New Mythology In Season 3

[Guest Post - 2001]

I'm defiantly a S2 fan, if I had to choose one season over the rest of the series. My problem with season one was that the show was in many regards was too narrow in its focus in dealing mainly with serial killers, and very underdeveloped supporting characters outside of Bob and Frank's wife. Who was Watts in year one? Outside of being a dedicated, strong man, we knew little about him. Season 2 fleshed him out wonderfully, gave Catherine a more active role, etc.

Furthermore, by expanding into the religous and spiritual more, the show was able to explore other aspects of the impending millennium. Yes, man and his evil play a role in the shape of the world, but the spiritual has always been a part of man. By opening this up, M&W gave the show a richer texture in its exploration of evil.

As for the group, remember Frank's lines at the end of year one? "They don't believe in sitting around and waiting for a happy ending." The groups behaviour in S2 was a perfect extension of that.

Edited September 25, 2005 by Post - 2001

[Guest ZeusFaber]

I disagree. S2 did not expand anything, only coloured it in more adolescent, sci-fi comic-book shades.

My problem with season one was that the show was in many regards was too narrow in its focus in dealing mainly with serial killers

What about "Gehenna"? "5-2-2-6-6-6"? "The Well-Worn Lock"? "Force Majeaur"? "Lamentation"? "Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions"?

All of these showed far more diversity than "serial-killer-of-the-week", which I think S1 is all too often unfairly labeled as.

Season 2 ..., gave Catherine a more active role, etc.

A more active role? I must strongly disagree with you on this point. Whilst oftentimes a bit underused, if anything, in S2, Catherine was even more underused. She virtually disappeared from episodes at a time after she separated from Frank (a grave misstep all of its own). While in S1 she may have played "the wife on the homefront" all too often, in S2 she didn't even get to do that. She was largely thrown aside in favour of Lara Means, and ultimately flushed away with the bathwater at the end of the season when M&W attempted to nuke the show.

I must stress that this is all just my opinions though, and I do respect yours. Just a healthy exploration of differing viewpoints.

[Guest A Stranger]

I disagree.  S2 did not expand anything, only coloured it in more adolescent, sci-fi comic-book shades.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree with this. It has both positive and negative aspects. It allowed episodes like "Midnight of the Century" and "The Curse of Frank Black" to happen, which would not have worked in year one very well and the latter is one of the series' best. It also gave birth to "A Single Blade..." and took away from the overall seriousness of the show.

[Guest Allen]

Well reading this has forced me to pause and ask myself why do I list S2 as my favorite and the answer is simple. It is because of my lack of understanding of what was being asked. The question was which season I thought was best. I gave which season had my favorite episodes. Season one was the best hands down (my opinion).

Season Two as I have said before was a rocket ride into a brick wall. Hell of a ride but no where to go at the end. Season three did a remarkable job of salvaging it as best it could. I've read how season one was slow with its serial killer focus. I agree today it is slow there have been plenty of shows on these lines, but I remember when it first aired. WOW!!! This was new ground there wasn't a show like this. Science Fiction that was close enough to what was going on to make one pause and say is this really science fiction. Season two did have some great episodes but this ground had been broke and exploited by Xfiles for years it was far from new and destroyed the direction set in season 1.

[Guest Post - 2001]

I disagree.  S2 did not expand anything, only coloured it in more adolescent, sci-fi comic-book shades.

What about "Gehenna"?  "5-2-2-6-6-6"?  "The Well-Worn Lock"?  "Force Majeaur"?  "Lamentation"?  "Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions"?

All of these showed far more diversity than "serial-killer-of-the-week", which I think S1 is all too often unfairly labeled as.

A more active role?  I must strongly disagree with you on this point.  Whilst oftentimes a bit underused, if anything, in S2, Catherine was even more underused.  She virtually disappeared from episodes at a time after she separated from Frank (a grave misstep all of its own).  While in S1 she may have played "the wife on the homefront" all too often, in S2 she didn't even get to do that.  She was largely thrown aside in favour of Lara Means, and ultimately flushed away with the bathwater at the end of the season when M&W attempted to nuke the show.

