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...6 Years Later: Season Three In Review

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Guest A Stranger

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Here's my ratings (out of five) with some short explanations:

The Innocents 3/5

Exegesis 2/5

These were a major letdown at the time, and they're not much better now. The first one is pretty entertaining, though. They recycle Force Majeure too much, which has some problems as well.

TEOTWAWKI 3/5

An OK standalone episode. I do agree with some of the reviews here, but the execution just isn't that interesting.

Closure 3/5

Pretty forgettable, but with a good musical score.

...Thirteen Years Later 3/5

Not sure if this is brilliant or terrible :)

Skull and Bones 3/5

Could be brilliant, but just has too many continuity errors and not much substance.

Through a Glass Darkly 3/5

Pretty good standalone, but not anything too special.

Human Essence 1/5

Just terrible.

Omerta 1/5

Not as bad as Human Essence, but not my cup of tea.

Borrowed Time 5/5

Collateral Damage 4/5

The Sound of Snow 5/5

These three are probably the best run of season three. Good production values and some not-so-bad writing. Sound of Snow is one of the most emotional episodes of the series.

Antipas 3/5

OK, a bit cheesy.

Matryoshka 2/5

Forcing the End 2/5

Just overall meh.

Saturn Dreaming of Mercury 4/5

Shows potential for brilliance, but it's spoiled by some cheesy stuff. Strong episode nevertheless.

Darwin's Eye 4/5

Nice episode too. The philosophy is pretty empty, nowdays we do know how the eye came to be. Although they are the ramblings of a madwoman :)

Bardo Thodol 2/5

Umm. If the show would have gone on, maybe this would have made some sense. But it probably still wouldn't be very good.

Seven and One 4/5

At first I would have given this one a five, but it doesn't hold up so well on repeated viewings and it has some continuity erros.

Nostalgia 3/5

OK, a bit out of place.

Via Dolorosa 4/5

Goodbye to All That 4/5

Pretty nice finales, but no that original and not in the same ballpark as the final episodes of season two.

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Guest A Stranger

Okay, maybe I got a little carried away rating "Forcing the End" and A-. It's not as good as "Sound of Snow." But I do like it a lot more than I did the first couple times I saw it. I guess what I really liked was the potrayal of relious cults. The Group seems like the Group from year two but still the enemy. Seeing the two Group fighting form the outside, as opposed from within like in "Roosters/Owls" is interesting. It almost makes me feel like how Frank must have felt caught up in it before and apart from it now seeing it clearly.

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Okay, maybe I got a little carried away rating "Forcing the End" and A-. It's not as good as "Sound of Snow." But I do like it a lot more than I did the first couple times I saw it. I guess what I really liked was the potrayal of relious cults. The Group seems like the Group from year two but still the enemy. Seeing the two Group fighting form the outside, as opposed from within like in "Roosters/Owls" is interesting. It almost makes me feel like how Frank must have felt caught up in it before and apart from it now seeing it clearly.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I always smile when repeated viewings brings forth a change of viewpoint. Such is the case for me with "Sound of Snow". From an initial ho-hum reaction, i have begun to find an emotional anchor in its depiction of longing and regret.

When season 2 ended, i thought at the time that MillenniuM's most emotional and touching moment was when Catherine sat looking down at Jordan, infected with the Marburg disease (still, i believe given to her deliberately by the group), knowing that this was the last time she would ever see her daughter. And yet, when Frank re-visits the old yellow house in "Sound of Snow" i found those very same emotions again bubbling to the surface. You just wanted everything to be like it was in the pilot again. When Frank turns back one last time and sees Catherine standing on the porch of the yellow house, its just so heartbreaking. The only question i have lingering about the episode is "who the hell is the lady making the tape"? Her character is very poorly explained, even in the end, but thats really the only complaint i have about the episode...

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Guest lonegungrrly1121
The only question i have lingering about the episode is "who the hell is the lady making the tape"? Her character is very poorly explained, even in the end, but thats really the only complaint i have about the episode...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I can definately agree with that! the episode was so wonderful and sad :cry: but who the hell was that woman? it seemed that that story was just a board to get to the real character moments, which isn't bad, though I would have liked more closure regarding her. It's so sad. my favourite part is the conversation that Catherine and Frank have in the woods.

