John Kenneth Muir Reviews Seven and One

[ethsnafu]

Hi folks,

John Muir has made a number of appearances in these forums than his wonderful reviews of Millennium and he has turned his head to third season episode "Seven and One". If you want to head on over and read it just hit this link and check it out.

As always he hits the nail of the head perfectly.

Eth

[Beerbelch]

BEER----> This fellow is quite a 'WordSmith'. Fine writing, I am definitely going back and re-watch this episode immediately. I hope the right people stand up and take notice of the 'MillenniuM' story lines and get a movie produced. It's now been over 10 years and they're still talking about the series.

BELCH

[ethsnafu]

He's a wonderful writer I agree. I enjoy his blog immensely and I would wager a bet that anyone who enjoys cult and genre TV would as well. He also appears to be a fond fan of "Space:1999" which is a British scifi series I am also extremely fond of and he gave "Star Trek: Voyager" one of the most positive deconstructions I have ever seen which I still recall because I never understood why it gets such a slating from some quarters. I find it infinitely more watchable than any of the other shows the franchise produced.

Glad you enjoyed the link and the read. It's nice to see people still talking about the show these days.

Eth

[Earthnut]

Fantastic article, and yes, he really is a great writer.

I would love to read what he has to say about "Anamnesis."

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

John is awesome in his reviews. They are fair and both good points and bad points are brought to light. I forgot half the things I was going to say about Seven and One because of my distraction with wanting to read all of his other reviews! Alas, I was unfocused.....or was I just hungry?

Seven and One.....

Yet another season three episide where you have to dig deep, get very few clues, and must do some level of homework to really understand things. I love the feel of spiritual/demonic attack and eventual victory in this episode. Is Frank going mad? There's a few shades of X-Files: Folie a Deux here, which I like. This is not the season one style ending where Frank makes a choice to rush into danger to get the bad guy. Frank is stuck in the danger, or fear, from the beginning and has to figure out a very different way to beat the bad guy, of which I use the term "guy" very loosely!

I will go as far to say that this episode would have made a better series finale than what came after it, almost like if the X-Files series ended at the end of season 8. Both had a sense of a feel good ending that still could have been continued down the road in the movie realm.

[ethsnafu]

Now that's an interesting comment because it echoes my own sentiments. I would have had Seven and One lead into Via Dolorosa and Goodbye To All That and dropped Nostalgia altogether. The season really got its act together by the third act if you will and it continues to build on its new found confidence from The Sound Of Snow onwards to the pinnacle of Seven and One. Nostalgia rather steals the wind from the sails if you ask me as it is a decidedly mundane affair and one that doesn't add a great deal to the arc. They could have either ended with Seven and One or culled Nostalgia and ended with Goodbye To All That but that little dip in quality sullies what is an otherwise superb code for the show.

Eth

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

Yes. I like Nostalgia, but not in the season viewing order. It seems like an early third season episode that got put in the towards the end for some reason. Maybe Nostalgia was the episode that got dumped for Mr. Harbison's "Through the Glass," and eventually got reworked. If so, maybe it got moved beause it may have felt like several other early season 3 episodes and maybe they wanted to mix things up a bit.

I do like what they did with the series ending, but Seven and One had a nice, almost "feel-good high" that I think makes for good endings. "Good-bye" is good ending-wise, just in a very different way.

Just some undocumented and unproven speculatons on my part...