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Hello people! :hiya:

After a long time after viewing season 2 and deserting these forums but thinking about MillenniuM from time to time (and watching other series as well) I've finally sat down to watch season 3! Now this being 2008 and me having read many things MLM over the years, I'm heavily spoiled. On top of that I had seen some episodes randomly many years ago (including the finale!), so I've heard all kinds of views: that s3 is not as good, that it ruined what s2 had built upon, that it shouldn't have been done at all, that it ties in with s1 mythology nicely, that it's better than s2... But now I'm really sitting down to go through the whole thing on DVD and I'll make my own opinion -- on the eps and the evolution of the plot overall as well. I'll be posting here thoughts after viewing each episode before reading other reviews, in order not to be influenced. And then I'll refer to the other topics for more in-depth discussion.

Anyway, enough with rambling. I just saw Through a Glass Darkly. First some quick thoughts on the first 6... (I'll be back)

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Guest Sheree Dawn
Hello people! :hiya:

After a long time after viewing season 2 and deserting these forums but thinking about MillenniuM from time to time (and watching other series as well) I've finally sat down to watch season 3! Now this being 2008 and me having read many things MLM over the years, I'm heavily spoiled. On top of that I had seen some episodes randomly many years ago (including the finale!), so I've heard all kinds of views: that s3 is not as good, that it ruined what s2 had built upon, that it shouldn't have been done at all, that it ties in with s1 mythology nicely, that it's better than s2... But now I'm really sitting down to go through the whole thing on DVD and I'll make my own opinion -- on the eps and the evolution of the plot overall as well. I'll be posting here thoughts after viewing each episode before reading other reviews, in order not to be influenced. And then I'll refer to the other topics for more in-depth discussion.

Anyway, enough with rambling. I just saw Through a Glass Darkly. First some quick thoughts on the first 6... (I'll be back)

I did not watch season 3 immediately after 2. I was dealing with family members that had other television tastes, and just lost interest. I was taking things too personally--the animosity between Catherine's father and Frank. I tend to take things to heart if they ingnite a fiery passion from within. Then Chiller TV started broadcasting it and I started to pick up on it again, but this time I turned the TV off and pulled out my DVD collection and watched it from start to finish, with the exception of THE PAPER DOVE and THE BEGINNING AND THE END; those two never interested me, especially after watching it the first time. It was almost painful watching them

Season 3 is very good, just goes off in a different direction than I would have liked.

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Guest ZeusFaber

Exactly the right thing to do, Orodromeus, watch and make up your own mind. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did (and still do)!

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3x01: The Innocents

I liked it! As a first part of a 2-parter I think it does its job nicely to tease the viewer. Of course in order to MAKE a s3 you have to modify some things from the end of s2 which presented the plague too much in an end-of-the-world fashion. Frank's change of attitude to the Group is consistent. Emma looks interesting, troubled to the horrors that she sees.

3x02: Exegesis

Ouch! This is completely not MillenniuM. This is X-Files with some badly directed action movie chase scenes. Peter and the Group's "assassin" make the Group look like some governmental security agency à la NSA. This could be nice elsewhere, but how does this relate to anything MLM? XF actually used these same elements (SRI, remote viewing) in its mythology one year later.

3x03: TEOTWAWKI

A Carter & Spotnitz script, and as such it uses many of your typical XF story basis: a city where a group of adults carry a heavy secret for the good of their community and are reluctant to let any newcomer come and meddle with their business. "Weeds" I think used the same pattern in s1, another Spotnitz script. Still, this ep made good use of topical themes around this period: college shootings and the Y2K virus. Not a good ep in its resolution, but a good starting point -- and the theme is millenniumistic at least.

3x04: Closure

Some background on Emma is welcome. I like her character, stubborn but sensitive. Mark Snow's music that accompanies it is wonderful -- I'm sure I've heard it before but the "Best of MLM" CD has no "Closure" tracks... The premise was good, a crazy violent man with a big ego for whom killing is just a game: that's a good "case" to wonder about "why", why all the violence, why does man turn against man? This ep's killings are as impersonal as the killing that took Emma's sister life. Too bad all this ends up in your unrealistic basic shoot out action scene, with CGI bullets flying around... Again, a good premise for an episode that doesn't reach its full potential.

