Owls/Roosters

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

OK, first of all, I am not going to open up the Morgan & Wong/season 2 can of worms here, but recent discussion has inspired me to watch Owls and Roosters again. For some reason, I developed an unfair impression of these two episodes and, until recently, considered them only a little better than average. Lets say, 3.5's out of 5. I think the original problem I had with them was the the beginning of Owls, where we see the group members trying to obtain the section of the cross of the crusifixion, and a shootout between the MM group and Odessa. Looking back, I think this might have come back down to the falling ratings, and might have been an attempt by M & W to add some action and excitement into the mix. At the time, it just didn't quite feel right for the program, at least not to me. However, now that I have seen the episode a couple of times, and have gotten used to these slight departures from typical MM writing, I find myself wondering why I didn't think more highly of these episodes, and I feel compelled to bump my rating of them up to about a 4.5 out of 5. I really find the writing to be riviting, and although I understand how some people might not have liked it, I really enjoyed the discussion of the different views of the coming apocolypse, as well as the dynamics created by the different members, including Owls, Roosters, and candidates who are either undecided or have not specified their beliefs. I have never labeled Owls/Rosters as "poor" episodes, but given my new perspective, I would have to say it strengthens my view S2 was the best. I really believe that, after Single Blade of Grass, the entire remainder of the season is probably 4 or 5 star episodes, and this includes "The Pest House", which I would give a 4 for reasons that I wont even begin to get into in this post. A couple of interesting things that I learned in Owls/Roosters, or had never thought about too much are that Peter was a "Patron" and a Rooster, and that Frank never really revealed what he believed. As is the case with Hand of Saint Sebastian, I had kind of preconcieved notion of Owls and Roosters not being among my favorites, and therefore had only seen them the first time around, and then once each when I got the DVDs. After a couple of viewings, I consider The Hand of SS a 5 out of 5 and Owls/Rosters not far behind, and these episodes are going to be added to those that I watch fairly frequently. In fact, I think I'm going to give Owls another watch tonight. It just feels right to emmerse myself in the mythology and all of the great story writing and characters of those episodes tonight.

[Raven Wolf]

Yes... Also, without getting into the "where season 2 SHOULD have gone" discussion... I have to say that these 2 were exciting, imaginative shows. It's simply that we, as "pure" Millennium fans, wanted things to never change. But, Millennium is like life, after all.... We can't stop the change from coming. We can only make the most of the time we are given.

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

Yes... Also, without getting into the "where season 2 SHOULD have gone" discussion... I have to say that these 2 were exciting, imaginative shows. It's simply that we, as "pure" Millennium fans, wanted things to never change. But, Millennium is like life, after all.... We can't stop the change from coming. We can only make the most of the time we are given.

Ohhh, so you are saying that, given the fact that I welcomed the changes of season two that I am therefore an "impure" Millennium fan hah? LOL, just kidding, I know what you are saying, and I agree. Everything and everyone around us are in a perpetual state of change, so we can only try to roll with the punches. I think the reason I didn't have any problems with season two is that, like I have mentioned before, I just kind of took it as it came, and as long as they didn't mess with the integrity of Frank's character, I wasn't going to have any problems. Having said that, it did take me a little while to steady myself after the whirlwind of change at the beginning of season three. S3 did get back on track before too long and went on to be another great season of MM.

[Raven Wolf]

o.k. glad you didn't take that the wrong way....

you know what I was trying to say, I guess. I've gone back and forth on the season 2 thing quite a few times. even more so with season 3!

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

o.k. glad you didn't take that the wrong way....

you know what I was trying to say, I guess. I've gone back and forth on the season 2 thing quite a few times. even more so with season 3!

Yes, sometimes I get a little wound up in discussing these issues, but in the end, it just makes for a fun discussion. I guess I have to confess to being the poster child for S2 and Morgan and Wong though.

[Guest ___ L@the_of_Heaven___]

Yes, sometimes I get a little wound up in discussing these issues, but in the end, it just makes for a fun discussion. I guess I have to confess to being the poster child for S2 and Morgan and Wong though.

OHHHHHHHH NO YOU DON'T!!!

I am the SUPREME advocate of Season 2 here!!! Let's not forget I am the one organizing the massive Wussy @sskicking event coming up here soon!!!

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

OHHHHHHHH NO YOU DON'T!!!

I am the SUPREME advocate of Season 2 here!!! Let's not forget I am the one organizing the massive Wussy @sskicking event coming up here soon!!!

But L@the, can't we have a poster child AND a supreme advocate? Hey, that has a nice ring to it. Kind of reminds me of Grand Poobah or something. Anyways, I will leave it up to you oh supreme advocate.

[Guest ZeusFaber]

"Owls" / "Roosters:

Laser-guided gunplay, evil Nazis, buried treasure half-way across the globe, an obligatory Taxi Driver homage, and an ending that wraps up what's supposed to be a centuries old conflict between the Millennium Group and Odessa in the space of a ruthless thirty-second music montage...

...imagine showing this to a newbie, back to back with say "Gehenna" and asking them to imagine what happened in between.

Sorry, I don't want to open up the old can of worms either, but I just thought I'd share why some such as myself have a different opinion on the subject in as brief a manner as possible. Everyone's opinion is equally valid though.

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

"Owls" / "Roosters:

Laser-guided gunplay, evil Nazis, buried treasure half-way across the globe, an obligatory Taxi Driver homage, and an ending that wraps up what's supposed to be a centuries old conflict between the Millennium Group and Odessa in the space of a ruthless thirty-second music montage...

...imagine showing this to a newbie, back to back with say "Gehenna" and asking them to imagine what happened in between.

Sorry, I don't want to open up the old can of worms either, but I just thought I'd share why some such as myself have a different opinion on the subject in as brief a manner as possible. Everyone's opinion is equally valid though.

LOL, yes, we can agree to disagree on this one. On a quick note though, I think the lasers were just targeting lasers that we see often times in current technology, as opposed to say laser guided bullets. I don't know if this was your take as well, but although I wasn't originally pleased with the opening scene, I didn't have any problems with the lasers themselves. I can see how these episodes might not be well received by some fans though. On a positive note, they were given a 4 out of 5 (Owls) and a 5 out of 5 (Roosters) by a very tough Millennial Abyss. However, this definitely falls into the "mythology" category, so anyone who wasn't into that particular plot line would not have cared for the episodes. I frequently found this to be the problem with X-files. In fact much for frequently than Millennium, and I actually never had any problems with story lines with MM, just a few stand alone episodes. On the other hand, with the X-files, I found myself disliking the direction on many occasions. Who knows, maybe Morgan & Wong even wrote some of the episodes I disliked. For example, I just couldn't get into the cloning or "black oil" episodes. They also lost me with the supersoldier nonsense. I found these to be way more far fetched than anything Millennium had to offer. PS, I do agree that there were some imperfactions with the episodes, and thus the 4.5 out of 5 ratings.

[Guest ZeusFaber]

With the lasers, I agree they were just target-sights, I wasn't trying to suggested the bullets were guided. But in general for the episode, I found there to be far too much gadgetry that didn't belong in the MM universe. The device used to take out the security cameras and disable the car in the night, for example.

For The X-Files. I'm a big fan of the mythology and very much enjoy the parts you identify as disliking. I don't dislike the idea of these kind of conspiracy plots involving ancient artefacts and organisations as we saw in "Owls" and "Roosters", just that I don't think they aren't what MM was about. It's more for Indianna Jones stuff, which I like very much, but they're different genres.

I would have preferred Morgan & Wong let MM stay on track and explored the above things in a new show of their own, but then they never had much luck in that department.