Thirteen Years Later

[Beerbelch]

BEER---> Just watched this episode again. All I can say is that is was a fun episode but forgettable. 'This case is going to drive me insane for a third time'.

Maybe it's ironic, but I had the last response to this episode 7 years ago. I guess it is forgettable.

BELCH

[ethsnafu]

I have a greater appreciation for this episode given Michael R Perry's insights into it. They were literally given a set of conditions (i.e. you must write an episode involving Kiss, all of them must have a speaking part, it has to be a Halloween episode and so on) and they were left to cobble something together out of all these disparate ideas dictated by the network. Nobody wanted to write it, Lance did want Kiss to be in it and the Millennium crew fought hard to get the network to change its mind. I think Perry did a very consummate job considering he was handed the episode and literally told to write it.

I think that Perry's long enthusiasm for cult horror films made him the perfect choice to salvage something from the Fox dictated mandate, had anyone else had a go I shudder to think what the outcome would have been.

Not my favourite by a long, long way but better than it could have been I think.

Eth

[Guest RodimusBen]

I think it also helps if you have a historical context of when TYL was made. The horror genre was being revitalized via the first Scream film, and through that film a new generation was becoming conscious not only of horror as a genre, but of the 80s slasher films that Scream lampooned. Some of those same franchises were being brought back such as with Halloween H20. Horror movies in which the fourth wall was a little flimsy were prolific. I think TYL blended in well with those trends. True, it's not as memorable as the offbeat season 2 episodes Jose and Somehow Satan, but still fun in its own way. Much of it seemed to have sprouted from the seed planted in season 2 when Frank tried to profile the killer from the Black Christmas tape Roedecker gave him.

[Guest DezarasPrime]

And here's where my problems begin...

I didn't enjoy ...Thirteen Years Later-I absolutely LOVED it!!! As I've said before dark series' need some comedic relief at times and this episode came not long after the plane crash, Hollis' closure ep and so on. I just thought it was fantastic!!!

The actor playing Frank was great (I don't mean Lance I mean the in story actor). From starting out with a Hawaiian shirt, leather jacket, shades and a goatee, to losing the goatee, having a red jeep and green jacket-and even grey sideburns!!! And the identical pose on either side of the couch when they're pointing their guns cracked me up!!! And when Actor Frank goes to Hollis near the end and she can't tell it isn't Frank's voice but EVERYBODY else can? That was brilliant!

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

It's not a Darrin Morgan script, which I think fans are used to with Millennium and the X Files, but I think it's still good. I was more of a Kiss fan than a horror genre fan, but I got the horror spoof motif.

[Libby]

I clicked on this thread because it came up in "view new content" with the icon that showed I'd previously posted on. To my amazement, I actually started the thread back in 2003. It's wonderful when old threads still have life.

I think the post from Ethsnafu explains it well. The KISS episode was imposed on the writers/producers/cast, and I think they dealt with that very well. Especially when there was a complaint from one KISS member that he didn't have enough lines in comparison with his fellow band members. Apparently, the call that came in about that problem was received late one night during filming and the writer, Michael Perry, had to very quickly come up with a solution.

It is interesting, as IHaveGoodInstincts implies, that quirky/unusual XF and MM episodes are regarded as being written by Darin Morgan. There are plenty of XF fans who still believe that "Small Potatoes" was written by Darin - but it was written by Vince Gilligan, and Darin was the main guest star.

Whatever one might think about Michael Perry's episodes, this one was definitely a challenge, and I think he acquitted himself very well.

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

Darin Morgan also got to play the famous flukeworm in "The Host." Not much on speaking lines, but it's an episode that made its mark on the show.

MULDER: “Well, that’s good. I didn’t want to have to tell Skinner that his

suspect was a giant, blood-sucking worm…”

It looks like Michael R Perry has the writing credits for MIkado, 13 years, Collateral Damage, Omerta, and Nostalgia. Decent stuff, with some variety, probably to help the show find some new footing in the third season.

[claaa7]

i remember before watching this one, i read a few comments about how they had totally given up on the entire season 3 after seeing it. so i was pretty much expecting the worst, and maybe because of that i really enjoyed this episode. i think it's a fun ep and up to that point, one of the best of s.3 (it's ep. 5), there's lots of laughs; Frank Black profiling the killers from the B-horror flicks like someone said, and i love how over the top all of the murders are. the way it's wrapped up, with the killer imagining being Frank telling a story to a room full of FBI agents, which at the end turns out to be in the psych ward to a bunch of really disturbed people.

from the funny episodes, i would rate "13 Years..." over "Somehow, Satan...", which is an episode i never cared for.

[Guest Ghostmojo]

This was surely Millennium's answer to X-Files' "Hollywood A.D."?

As in let's do a comically sardonic self-referential episode, which is basically just having fun with itself - all rather loosely laid over a tenuous plot line.

There aren't may of these things in MM, whereas they cropped up all over the place in XF. The other obvious ones are Omerta and Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me.

I didn't mind this approach, although it often meant that FB's involvement was minimised.

[Libby]

Welcome back, Ghostmojo.

When I read your comment about Thirteen Years Later being the MM equivalent of Hollywood AD, I wanted to disagree and refer to Ethsnafu's post upthread. But then thought again - yes, they are similar in terms of a story imposed on the show that didn't really fit, but one story was imposed by the studio and the other by one of the lead actors. One involved showcasing KISS and the other involved showcasing Duchovny and friends. In both situations, it would have been a bit difficult for the producers to veto the idea.

I think that by the time of XF's season 7, doing some showcasing of the main cast in terms of writing/directing is acceptable, but showcasing a music group that had nothing to do with MM in season 3 really made no sense at all. Ultimately, it's a tribute to the writer and director, as well as Lance and Klea, that it turned out as well as it did.

I do think that most MM episodes that end up on people's "worst of" list do have some redeeming features. "Omerta" as a whole didn't make much sense as a story, but did go some way to exploring the after-effects of Catherine's death on Frank and Jordan. "Somehow" does look rather silly, but I think the take-home message from that is that Frank is among the very few people who can detect evil - much like very few people recognise that they're dealing with a narcissist or a sociopath.

Anyway, I was rather bemused by "Thirteen" when I first saw it, but that might have been because I had no idea that it was a real music group (not knowing who the heck KISS were) so I couldn't quite figure out what was going on.