My problem with Season 3

[Guest Watts]

I agree with alot of what Zeus said. Points well taken. I guess there are things I wanted to see in season 3 and it just didn't play out to my satisfaction. Maybe in another 9 years I'll feel differently. :)

Something else that bothered me. For the longest time I couldn't quite put my finger on it but Rodimus nailed it. Emma did take alot of time away from Frank. It did seem she was the star alot of the time and Lance was a guest star.

[Guest RodimusBen]

Something else that bothered me. For the longest time I couldn't quite put my finger on it but Rodimus nailed it. Emma did take alot of time away from Frank. It did seem she was the star alot of the time and Lance was a guest star.

Yeah, and as much of a S3 defender as I am, I'm totally willing to say that it irked me on second viewing. Maybe in some situations it was necessary, since she was the gun-toting agent and Frank was the consultant, but S1 and S2 sidestepped that pretty well.

I have an obvious bias, but I would have been thrilled if they had simply cast Lance and Brittany as the leads and had Emma as a frequent guest star a la Terry O'Quinn in S2.

Edited March 3, 2009 by RodimusBen

[Guest Watts]

That would have been perfect. It was a formula that worked in 1 and 2. They changed that formula it seemed in season 3.

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

Lots of great season points here! Like any type of artist, exploring new ground is a way to stay fresh. It's taking a chance. Some will like it, some will not. I have heard actors and writers say many times that you can't keep the audience waiting too long for resolutions. At some point, you have to bring the plot to a conclusion and try something new that will hopefully hold the audience's interest for the next round. Otherwise, the risk is run of boring the audience. I think this concept applies here. Each season explores some new ground not fully seen by the previous one.

Throw into the mix a new producing team to pick up a show that was expected to end the season before and you have even bigger challenges. Star Trek Enterprise had a similar thing happen in that they had a producer change between seasons three and four, with the outgoing producers writing the show into a corner with some 1944 time travel, reportedly just to stick it to the new producer! It took the new producer 2 episodes to bring the show back to where he wanted. It is respectable to fans that the production teams for both shows (Enterprise and Millennium) took effort to link seasons together rather than ignore what had already happened in the show. They had respect for what came before them. Granted, it seemed to take a little more time for Millennium to do this, but in retrospect, it seemed to work out in a reasonable manner, at least in my opinion. "The Truth about season three" segment on the DVD set goes into some detail about this, in that most were surprised that the show was approved for a third season, as many of the crew were out interviewing for new jobs, only to find out that they had another year of job security.

[ethsnafu]

The single biggest flaw of season three was, to my mind, giving the reigns of show-runner to Michael Duggan. Chip Johannessen, like Michael, had had no experience of working on a Then Thirteen production prior to be given the head honcho post but with Chip it worked and with Michael it didn't. When he left the show the official line in the press releases was that he didn't get the show. Whether that was his opinion or the opinion of others I do not know. When Eth

[Earthnut]

I agree with you Mark. How could Michael not get the show?

I'm just so thankful that season 3 produced so many good episodes, even though it did appear off track with 1 and 2.

[Guest Laurent.]

The single biggest flaw of season three was, to my mind, giving the reigns of show-runner to Michael Duggan. Chip Johannessen, like Michael, had had no experience of working on a Ten Thirteen production prior to be given the head honcho post but with Chip it worked and with Michael it didn't. When he left the show the official line in the press releases was that he didn't get the show. Whether that was his opinion or the opinion of others I do not know. Eth

The fact that season three found its feet very quickly after Michael's departure strengthen your point in my mind. Chip seemed to be more and more in control as the season when on (didn't he co-penned almost all of the final third?) and as I said earlier in this thread, I would have loved to see him helm a fourth season (even more than Carter IMO).

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

In playing a little information catch-up, it looks like Michael Duggan's last episode as producer was the seventh episode, "Through the Glass Darkly." I see that he has the writing credits for "Human Essence as well, which may say a bit as to his direction for the show. I don't know the ins and outs of producer politics, but each millennium episode, minus the pilot, had no less that eight people in some role of producer. I realize that most likely there's only one at the top of the production totem pole, but could it really have taken 7 episodes for the other 7 producer types to tap ol' Michael on the shoulder and steer the Millennium bus in a better direction?

I'm open to any further Millennium production information.

[ethsnafu]

As far as I know, and this may be wrong, it was Fox that intervened with regards to Duggan's tenure on the show. I'm fairly sure that it was the response of the viewers to the new season that prompted his let-go which explains why he managed to get nine episodes in before anyone realised there were issues. I have to agree with Laurent, the speed with which Chip managed to turn the ship around is to his credit. It goes from below par to above par in the space of a few episodes and that is no mean feat. I also believe CC became more hands-on when Johannessen was running the show at least in an advisory capacity. I am told that Duggan was given a free reign and probably could have benefited from a little support in his early days. Again, how much of this is fact is unclear as it's simply what I've heard from a number of folk over the years.

Eth

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

Thanks. I really like the "behind the scenes" stuff, with the understanding that it may not be the full story. I assume that the information may be in pieces or vague to avoid mudslingging and "slamming" on the part of the other producers. I really like Chip's stuff on the show and, not to say that the first 7 episodes or so were bad, but what came after were really good.