Ponderings on rewatching the show...

[Guest LauraKrycek]

I've been rewatching the episodes that I have since last night, and I guess maybe some things have popped out at me that I glazed over before.  Maybe it's how long I've gone without seeing these episodes, but it's just been really apparent.

This show is freaking disturbing!  The current episode is "Beware of the Dog", and the opening really would've freaked me out if it was nighttime.  I don't know why it didn't get me so much before; I'd watch it when I was alone in the house at 1:00 AM because it made me feel better than being alone in silence -- picking it over happy-pappy shows, even.  The writers seem to have formulated it specifically to make the viewers as terrified as possible, to the point of making them associate certain really good songs with horrible bloody death and demons.   It's amazing, really, that I love this show so much when I utterly despise any "horror" movies or any movies made specifically to make you cringe through gore.

Also, something that I did notice but that has been hit home to me is the many layers of storytelling.  Try to explain to someone else the depth of Frank and Catherine's relationship in the second season, and chances are you'd be at a loss.  But on watching it, I feel so connected to them and I feel like I understand every feeling in them.  This wasn't just a show to watch passively; maybe that's why it didn't do as well in the ratings.  People wanted a show to just watch, not one that they had to truly become involved in.  You can't watch this passively and *really* understand them, because there's just so much there to understand.  You have to listen so closely.

There's a lot more, but I'll just ponder this for the time being.  I really miss this show, though watching it again is helping somewhat, especially analyzing it after not seeing it for so long.  I miss back when I hadn't seen all the episodes of all of my shows yet, because even though it had already aired and chances are I'd already heard the entire plot, I still had something new to discover about the characters and the show itself.  How sad that we're deprived this now... alas, alack, too bad, I guess.

[Libby]

From LauraKrycek

I've been rewatching the episodes that I have since last night, and I guess maybe some things have popped out at me that I glazed over before.  Maybe it's how long I've gone without seeing these episodes, but it's just been really apparent.

I’ve sometimes watched three episodes, straight after each other (I don’t think I could cope with more in one day). I generally watch several episodes a week, because that’s the posting schedule to the binaries newsgroup I’m downloading them from. The experience is completely different from before, when it was a case of catching episodes from time to time when they aired on various TV channels here – and often late at night/early morning, so I’d have to remember to set the VCR (and quite often forgot!). So my previous viewing has been quite patchy. These days, my schedule is much more intense and the experience is really quite different – especially as I’m making links in the way I didn’t before. For example, I had watched one particular episode a long while back, but watching it again yesterday I spotted an element in that episode that linked it to a couple of others, and that added such an extra layer to that episode I almost gasped in reaction.

This show is freaking disturbing!  The current episode is "Beware of the Dog", and the opening really would've freaked me out if it was nighttime.  I don't know why it didn't get me so much before; I'd watch it when I was alone in the house at 1:00 AM because it made me feel better than being alone in silence -- picking it over happy-pappy shows, even.  The writers seem to have formulated it specifically to make the viewers as terrified as possible, to the point of making them associate certain really good songs with horrible bloody death and demons.   It's amazing, really, that I love this show so much when I utterly despise any "horror" movies or any movies made specifically to make you cringe through gore.

Yes, it’s freaking disturbing, but I think where MM succeeds in the way a lot of “horror” or “gore” movies don’t, is that the horror and the gore are not the focus but the background. It’s not so much about serial killers, or evil, or whatever, it’s about the people who have to deal with that. This is where I find the connection between the X-Files and Millennium – we need these people  to deal with the strange,  the perplexing, the threatening, and the unimagineable. The real world does actually contain these kinds of situations and the real horror is a world without the likes of Frank and Mulder and Scully and so on.

Also, something that I did notice but that has been hit home to me is the many layers of storytelling.  Try to explain to someone else the depth of Frank and Catherine's relationship in the second season, and chances are you'd be at a loss.  But on watching it, I feel so connected to them and I feel like I understand every feeling in them.  This wasn't just a show to watch passively; maybe that's why it didn't do as well in the ratings.  People wanted a show to just watch, not one that they had to truly become involved in.  You can't watch this passively and *really* understand them, because there's just so much there to understand.  You have to listen so closely.

I love this analysis. For me, you’ve hit the mark so absolutely in so many ways. As you say, this isn’t a show that can be watched passively. You need to be willing to walk alongside these people to really grasp the essentials of this show. And to do that you need to be willing to grasp the fact that evil does exist and we don’t do ourselves any favours if we pretend otherwise – because that’s how people get caught out when they fail to recognise it because they only want the “happy-pappy” shows (I love your description, by the way.)

There's a lot more, but I'll just ponder this for the time being.  I really miss this show, though watching it again is helping somewhat, especially analyzing it after not seeing it for so long.  I miss back when I hadn't seen all the episodes of all of my shows yet, because even though it had already aired and chances are I'd already heard the entire plot, I still had something new to discover about the characters and the show itself.  How sad that we're deprived this now... alas, alack, too bad, I guess.

There’s a lot more for me to say, also. I apologise for the length of this reply – I had intended to snip the quotes for length, but really couldn’t find anywhere to do that. I’ve watched so many episodes recently, and I’ll be re-watching them for the newly created review section, and I’ll be re-watching some of them for the purposes of transcribing, but even with those reasons, I suspect I’ll be re-watching episodes “just because”. Yes, it’s sad that there’ll be no new episodes – but this isn’t a show that’s here today, gone tomorrow. It’s way too deep for that.

Thanks for your thoughts, Laura. This is a show I really feel the need to talk about, but I’m very unused to doing that, so thoughts like this that can give me the starting point I need are very welcome.

[Raven Wolf]

Libby,

I totaly agree with you about how the show differs from other shows in how it handles horror & violence.  And it's great to see ANOTHER woman who appreacites the show as much as I do!

Erin

[Guest TheSunKing1972]

In my opinion, MillenniuM didn't fail, but it only lasted 3 seasons because of what the show dealt with. These days, people run away from anything that implies that there is a source of Good & Evil. They want 'reality" tv that isn't real at all.

[Guest Forza]

After watching the first two seasons of Millenium in their entirety over a relatively brief period of time, I am amazed how this utterly fantastic show ever got canned when compared with the vast majority of terrible television programming.  It's every bit as good as The X-Files was at its height.  I wish The X-Files was a bit shorter and that Millenium was allowed the opportunity to complete its fascinating story line.  Anybody know where I can find a genie?

I'm waiting for my DVD-R version of Millenium to arrive (in the next few weeks, hopefully) before watcing the third season.  Was the third season so incredibly bad as to warrant the series' cancellation?

[Guest]

in a word: "NO!"   it's my fav. season along with S1. the ratings improved over S2 by about 20%-23%. true it was still very low rated in comparison to x-files but it had a rabbid/devoted core audience that made the advertisers happy. my opinion: combo of low-ish-ratings and politics.

                                    ~my view anyway,

                                                       se7en

[Guest TheSunKing1972]

in three words...NO, NO, NO!....season 3 was awesome.....and laden with some very killer episodes.  I agree with you Forza....I still have  a hard time with the show being cancelled.  I do believe that someday, the show will surface again, because there is SO MUCH that can be done with it. For me, it still blows everything on TV away right now.  I am serious when I say...if I had the cash...I'd try to bring it back myself. I have some killer ideas for the show and someday I will write them down.