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Guest A Stranger
I can definately agree with that! the episode was so wonderful and sad  :cry:  but who the hell was that woman?  it seemed that that story was just a board to get to the real character moments, which isn't bad, though I would have liked more closure regarding her.  It's so sad.  my favourite part is the conversation that Catherine and Frank have in the woods.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

See, I think that leaving her so mysterious worked. This same technique is similar to how Samueal from "Borrowed Time" is potrayed. I think it enough is given to make her character work. My impression is that she has some type of hyper-sensitive hearing ablity that allows her "hear" better the way Frank or Lara could "see" better. The Group as Frank says will either make her a member or destroy her, the same way they delt with others with "gifts." She seems to be acting on her own. She is St. Peter, in a sense.

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Guest ModernDayMoriarty

To continue...

CLOSURE - C+.

Pros: Okay, this one could have been better but I will defend it from those who villify it as terrible. It is an essential episode for understanding Emma Hollis and her eventual seduction to the Millennium Group because it establishes her as someone who is deeply unhappy with life in general. Her search for answers to some of the seemingly inexplicable aspects of human nature reveal her to be of kindred nature to Peter Watts (ref 'The Fourth Horseman/The Time is Now) - i.e she finds it impossibly difficult to accept that evil such as that which killed her sister can possibly have a basis in human motivation. She has joined the FBI to make a difference, to find those answers but still they elude her. The scenes depicting her sister's death are eerie and haunting. The killer looks almost sad, resigned to his task as a force for evil and he leaves without a word, seemingly unable to offer any excuse for what he did. It feels uncomfortably like we are intruding - as indeed we feel when we see her at the graveside. I agreed somewhat with Emma's indignation when Frank comes poking his nose in. Also, this episode explores a kind of villain not seen much in any 1013 productions - a spree killer. Most Millennium/X-Files villains are careful, intelligent serial killers. They are often romantic, tortured figures. This episode rudely awakens us from this with loud, coarse and seemingly over the top villains. How can they possibly be like this we wonder? Bad writing or simply something so alien to what we have seen that we find it hard to accept like Emma that such people could exist? The episode is (as I will point out in a minute) not quite as visually striking as it could have been but it does have a few excellent moments beyond the intimate beauty I've mentioned above. Frank dodging to avoid the bullet is a neat little touch and the scene in the park is genuinely tense. Perhaps solely in this scene, the actor playing Van Horn shows us what could have been as he lines up the people in his rifle casually. It is an alien sight; you know that heedless of being captured right out in the open, he could kill one of them now if the fancy took him but will he? A great scene.

Cons: Sadly, it is in the minority however. The writing is pretty good, particularly for Emma's parts but this episode regularly fails to engage. For one thing, Frank is rather sidelined in this one - this wouldn't be a huge problem if both the hero and villains were on top form. Klea is spot on as Emma, Van Horn however... I simply didn't get the right vibe from him and his cohorts often enough. I didn't really believe in his alien, amoral character due to some dubious scenes (the william tell apple part for example) and a lack of a truly inspiring performance from any of the villains. The ending where they storm the police station is almost great for example. Here is a man who, if they had just cast a better or more appropriate actor could have made us see that Van Horn really and truly believed he could walk right past those cops, kill them all and grab his girl. It just needed more impact, we needed to see that fanatical belief that he was invincible. It wasn't even a question to Van Horn - storming in is the only way to win so that's what we'll do, no problem. It could have been great but wasn't. It just seemed ludicrous that anyone would think that given all the massed firepower about - because we had not been convinced that Van Horn really thought like that. that to him it wasn't just doable, it was a dead cert that he would win. Lastly, good as the episode looks, the CGI didn't do it for me. Show a first person view of people firing away - great, it was a wonderful way to really try and show us the thrill that Van Horn was getting. Having CGI bullets though that looked really, really computer generated didn't help matters at all. This is a niggle that returns in 'Skull and Bones' with the distinctly CGI looking skulls etc.

Closure is a valuable episode for understanding Hollis. It simply doesn't stand up as well as it could have done in the execution of its events however. Dodgy casting, poor CGI effects and not enough pains taken to develop Van Horn's unique personality.

THIRTEEN YEARS LATER... - C+.

This episode gets a hell of a lot of stick and initially I agreed. Over time however I have softened to this episode because I think it really plays into the hands of the episode to hate it quite so much for not being 'millenniumistic' enough. Season Three saw Chris carter return to the show and by his own admission now, he was not happy with the series. He has stated that it probably was too dark in S1, that they didn't include enough hooks for a wider audience etc but he stood by his work as being important and relevant. Equally he praised and condemned M+W for their work on S2. They opened up the series but really took it far away from a place where Carter felt it should be. All this is addressed in the extradordinary 13 years later...

