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Chris Carter's Views On Season 2?

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Guest Everlast
Posted

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if Chris Carter has expressed his viewpoint of season 2 after the show was cancelled? We all know that he wanted to get away from all the mythology stuff in season 3, but after all this time has he changed the way he felt about season 2? I haven't been up on all the Chris Carter news...I was just curious because I'm sure it would matter when it came to a potential MillenniuM movie as to what kind of storyline/background they choose to run with.

Posted

Chris Carter supposingly felt confident at first with Morgan & Wong doing Season 2 while he took X-files to the next level as a movie. My take is that he wished he didnt do that and wanted to spend more time with MM. I know Lance has expressed his feelings about the mythology stuff and how he didnt like it. Hard to speculate if Season 2 was different could the series survive? The movie stuff, i am not too sure about. I think if Chris is able to get the X-File movie off the ground we should a MM movie around the corner

  • 2 weeks later...
Guest Everlast
Posted

Yes suh, but I was thinking now, in 2006, some time after Millennium has been off the air. Maybe Chris Carter looked back at the second season and said "You know, it did kind of fit...and I actually enjoyed some of that stuff." I know he was a busy man but maybe season 2 grew on him afterwards. Is there any record of him commenting on that subject, some time after the fact?

  • 1 month later...
Guest The Mikado
Posted
Yes suh, but I was thinking now, in 2006, some time after Millennium has been off the air. Maybe Chris Carter looked back at the second season and said "You know, it did kind of fit...and I actually enjoyed some of that stuff." I know he was a busy man but maybe season 2 grew on him afterwards. Is there any record of him commenting on that subject, some time after the fact?

Nothing that I can find. He pretty much said everything he had to say in the dvd interviews.

Guest ModernDayMoriarty
Posted

From what I've gathered, observing Carter's behaviour on interviews and the documentaries from the DVDs, on the internet, from the episodes he wrote on MLm and TXF, the amounts of episodes and who he wrote them with I got the following:

Chris Carter is a man who follows his vision of what something should be and trusts it implicitly. I honestly think he doesn't give a damn if people say some of his work is awful because he has a very Lou Reed way of looking at things: 'It doesn't matter if they liked it; I liked it and that's what matters'. I don't mean to say that he doesn't care at all; just that he is only interested in accepting the praise and not the criticisms. Indeed, I believe he craves an audience for his work and really wants audience approval.

If you look at Carter interviews and listen to his commentaties on MLM and TXF, he will always make pains to point out if he was up for an award for the episode. He gives commentaries and waxes lyrical about XF episodes that were pretty much hated by the fans ('First Person Shooter' for example which he directs, 'The List' which he wrote and directed)...

The X-Files was a huge smash hit and Carter kept his commitment to the show pretty solid, writing around 7+ episodes for every Season right up to the end. Millennium didn't take off in the same way and Carter has often been quoted as lamenting that not enough people watched it. I think after Season One of MLM underperformed and TXF was still so sucessful as to warrant a feature film, Carter simply lost interest. If MLM wasn't going to be huge, then he didn't really want to know.

BUT,

I think Carter is a fair man who realised that just because he didn't want to continue, the show had a fan base that wanted it to continue. Therefore, handing it off probably seemed the best solution. We can never really know exactly what caused M+W to become the execs. I know Carter insists he didn't know but there is evidence to suggest that the other writers on TXF were not meshing well with M+W during S4. There was apparently a mass fall out between M+W and Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan and John Shiban over the fate of Melvin Frohicke of the Lone Gunmen. M+W wanted the character killed, the other three didn't, so much so that they went to Carter and asked him to make M+W change their script. He agreed to do this and M+W left very soon after (and Spotnitz et al's commentary on S9's 'Jump the Shark' indicated there was a degree of bad blood over this incident).

Carter has also stated that he hasn't, years later, seen all of the S2 episodes of Millennium. Now, busy or not, I think that shows he really wasn't all that interested in either Millennium or M+W's interpretation of it. Because I put it to you - how is it possible for him to return to Millennium for the third Season, not having watched episodes from the previous season? It makes no sense other than he disagreed with the changes and wished to wash his hands of that. His statements suggest that, faced with the axing of the show, he resolved to return and attempt to resurrect it. Frank Spotnitz may have had a sizeable hand in this (he co-writes all 3 of carter's S3 episodes). Spotnitz seems to be have been much more fond of Millennium than Carter was in the end. He was the one who pushed for the X-Files crossover (and regardless of what you think of the episode, at least he wanted to see Frank return and it's not as if Carter stopped the script, has voiced any concern over it or offered to do it himself is it?)