3x05: ...Thirteen Years Later

Michael Perry tries to out-do Darrin Morgan in a humorous script with intrigues-within-intrigues and parallels between events and persons, including another Frank alter ego -- many similarities to "Doomsday Defense"... but it fails quite miserably! Somehow the momentum of horror b-movies parody doesn't quite come through. And the final revelation that this was the actor talking to prisoners was toooo much: ok we never saw his face so we sensed it was the actor impersonating Frank, but making the whole scene a fantasy of the actor talking to FBI agents is stretching it too far. Compared to the previous Halloween episode, perhaps the best of the series, this one might be the worse.

3x06: Skull and Bones

Beautiful! Very atmospheric, very moody, I like that :p. The Writer character was very intriguing (some Se7en inspiration with his small handwriting?), Emma's discoveries appropriately disturbing, Baldwin nicely completes the cast. The only problem with this is, again, what is made of the Group: a black governmental agency keeping terrorist and other threats in check? This is consistent with Exegesis (nice nod with the remote viewing eye symbol on the wall), ok, but a bit too "out there", almost X-Filish again. Also, why did this Group "assassin" (Mabius is it?) missed Frank, then had a fight with him, and then after he miraculously got out of his fall from the window without even limping didn't return to finish his job (killing Frank)? That aside, a very good ep.

Overall, a new, surprising direction for the way the Group is handled -- fully inconsistent with s2. A more realistic tone, more based on police work and investigations like in s1. The risk to turn Frank & Emma into Mulder & Scully is not there thankfully. Some failures, some successes as the new executive producers struggle to find their marks (I guess).

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@Sheree: I didn't watch s3 straight after s2 either. MLM is not a show to watch all in a row like some other "simpler" shows (24, Lost). And about Catherine's parents being concerned with Jordan, I liked this aspect and I found it well handled (don't know where that will lead to though). I tend to take things less personally but to consider things more in a storyline aspect, detached but concerned with the overarching message the writers and the crew want to convey.

@ZeusFaber: yeah I guess s3 has been subject of some fiery debates in the fandom right? No bloodshed here please.

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Guest Laurent.
@ZeusFaber: yeah I guess s3 has been subject of some fiery debates in the fandom right? No bloodshed here please.

It has indeed!! Even more than the second season I guess... probably due to the fact that the start of the season was a bit slow... but wait for the last third (7 or so episodes); it's amazing!!

I love you signature by the way!!

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Guest Sheree Dawn
I love you signature by the way!!

Me too, :clapping::clapping:

Ever notice how malignant corn has become? The whole X-Files thingee and Stephen King's Children of the Corn. I won't even consider driving anywhere near Nebraska, if I was to ever acquire the funds to embark on that long desired road trip.

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Thanks for the sig people! The corn is relative to the XF mythology, nothing deeper than that (and it's catchy :)). I wouldn't know about Stephen King, but with the XF I loved the way they took issues that are commonplace or topical and turned them into completely different things when integrated in the mythology of the show -- cornfields and GMOs are one example. The whole millennium paranoia as the source for MLM is another.

Indeed there's good stuff in this season:

3x07: Through a Glass, Darkly

Extremely good episode! This is another variant on themes MLM already touched upon: the father figure manipulation (Sacrament), the ability for forgiveness or real change (The Thin White Line), the sequestration of innocent young children (The Well-Worn Lock, 19:19). The viewer is successfully manipulated into hating, doubting, and then feeling compassionate for the guilty-proved-innocent stalker. Wonderfully done. Emma didn't do much, but Frank the profiler is back in full force. Oh, and I love Vancouver: I think this was the same lake as in the XF episode Quagmire!

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Guest ZeusFaber
yeah I guess s3 has been subject of some fiery debates in the fandom right?

I would say all seasons have been. Out of the three, I would say S1 is the least divisive, but both S2 and S3 have their lovers and their haters, and a great many degrees in between.

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3x08: Human Essence

If Exegesis wasn't MillenniuM, this was even less so. A random police investigation, with vague paranormal elements that might have fitted the X-Files. Like "Sense and Antisense" (which also took place in poor areas of town) in season 2, this episode doesn't fit with the rest. Throughout the episode I didn't feel like I really cared about what would happen next really. Frank's boss McClaren is annoying and we get no explanation why some people in the FBI or the DOJ had set their minds at discrediting Emma (and somehow I doubt this will be touched upon again). At least this really takes place in the city that it's supposed to be shot in: Vancouver!

I would say all seasons have been. Out of the three, I would say S1 is the least divisive, but both S2 and S3 have their lovers and their haters, and a great many degrees in between.
It's hard for the first season of a show, the one that sets the tone, to be divisive :p But I see what you mean.
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