Thirteen Years Later...

[4th Horseman]

Gosh 4th you know your 'Kiss' and my understanding of the episode is enriched because of it.

I concur that all the trimmings of Halloween make Kiss the ideal musical icon to plant amongst the doings but my irk lies not in the decision to use them but with the endlessness of their influence. Consider that some posters have invoked such fury with regards to the snippets and jingles of Bobby Darin and I can fully understand why, such flecks of reality jar the viewer from a uniquely composed world with its own reality and soundtrack. Of course, in this instance, it could be considered that Millennium remains untainted as a Dallas-like-shower-scene bandages our wounds and reminds it was just a dream but if you wish to venture into the irreverent then there has to be a subtlety to it to make it worthwhile.

Darin Morgan changed the way the profound was written, his skillful, rich narratives joined forces with sarcasm, relentless gags and a flavour of the 'Carry On Films' and understandably his style aroused the 1013 chroniclers to a new and almost Lewis-Carroll-esque fictive universe. As a scientist should never dabble with oil paints and artists should leave test tubes alone, this energy was channeled by those who did not fully understand the soft, sardonic, depth of his work and ill considered stories such as these emerged.

There are numerous elements that are intelligent and a few moments where humour rises above the blatant and takes on a more comedic and intelligent-comedic slant but overall using Kiss, a horror influenced band, to represent horror was less effective that using the Carpenters as a soundtrack to rabid-dog-dismemberment.

I guess I ain't a fan of the obvious.

Eth...great post as usual...i thought the Carpenter's song playing while the motorhome couple was being disembowled added a rather ghastly sardonic twist to the episode. A sugary, feel good, sappy song playing in the background to the conflict of an aggressive act. The ultimate contradiction, sugar and spice and everything nice vs killer dogs hellbent on killing, dont know if that is what M&W had in mind, but it sure crossed mine. The Darin part really had no purpose other than to juggle the viewers memory that Darin was Frank's favorite singer....now in regards to KISS. I am not nor ever have been a fan, but i do find the business acumen of Gene Simmons to be of a phenomenal nature and i am a fan of his show.....

4th Horseman...

[HighPlainsDrifter]

i kinda liked it. it was very different. i have always been intrested to see the official Kiss video that was filmed on set, i think that would be cool.

[Guest Laurent.]

There are numerous elements that are intelligent and a few moments where humour rises above the blatant and takes on a more comedic and intelligent-comedic slant but overall using Kiss, a horror influenced band, to represent horror was less effective that using the Carpenters as a soundtrack to rabid-dog-dismemberment.

I guess I ain't a fan of the obvious.

It's funny that you state not to be a fan of the obvious because I think there is more here than what you seem to believe. I think this episode echoes the second season Halloween episode (The curse of Frank Black) in some strange, hidden, way. In TCOFB, we're invited to a lost vision of Halloween, it's not a slash/gore fest, it's neither about candy or monsters. It's the day of the dead. Where the lost souls come back to walk the Earth. Unfortunately, modern consumerism has turned this ancient holiday ( Halloween history ) into a glorification of excessive, unrealistic violence and a day to play around with pumpkins, candies and false blood (compare the now yearly halloween flick Saw with The Curse of Frank Black and you'll get what I mean). Thirteen years later tries to show this new modern side of Halloween which clashes with other episode of Millennium. Isn't it strange that the Halloween episode is one of the least serious, scary and realistic show of all the three seasons? The turning of something profoundly spiritual and serious as the day of the dead into a mere comic spook fest for kids is echoed within the episode in two ways:

- The movie being made is taking a real-life tragic event, involving real, complex and flawed humans and turns it into a first degree stupid and gory B-movie with skin deep characters.

- The band used in the episode has made a career of turning demonic imagery into show business

I do think that the concept of the episode was very clever and that they meant it to be a comment on the shallowness of modern horror and on the lost of the spiritual side of holidays. With that in mind, I also think the choice of the band KISS fitted perfectly with the concept.