This episode points the camera squarely at Millennium itself and gives an honest report on what it sees. It praises itself for what it does well and pokes fun at itself for the things it does or has done badly. Basically, this is the spoof episode that could have made about Millennium by critics of the show married with the same from fans of the show. It is attempting to say 'Hey, we know it's dark, we know we didn't try and attract audiences in the conventional way but we love it anyway, we love making it and we have produced one damn fine show if you look'. How does it do this?

Well S1 was unrelenting in its serious attitude to crime and suffering. It didn't flinch from putting severed body parts on screen, focusing on people's terror and lamenting the evils of society in an often pretentious 'parable' format. But it was lovingly made to exacting standards - 1013 were not just some chancers. They knew they were alienating the majority of the public but hoped (perhaps foolishly) that high quality would see them alright. 13 Years later... shows this in its mockery of the casting of 'plastic fantastic' babes and hunks to key roles regardless of acting talent. Millennium like the X-Files boldly cast people who could actually act rather than eye candy to win over the easily swayed and dilute their message. In a blackly humourous scene, the director makes some extremely insensitive and mean-spirited comments about a crippled old lady but retracts it with a completely fake 'God rest her soul'. It's funny but it's very uncomfortable at the same time. It implies to us that we don't want to see these people - we want to see sexy girls and muscle bound hunks, we want youth, not age but we deny the level to which we want it. Millennium never pandered to this desire and treated people with respect but it accepts here that people often want something much trashier. Also, the series lacked humour; it had a big heart but too often the killers left deep scars on Frank and their victims that were never healed. The series displayed vicious images of graphic and implied torture and violence to a very uncomfortable scale as the scene with the fingers in the sandwiches points out.The darkness kept piling and piling and Frank was stoicly graven-faced through it all. This episode lampoons Frank somewhat at times. He sternly admonishes the really rather hapless and harmless film crew for not being sensitive, he analyses and critiques horror films when really they are just mindless fun. The episode is also making points about frivilous people and how diluted most 'horror' is of course but the gentle jibes to Frank (and Millennium's) eternal stiffness and gravitas is evident. 1013 KNOW that the show is probably too dark for its own good; they weren't blind. But that was the nature of the beast and changing it too much was a mistake.

S2 saw the introduction of comedic elements and outright comedy episodes. Frank was snazzed up in sharper clothes, took to wearing sunglasses on occasion, listened to music and played computer games. He met a 'brat pack' of quirky characters and chased after Nazis. This episode snorts with derision at many of S2's changes. The guy playing Frank is younger (as Frank appeared in S2 due to careful makeup and costuming as well as making him more vibrant and active), dresses in leather jacket and shades and makes rather silly pronouncements (directly reference the far-fetched method used to catch the Poloroid Stalker in The Beginning and the End). The new director lectures Frank on the need to dilute the horror and present people with more palatable material - S2 toned the horror right down in favour of humour and more conventional stories to win over sci-fi fans at the expense of studying the nature of human evil (one of the major reasons the series was first made). Real crime is depressing and horrible (Yes it is! shouts Frank). Season 2's policy is best summed up in 'Jose Chung's' ironically where Darin Morgan writes pointedly about the shortcomings of S1 saying that people like to be educated while they are being entertained. Dark and depressing stories - who wants that?' he cries. This episode snaps right back 'We do, it's what Millennium is or was before you got to it'.

Do you agree? Perhaps not, but I really think that this episode was acknowledging it faults but vowing to stick by them if it was necessary because they along with the show's many strengths made Millennium so extraordinary. In many ways it is a very brave episode because it does expose the major flaws in Millennium that I've outlined above. But it also showed that, far from the low budget horror flicks and sci-fi teen lust fests that were being made ad nauseum, Millennium was doing its own thing and doing it damn well. Regular viewers could see how much better the show was than that being lampooned in this episode. It hinted at the dedication and commitment of the crew to quality. It admitted that watching horror of most kinds was rather voyeuristic but that such a passion could go beyond the ghoulish in an attempt to empathise with real suffering. It looked itself squarely in the face and proclaimed itself to be a show that didn't sell itself right but that would continue to buck that trend because pretentious or no, it was what the show was all about.