Carter is on record on the DVDs saying that he wanted to take a firm hand on S3 but felt unable to do so because he couldn't engage properly with what MLM had become. M+W had made choices that he would not have made etc. So I think Carter disapproved strongly of S2 but that he cannot take too much moral high ground as he all but abandoned the show when it didn't achieve the popularity he wanted.

Posted
From what I've gathered, observing Carter's behaviour on interviews and the documentaries from the DVDs, on the internet, from the episodes he wrote on MLm and TXF, the amounts of episodes and who he wrote them with I got the following:

Chris Carter is a man who follows his vision of what something should be and trusts it implicitly. I honestly think he doesn't give a damn if people say some of his work is awful because he has a very Lou Reed way of looking at things: 'It doesn't matter if they liked it; I liked it and that's what matters'. I don't mean to say that he doesn't care at all; just that he is only interested in accepting the praise and not the criticisms. Indeed, I believe he craves an audience for his work and really wants audience approval.

If you look at Carter interviews and listen to his commentaties on MLM and TXF, he will always make pains to point out if he was up for an award for the episode. He gives commentaries and waxes lyrical about XF episodes that were pretty much hated by the fans ('First Person Shooter' for example which he directs, 'The List' which he wrote and directed)...

The X-Files was a huge smash hit and Carter kept his commitment to the show pretty solid, writing around 7+ episodes for every Season right up to the end. Millennium didn't take off in the same way and Carter has often been quoted as lamenting that not enough people watched it. I think after Season One of MLM underperformed and TXF was still so sucessful as to warrant a feature film, Carter simply lost interest. If MLM wasn't going to be huge, then he didn't really want to know.

BUT,

I think Carter is a fair man who realised that just because he didn't want to continue, the show had a fan base that wanted it to continue. Therefore, handing it off probably seemed the best solution. We can never really know exactly what caused M+W to become the execs. I know Carter insists he didn't know but there is evidence to suggest that the other writers on TXF were not meshing well with M+W during S4. There was apparently a mass fall out between M+W and Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan and John Shiban over the fate of Melvin Frohicke of the Lone Gunmen. M+W wanted the character killed, the other three didn't, so much so that they went to Carter and asked him to make M+W change their script. He agreed to do this and M+W left very soon after (and Spotnitz et al's commentary on S9's 'Jump the Shark' indicated there was a degree of bad blood over this incident).

Carter has also stated that he hasn't, years later, seen all of the S2 episodes of Millennium. Now, busy or not, I think that shows he really wasn't all that interested in either Millennium or M+W's interpretation of it. Because I put it to you - how is it possible for him to return to Millennium for the third Season, not having watched episodes from the previous season? It makes no sense other than he disagreed with the changes and wished to wash his hands of that. His statements suggest that, faced with the axing of the show, he resolved to return and attempt to resurrect it. Frank Spotnitz may have had a sizeable hand in this (he co-writes all 3 of carter's S3 episodes). Spotnitz seems to be have been much more fond of Millennium than Carter was in the end. He was the one who pushed for the X-Files crossover (and regardless of what you think of the episode, at least he wanted to see Frank return and it's not as if Carter stopped the script, has voiced any concern over it or offered to do it himself is it?)

Carter is on record on the DVDs saying that he wanted to take a firm hand on S3 but felt unable to do so because he couldn't engage properly with what MLM had become. M+W had made choices that he would not have made etc. So I think Carter disapproved strongly of S2 but that he cannot take too much moral high ground as he all but abandoned the show when it didn't achieve the popularity he wanted.