Unfortunately, this doesn't add up to a particularly memorable episode .

edit: Eth, I perfectly agree with you about how some 1013 writers, probably inspired by the writing of Darin Morgan, tried to break from TXF or MM usual mood to bring original and lighter episodes. Some succeeded, (Carter with The Post-Modern Prometheus, Vince Gilligan with Bad Blood, etc.) but Michael R. Perry was the only who dared to try the same thing on Millennium after Morgan's departure. The show being darker only makes the task harder to achieve. Unfortunately, I also think that Morgan's shoes were too hard to fill and that no one quite succeeded to bring his intelligence and humor back within the third season of MM.

Edited December 4, 2007 by Laurent.

[Guest Heath328]

Great observations all the way around, Laran. I agree with you that there are nuances within "Thirteen Years Later" that emerge when you move past the casual viewing and take the time to examine the material critically.

I think the use of KISS would have worked better if the viewer hadn't been beaten over the head with the band's "cameo." I liked the idea of bandmembers playing different parts in the episode. But then they had to go and let them perform, just so YOU KNOW for sure it's Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, etc., etc.

Again, I think it was the network's heavy-handed attempt at a special Friday night Halloween blowout that made me resent parts of "Thirteen Years Later," not the people who actually produced "Millennium."

[Guest Laurent.]

You're probably right about that Heath..

If I remember correctly, in one of season three's special features, Micheal Perry was talking about the problems they had with KISS; that one of the members wanted more lines of dialogs. 1013 and fox probably had to bend themselves to a few KISS' demands in order to get them to appear in the show.. this may have caused problem in delivering a quality episode.

[4th Horseman]

You're probably right about that Heath..

If I remember correctly, in one of season three's special features, Micheal Perry was talking about the problems they had with KISS; that one of the members wanted more lines of dialogs. 1013 and fox probably had to bend themselves to a few KISS' demands in order to get them to appear in the show.. this may have caused problem in delivering a quality episode.

Laran..you are correct...it was Perry who said that some members wanted equal time and they had to make last minute changes, so its probably likely that the storyline suffered...television has only about 42 minutes of every hour to present its case, so having to take time away from the storyline to accomidate a few egos...and voila!! you get 13 Years Later...

4th Horseman

[Guest Heath328]

There should have been a lesson there for TV execs ... but they never learn, do they?

Once an original, quality TV show is created, the head honchos fight tooth and nail to kill whatever it was that made the show special in the first place.

("What if in Season 4, we move Frank to New York and give him a kooky neighbor? And we have a very special episode where Avril Lavigne plays Jordan's older friend who is going through some changes into womanhood ... We are really excited!")

Edited December 5, 2007 by Heath328

[Libby]

Has anyone mentioned the gratuitous use of KISS?

Talk about chewing scenery ...

And was it necessary to allow the band precious airtime to play a complete version of "Psycho Circus?"

When this episode first aired on Fox, it was part of a special Friday night Halloween promo that prominently featured KISS. That was the ONLY reason why the band was written into the show, and I think the episode suffered for it.

Everything else was entertaining, especially Frank's summations on the horror films Emma wanted him to watch with her to figure out the killer's moves. Frank's "profiled" of each movie gives the viewer food for thought on just how stupid so many horror films really are when you stop and think about the plots (or lack thereof).

I really would have rather seen more moments like those instead of giving KISS its umpteenth opportunity to relaunch itself.

I had read somewhere that the idea to include KISS was at the request of Fox. I really couldn't understand why, but the whole Halloween promo stuff makes some sense. Thanks for posting that. There were some bits in the episode I did like, especially Frank's profiles, but overall I felt it was rather overdone.

However, the fact that the writers/producers could come up with anything remotely watchable, given the dictat from the Fox honchos, is to their credit. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall during the writers' meeting when they were given that news!

[Guest Jim McLean]

There should have been a lesson there for TV execs ... but they never learn, do they?

Once an original, quality TV show is created, the head honchos fight tooth and nail to kill whatever it was that made the show special in the first place.

("What if in Season 4, we move Frank to New York and give him a kooky neighbor? And we have a very special episode where Avril Lavigne plays Jordan's older friend who is going through some changes into womanhood ... We are really excited!")