In conclusion, this is not an episode that lends itself to easy viewing for Millennium fans. It exposes far too many home truths about the shortcomings of the program, about human desire to see atrractive forms instead of the ruck and run or disabled, about the kind of person you need to be to watch horror when it is this visceral. But it also reassures if you look hard enough that the show, the genre and you the viewer are important and a part of something that many will not understand. It is difficult to watch the episode in the midst of watching other Millennium episodes because it is so different. In the end, it is good that this episode exists - you just won't want to watch it very much.

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Guest ZeusFaber

Excellent post there.

All I would say would be that in defence of "Closure", the CGI isn't all that bad, and certainly better than "Skull and Bones". Also, Dan Sackheim shows tha he knows how to use it, and how to use it to best effect without becoming over-the-top. I think he did a great job with "Closure" from a visual point of view. I also agree with the strengths that you point out, with it being a fine Emma character episode.

As for "...Thirteen Years Later", I do agree with the way you identify its self-depricating and parodic tones, and with its telling of "home truths". I also strongly applaud your identification of the shortcomings of S2.

However, despite its noble intensions, I still find "...Thirteen Years Later" to be a little too predictable, and its swipes are largely at easy targets. For example, how many times have we seen the parody of a Hollywood set? How many times have we laughed at the shallowness and idiocy of schlock directors and actors? Also, much of the comedic lines are delivered far too "bada bing" for my liking.

It does get away with it for being a Haloween episode, to an extend, like all those Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episodes -- in a sense its is outside the regular cannon and continuity, so it can get away with anything. Like they said in the bonus features, it would have been brilliant to sieze this opportunity and put bullets in Frank and Emma.

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Guest ModernDayMoriarty

Yes, that's why I only give it C+ - it has noble aims but doesn't pull them with as much skill as it could have. Mike Perry indeed chose rather easy targets on occasion but I think he wanted to point out that even as we mock such directors etc, we watch their work. Horror has produced a great deal of truly guilty pleasures and directors have long plundered the human need to watch trashy material as well as admonishing us and themselves for the same (take 'A Clockwork Orange' for example). Jean Rollin made awful, exploitative films but people engage in huge discussions about his work. Shlock horror *is* really bad (I guess Lance knows all about that though given his career in such films :D) but most people love at least one such film for its gory, trashy silliness. Take the 'of the dead' films or Peter jackson's 'Bad Taste' for instance.

It's easy to criticise them for being crude and coarse but a lot of us watch them and in our heart of hearts are glad such material exists because it means we aren't alone in liking a bit of low quality indulgence every now and again. These directors need to exist, these films need to exist. They get otracised for making them and many would never admit to liking them but Millennium exposes the truth. How many haters of this episode will put it on for some light entertainment or to show off to friends when in need of a good, bad taste set of laughs? It's catharsis really. Also, on a series wide note it chimes with letting go of pain, anger and duty etc that is really at the core of S3. Loosen up, let the weight of the world off your shoulders - the world won't end because you watch a silly episode of Millennium!

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Guest ZeusFaber

All good points, and I agree with them.

That's why "...Thirteen Years Later" is an episode that I simply describe as "unsuccessful" rather than "offensive" of "infuriating". (Compare with "The Hand of Saint Sebastian" for example).

Nevertheless, for all its elements that remain forgivable, that still doesn't stop either of us rating it a C+ (or in my case 2.5, which is probably about the same).

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Guest A Stranger

I think it's funny both you have such glowing things to say about "..Thirteen" but in the end negate it. I agree with pretty much everything stated in Modern Day Moirarty's excellent post, which is why I rate the episode high. I does take cheap shots but if any show should be critizing violence in film, it's this one. I was also happy to see the show gettin it's grip back in crime, which is reallywhat the show established itself in. It's not perfect, it has it's flaws, but I think it's solid.

And I didn't like the CG shots in "Closure," either. But it does have some really great direction at times, specifically during Emma's rememberce of her sister's death. I also found the theme of "there is no why" interesting but a little contradictary. I understand that it is Emma who has a hard time understanding but in the last scene with Van Horn, when asked why, he doesn't know. This coupled with the closing scene of Emma at the grave, it seems the theme is meant to be that sometimes there is no why.

The main premise of the show though, is that ther is a "why." Frank makes this point numerous times and it is even addressed in "Powers, Principalites..." "Why. Will you tell us Why?" he delivers this line with such authority in "Through a Glass, Darkly." I guess I have a hard time understanding what the writer, Laurince Andries is trying to say about evil in this one. Season one proclaims over and over again, there is human motivation for all crime. But Season two discounts all psychology and labels it as "Evil." Over all season three seems to try and walk the line between the two but comes off a little inconsistent in it's overall message.

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