MDM - another most eloquent dissertation. I could NOT agree with you more. Carter's very first reaction in the S3 disc is to claim that he came back to "try to get the show back to what he had origionally intended it to be". His enthusiasm for S1 was only matched by his blatent disregard for S2 as he allowed M&W to wrest control of the rudder and allowed MillenniuM to be steered into unknown waters, the likes of which obviously were not met with anything other than disdain from your lead actor. The very things that Lance, Tom Wright, and many others grew distasteful of took root right under Carter's nose. The changing of Frank's clothing, the group now becoming a sinister accumulation of control freaks, his best friend Peter Watts now turned against him. All of these were, by all acounts if you listen carefully to the various interviews in S3 were definately harbingers of doom for the show, of which i dont believe would ever have occurred had Carter remained at the helm. Then, after M&W effectively ruined the origional direction and intent, (even after being trusted by Carter due to their work on the X-files), Carter mounts his good steed and tries to portray himself as the "Knight in shining armor", coming back to save the day. In his interview after S3 you can tell in his voice and his demeanor that he truely was shocked by the direction M&W had taken the show, embarrassed if you will to the point of feeling he alone could bring the show back to the outstanding concepts given birth during S1. You cannot walk away from a child at an early age, then come back later on and expect it to be the same child as when you left. Millennium was like the infant of a father who was never home during those important formative years, and in its infancy, when, just as a child in real life, it needed guidance, direction and a sense of purpose, it was abandoned. Had Carter only marginally been more involved with S2, i feel it would have made all the difference in the world..thats my two cents...

4th Horseman

Posted

Interesting. Maybe the direction of season 3 would have changed if Carter had more involvement on the second season finale or found a different way to play the start of season 3 (like The Millennium Group is splintered leading to the events at the end of season 2). Carter and writers could have started season 3 differently if they paid more attention to what happened in season 2 with the mythology and structure of the Millennium Group established by Morgan and wong in the second half of S2.

Posted
Interesting. Maybe the direction of season 3 would have changed if Carter had more involvement on the second season finale or found a different way to play the start of season 3 (like The Millennium Group is splintered leading to the events at the end of season 2). Carter and writers could have started season 3 differently if they paid more attention to what happened in season 2 with the mythology and structure of the Millennium Group established by Morgan and wong in the second half of S2.
VP - you make some good points. Perhaps i was a bit harsh on Carter. Hell, its not like he cares what i think anyway. I AM STILL a big fan, its just the frustration seeping thru when one thinks what MIllenniuM could have been. I dont know if anyone else finds this particularily odd, but nearly everyone of importance to the show has their Warhol "15 minutes" of interview time, EXCEPT Morgan and Wong, who declined to be interviewed. So deeply rooted to what still is one of the best shows ever to grace our lives and yet they cant find the time to sit down for a couple of minutes and throw the fans a bone about S2?...I know that there are M&W fans here that consider S2 to be the best of all 3 seasons, but does anyone else feel cheated that they were not interested enough to make time to share their thoughts with the fans?

4th Horseman...

Guest ___ L@the_of_Heaven___
Posted
VP - you make some good points. Perhaps i was a bit harsh on Carter. Hell, its not like he cares what i think anyway. I AM STILL a big fan, its just the frustration seeping thru when one thinks what MIllenniuM could have been. I dont know if anyone else finds this particularily odd, but nearly everyone of importance to the show has their Warhol "15 minutes" of interview time, EXCEPT Morgan and Wong, who declined to be interviewed. So deeply rooted to what still is one of the best shows ever to grace our lives and yet they cant find the time to sit down for a couple of minutes and throw the fans a bone about S2?...I know that there are M&W fans here that consider S2 to be the best of all 3 seasons, but does anyone else feel cheated that they were not interested enough to make time to share their thoughts with the fans?

4th Horseman...

It's nice to bask in the glow from you guys, let me tell you; now I see Mr. Horseman what you were getting at before when you kindly copied your earlier comments in this discussion over to my little one to help me understand. You make excellent points about M&W not even taking the time to give interviews, but then again if feelings were indeed that high about their differences (in other words if Mr. Carter was still REALLY pissed off with what they did to his show : ) perhaps they simply were NOT asked...

Excellent comments too from above. Practically a walking Fetus here, I dove into this forum with all guns blazing about the 3rd Season and 'what the hell...' However, thanks to you knowledgeable people I can honestly say that I think I'm beginning to understand at least a little as to why things may have gone the way they did. I do like the comments though about if Mr. Carter had a bit more of a hand in the latter half of the 2nd season or the finale, that maybe it would have indeed make quite a difference in where he could have steered a few of the more critical things to his liking. I'm not quite sure of the timing right off the top, but as was mentioned, it appears that the film and such may have simply kept him just too bloody busy.

There are many different sides to this that I had not taken into consideration. Fascinating stuff...

Guest ZeusFaber
Posted
perhaps they simply were NOT asked...

The S2 bonus features make it quite clear that M&W were invited to participate in the interviews but declined.

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