I must stress that this is all just my opinions though, and I do respect yours.  Just a healthy exploration of differing viewpoints.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, a few responses.

True, you listed 6 great season one episodes (and don't get me wrong, I love season one). But that is still out of 22 episodes. Never forget that there were the serial killer episodes "Pilot," "Dead Letters," "Kingdom Come," "Blood Relatives," "Wide Open," "Weeds," "Lion Like A Hunting Flame, "The Thin White Line," "Broken World," and "Paper Dove." Many of these are great episodes, yes, but that is the bulk of the season. And don't forget how many other episodes fall into Frank trying to find a killer that don't deal with repeat murders, which put Season one in the bulk of the stories in the serial killer/killer plot. They offer good new takes, yes, but that is pretty darn often for a show that had numerous themes and story lines to examine. An episode like "The Mikado" gains power when it is not surrounded by very similar episodes.

As for Catherine, well, she may have had more screen time in year one, but what was done with it? She had little material to work with. She may have appeared less in season two, but when she appeared, it mattered. As for the whole separation thing, it was actually a great idea. Season one set up Frank as a man who never killed, and now how does one react once that type of stable identity is shot to hell in front of their eyes? These were traumatic events that Frank and Catherine had to work through, and provided for strong drama over the season.

As for the whole shades of comics, etc, well, this I really don't get. The exploration of Watts' religious nature was certainly not childish in anyway, and episodes such as "JCDD" and "SSGBM" as smart sophisticated post-modernist work and intelligent social satire. And in increasing the spiritual/supernatural aspect, the show was not stuck in the trap of making evil understandable. Certainly, there are types that can be understood, but how often can evil always be boiled down? He was raised like this, it is a childhood trauma. Now, season 1 was not always like that, but more often than not Frank could somehow understand and explain what he was dealing with. Season 2 provided Frank with something more ambiguous: something that he could not always understand or easily categorize. And because of this, problems facing the end of the world were harder to deal with. There was the threat that we may not be able to know, let alone handel what was coming.

Again, this is my opinion. No offense meant.

Edited September 26, 2005 by Post - 2001

[Guest ZeusFaber]

True, you listed 6 great season one episodes (and don't get me wrong, I love season one). But that is still out of 22 episodes. Never forget that there were the serial killer episodes ... Many of these are great episodes, yes, but that is the bulk of the season.

Well, if we're going to weigh it up, I think you could easily argue that the following episodes do not fit into the "serial killer of the week" category:

Gehenna

5-2-2-6-6-6

The Well-Worn Lock

The Wild and the Innocent

Force Majeure

Covenant

Walkabout

Lamentation

Powers, Principalities, Thones, and Dominions

Marantha

So if we're totting up the numbers, that's actually 10, one shy of a 50:50 split. I'm not saying that S1 doesn't have a strong serial-killer theme, of course it does, but I'm just saying that to label it as narrow in focus and devoid of any other themes or explorations of evil is a misconception at best.

As for Catherine, well, she may have had more screen time in year one, but what was done with it? She had little material to work with. She may have appeared less in season two, but when she appeared, it mattered.

Again, I disagree. Not only did she have more screen time in S1, but she also had more to do. She had more material to work with IMO. In S2 Megan Gallagher must win the award for the leading lady to feature in the fewest number of episodes. It's amazing she still managed to remain in the main title sequence.

What DID she do in S2? Show up on occasion to argue with Frank about the Millennium Group and question his choices? So that's the opposite side of the coin to her character in S1, only she did it less frequently, largely usurped by the dubious Lara Means.

As for the whole separation thing, it was actually a great idea. Season one set up Frank as a man who never killed, and now how does one react once that type of stable identity is shot to hell in front of their eyes? These were traumatic events that Frank and Catherine had to work through, and provided for strong drama over the season.

I'd buy that for the most part, and when I first saw the end of "The Beginning and the End" I embraced it as a logical plot development and an interesting character arc that I wanted to see unfold.

The only problem is, it didn't unfold, and failed to provide that strong drama across the season. It would have been great if we had witnessed this character journey across a 6 to 10 episode arc. It would have been a great journey. But the problem is that it didn't "arc". They didn't come out the other side. They didn't come to the end of a journey. They just separated and grew further and further appart. That's a beginning and a middle, but no end. Without overcoming their tribulation, the entire journey is rendered meaningless.

