the relationship with Frank and Catherine.

I think it could have been done better, as much of how season two was handled, but the split makes perfect sense. She says something to the effect of "something's going to give" if he doesn't go back to work in PPTAD to which Frank seems to not see at all. He thinks he's doing everything right. Her detachment from him as she explains to Bletch in Gehenna is very strange, it's the kind of thing he probably wouldn't like to hear. At least the way she talks about him. They obviously love and need each other but the struggle between them comes down to Frank and his gift, his genius, which he allows to alienate himself from her by keeping her at bay trying to protect her. The theme of lying vs. not tellling the whole truth is very explicitly addressed in Owls/Roosters but was a huge element of their relationship.

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

If i was a writer i would of had him join The Lone Gunman. I think he would be a perfect fit. Alan Zynk would of loved it

Yes, he would have fit right in with that bunch of characters.

[Raven Wolf]

Well, maybe this is supposed to be the whole point. Millennium never showed Black & White sides of anything. Life is a paradox, and maybe Millennium was just doing its part to show that, in the best way possible.

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

I wouldn't describe them as rogue bandits, but they were indeed the captain's of the S2 ship to sail wherever they chose. To this day, CC has still not seen all the episode of S2. Perhaps the fact that his name is still in the end credits gives the mistaken impression that they were still all hanging out in the writers' room together, but they weren't. Checking on scripts is the job that the showrunner does, that's what they're there for. Howard Gordon does it on 24, Ron Moore does it on Battlestar Galactica, etcetera. You don't give that job to someone else if you're still planning on doing it yourself, and indeed you couldn't contractually.

Think of it as equivilent to Aaron Sorkin's relationship to The West Wing after he left in it's fourth season leaving control with John Wells, or better yet equivilent to J.J. Abrams' relationship to Lost now with Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse as showrunners. Chris Carter was only different in the sense that he came back to work on Millennium to a limited degree in S3.

Not all the other writers, no. Many of those that M&W hired for S2 are full of praise for the pair. However, most of those that had been hired by CC beforehand were not as impressed. It has been said that M&W's showrunning style was more to operate in separate groups -- the bunch of episodes they were working on themselves, and then everyone elses.

I think that's a fair point. However, I think CC's comments mostly focus on his approach for S3, not so much complaining about S2 just for the sake of it, more expressing why going forward was a challenge due to contrasting visions.

But doing all that would have meant continuing with the S2 style and all its baggage, when the point was to get away from it. I, for one, am grateful of that.

OK, this is starting to sink in now. You are saying that Chris Carter pretty much washed his hands of the show and made M & W the bosses then. You are also saying that Morgan and Wong really didn't have anyone to answer to, not even Chris Carter himself, they were the big cahoonas. Well, actually Fox was above them, and it would have been Fox who dismissed M & W and asked Carter to come back, that is, unless M & W left voluntarily for another project after the genius work they did on season two was not appreciated. I must say, and I am not questioning your information, but I find it astonishing that Chris Carter has never seen some episodes of a show that he was so instrumental in creating from scratch. It was his baby after all. By the way, I think they could have made the transition from season two to season three fairly quickly in season three and still moved on along a different path, but that's just my opinion. I can say that I still don't see any reason that season two left them with no other options than to create such a big change in Watts character.

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

OK, this is starting to sink in now. You are saying that Chris Carter pretty much washed his hands of the show and made M & W the bosses then. You are also saying that Morgan and Wong really didn't have anyone to answer to, not even Chris Carter himself, they were the big cahoonas. Well, actually Fox was above them, and it would have been Fox who dismissed M & W and asked Carter to come back, that is, unless M & W left voluntarily for another project after the genius work they did on season two was not appreciated. I must say, and I am not questioning your information, but I find it astonishing that Chris Carter has never seen some episodes of a show that he was so instrumental in creating from scratch. It was his baby after all. By the way, I think they could have made the transition from season two to season three fairly quickly in season three and still moved on along a different path, but that's just my opinion. I can say that I still don't see any reason that season two left them with no other options than to create such a big change in Watts character.

By the way, this last post is in response to the final post by ZeusFaber. I posted it with his text attached as a quote, but the post didn't show up. The weird thing is that when I went to post again, the post was listed among the previous posts in reverse order, but then when I sent that post, the previous one was gone again. Maybe there are still a few bugs to be worked out because I have lost a few posts and had a few where the previous quoted text did not show up. No worries though, I'm sure it will all be worked out in time. That is unless the problems I'm having are due to my computer.

[Raven Wolf]

Yes, there has been a report in the feedback forum about this as well. There always seem to be a few "bugs" to swat after an update, or upgrade, or anything really. The net is a fickle thing, I guess.

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

Yes, there has been a report in the feedback forum about this as well. There always seem to be a few "bugs" to swat after an update, or upgrade, or anything really. The net is a fickle thing, I guess.

Yes, this is true, and I don't want to sound like a whiner. Actually, a couple of the posts I made regarding the missing posts disappeared right after I made them, so if all of these posts eventually make it on the board, I will really look like a whiner. I did post for quite a while today before having any problems, but now some of those posts seem to be lingering in cyberspace. As I said before, no big deal and I know it will be ironed out eventually.

[Guest ZeusFaber]

OK, this is starting to sink in now. You are saying that Chris Carter pretty much washed his hands of the show and made M & W the bosses then.

Basically, although it's worth noting that CC didn't appoint M&W directly. He was aware of their interest, but it was FOX who made the deal and then let CC know, after which he was very happy.

You are also saying that Morgan and Wong really didn't have anyone to answer to, not even Chris Carter himself, they were the big cahoonas. Well, actually Fox was above them, and it would have been Fox who dismissed M & W and asked Carter to come back, that is, unless M & W left voluntarily for another project after the genius work they did on season two was not appreciated.

As you say, M&W still had to answer to the network just like every other TV show, but they were definitely not calling CC up every few weeks to ask if what they had planned was okay.

As for the departure of M&W, that was a certainty from the very beginning of the season. They knew they were leaving after S2, so there was no dismissal and no asking to come back.

Maybe there are still a few bugs to be worked out because I have lost a few posts and had a few where the previous quoted text did not show up.

Yeah, I lost a huge huge post to, I think, L@the_of_Heaven, and I think his has gone too. Unless I'm getting mixed up with a different thread...