I disagree somewhat. If Kiss had been put into a needlessly irrelevant part in a story that carried itself on relevant scenes, I'd agree. But this seems to be very much in the Halloween pastiche vein, and in a very cartoonish sense. This has some logic to it when you are dealing with a show which each week deals with some form of Horror - where do you go on Halloween? Especially after the "Curse of Frank Black", and while Curse was great, it didn't stand out as a Halloween episode for the reasons I've given - each episode is sort of a Halloween episode! Remove the pumpkin and trick or treat, and the Halloween vibe is no more present in "Curse" as it is any other spiritual related MM story.

13 Years Later - for better or worse - really looks at playing with the fairly shallow nature of Halloween by homaging the very slight tongue in cheek nature of the night for a nation; it plays to excess, it offers no depth but explores those notions that so many Americans embrace at Halloween, quite simply, the Horror flick genre. Afterall, for most Americans, Halloween is less about demons, spiritual warnings and spook co-incidences as in Curse, for those over the age of 16 - those watching MM - its about the more silly, vacant notions of horror films, parties and nothing being taken all that seriously. And I think that's the vehicle for 13 Years Later and why such a shallow notion of KISS falls into play there. If the studio requested it, well, right on the show for finding a place for them, but given the rest of the season doesn't show any serious lapse in integrity, I'd say the use of KISS, the light hearted and pretty non-canonical events of the episode all fell into place for studio and show.

Given that the vacuous and absurd plot IS intended, IS justified and doesn't damage the show's integrity, 13 Years Later has a fun and irrelevant nature one can enjoy without feeling threatened intellectually on a personal level, nor damaging to the show itself. Its an episode where the payoff comes at the end, and when you know the end doesn't insult the audience or wreck the series, one can accept a rewatch of this story for what it intends to be, rather than what one expected.

Sometimes its important to accept a product for the attempt, even if the result isn't quite what one would prefer!

[Guest Heath328]

I disagree somewhat. If Kiss had been put into a needlessly irrelevant part in a story that carried itself on relevant scenes, I'd agree. But this seems to be very much in the Halloween pastiche vein, and in a very cartoonish sense. This has some logic to it when you are dealing with a show which each week deals with some form of Horror - where do you go on Halloween? Especially after the "Curse of Frank Black", and while Curse was great, it didn't stand out as a Halloween episode for the reasons I've given - each episode is sort of a Halloween episode! Remove the pumpkin and trick or treat, and the Halloween vibe is no more present in "Curse" as it is any other spiritual related MM story.

13 Years Later - for better or worse - really looks at playing with the fairly shallow nature of Halloween by homaging the very slight tongue in cheek nature of the night for a nation; it plays to excess, it offers no depth but explores those notions that so many Americans embrace at Halloween, quite simply, the Horror flick genre. Afterall, for most Americans, Halloween is less about demons, spiritual warnings and spook co-incidences as in Curse, for those over the age of 16 - those watching MM - its about the more silly, vacant notions of horror films, parties and nothing being taken all that seriously. And I think that's the vehicle for 13 Years Later and why such a shallow notion of KISS falls into play there. If the studio requested it, well, right on the show for finding a place for them, but given the rest of the season doesn't show any serious lapse in integrity, I'd say the use of KISS, the light hearted and pretty non-canonical events of the episode all fell into place for studio and show.

Given that the vacuous and absurd plot IS intended, IS justified and doesn't damage the show's integrity, 13 Years Later has a fun and irrelevant nature one can enjoy without feeling threatened intellectually on a personal level, nor damaging to the show itself. Its an episode where the payoff comes at the end, and when you know the end doesn't insult the audience or wreck the series, one can accept a rewatch of this story for what it intends to be, rather than what one expected.

Sometimes its important to accept a product for the attempt, even if the result isn't quite what one would prefer!

Yeah, despite my criticism about KISS, it WAS a fun episode, and I think it was clearly intended to be fun.

Edited December 5, 2007 by Heath328