As for the whole shades of comics, etc, well, this I really don't get. The exploration of Watts' religious nature was certainly not childish in anyway, and episodes such as "JCDD" and "SSGBM" as smart sophisticated post-modernist work and intelligent social satire.

No argument from me on that score. I have no real problems with Peter's characterisation, which was fairly well handled, and Darin Morgan's episodes are indeed his usually genius and one of the brighter sparks of S2.

in increasing the spiritual/supernatural aspect, the show was not stuck in the trap of making evil understandable.  Certainly, there are types that can be understood, but how often can evil always be boiled down? He was raised like this, it is a childhood trauma. 

Again, I would argue otherwise. Evil was hardly made to be always understandable in S1. Just the opposite. From as early as "Gehenna" we have Frank and Peter unable to comprehend the evil before them, with Watts exclaiming to Ricardo Clement: "What the hell are you?!" We also have Frank dealing with otherworldly forces beyond his comprehension in both "Lamentation" and "Powers, Principalities, Thones and Dominions", even "Marantha" too.

S2 changed nothing in that regard. All it did was to colour it differently and in less subtle ways. Instead of depicting angels as everyday creatures that walk amongst us as scrawny teenage boys, we saw supernatural figures with halos and bright auras and all the trimmings.

Admittedly, it did widen the range as Frank went globetrotting in search of buried treasure, took trips to Germany to raid the proverbial lost arc, go tomb-raiding in Jerusalem, hunt down Nazis, get zapped with fancy James Bond laser gadgets and on and on. I will admit that this did bring us into territory that S1 did not.

But IMO, that was to the detriment of the show, not to its advantage.

Again, just my opinions, and a good discussion which MBs were invented for.

[Raven Wolf]

What a roller coaster ride of a fasinating thread!!! WOO-HOO!

[Guest zombieromero]

My thoughts exactly Raven Wolf!

[Guest High Executioner]

It´s good to see that i´m not the only one with that opinion, before entering this forum every MM fan i knew thought season 2 was the best.

Anyway, as I have not seen season three yet, i have a question to ask: how does it compares to the other seasons? Is is more similar to season one or two?

One of the more interesting aspects of S1, IMHO, is that all that "Evil" stuff was very subtle, i mean, you saw all those murders and thought "man, that´s pretty ****ed up", but you felt like it could really happen in our own world. It was really scary, really powerful. S2, on the other way, gave the "Evil" aspects a more supernatural feeling, it seemed a little, hmm, "artificial". For me, it did not work as well the previous season. As I said before, it became too much X-Files-ish (don't ge me wrong, i like the x-files a lot, at least until the fifth season, but they are supposed to be totally different shows).

I have to interpidly disagree with you guys. Ive seen every episode of MillenniuM I loved season one, and thats what got me into the show, but i didnt view season two as a mistake, or a ridiculous "comic book" as many of you have claimed. Season two was a sort of miraculous abberition from the killer of the week formula. It did several things for me that i really cherished: It endeavored to explain the mysterious millennium group, which i feel was neccessary, it also explored Terry O'Quin's Character whereas before all he said was "Yes Frank" or "you got it Frank", it also introduced the tech-head Roedecker and gave Geibelhouse, who was a chance to fill the void Bletcher left behind; it also yielded some of the most memorable comedic episodes(Written by the wonderful Darin Morgan) with Jose Chung and "Somehow......" The show needed some "Black" humor and these episodes provided them. Although i do wish there would have been a few more great stand alones, Mikado, Charlie and room with no view did a good job of filling the void.I only wish that some of the season one aspects could have been further explored. For instance, Bletcher's death and what the heck happened to the friendly nieghbor Jack Meredith, or Benny the dog, but perhaps im just nit-picky. I also believe that season 3 did a good job of cleaning up the mess the season 2 finale imposed on them. in short you season one die-hards, dont loathe season 2 for focusing on other aspects of evil, appreciate how they expanded on the MillenniuM universe in such a spectacular way.

[Guest zombieromero]

Very insightful thread guys!