Chris Carter's Views On Season 2?

[Guest ___ L@the_of_Heaven___]

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

Hmmm, bummer; I guess you were right then...

I'd better get busy and catch up on these interviews and such!!!

[Guest ModernDayMoriarty]

Morgan and Wong were proud people and by that I mean they posessed 'Grand Vision'. Many writers work on televisions series but only a few have that certain something that really makes shows great and/or important. It was hard for them to accept that their sci-fi show 'Space: Above and Beyond' was cancelled when they believed in it so much - there is a particularly good interview with them somewhere on the web that has Glen Morgan recounting how devastated he was when he saw and heard them tearing down the Space... sets.

So they had to return 'cap in hand' to The X-Files; something I'm sure they really didn't want to do. They didn't stay long (possible reasons for that I have already posited), and jumped at the chance to work on a show as the helmsmen again. The thing is, read their views on Millennium's first season (again, they should be on the web if you search; I haven't looked for ages), and they are very frank about their views on the show. They found it too dark and heavy going. But all credit to them, they put their money where their mouth was and left halfway through the first season because it wasn't working out for them.

On a side note, this loss of two of the senior writers and sliding ratings and public/criticial approval may have been why Carter chose to have his big reveal in 'Lamentation' come so reletively soon in the show's life. It always seemed a bit odd that the reveal wasn't the series ender and I think Carter probably wanted it to be but couldn't wait. He needed to bump up the show's profile or it may have been cancelled before the end of the season. Who knows?

Anyway, Morgan and Wong return to Millennium and instantly started righting the wrongs they saw with the show. I won't go into all that again here but suffice to say that I do agree with many of their choices but I think they started very well indeed. But critics and ratings were not kind of Millennium's second season for a whole host of reasons. Morgan and Wong however felt personally aggrieved it seems by the lack of support they were being given to promote the show (railing against poor advertising, undesireable scheduling etc etc). Like Carter, they needed to feel like they were doing important work and whilst they tolied away gamely, they seem to have finally had as much as they could stand. The season ender was irresponsible and had outrageously self indulgent and petty sequences (the madness scene, the static blips to represent lost advertising time...)

The interviews show that they had different views on the series to many of the actors, writers and directors. There appears to be some bad blood between M+W and some of the writers but it's hard to say exactly what went on. I will say that M+W were very unwise in their choice of staff writers for the season. The writers they chose (Kay Reindl and Erin Maher, Darin Morgan and Richard Whitley) really didn't compliment the feel they had very well. Darin Morgan did his own thing as he always does and Whitley and Maher/reindl simply wrote M+W-lite episodes. and they don't seem to have made the most out of what talent they had left. Chip Johanessen was the only proper foil for them this season, writing episodes that kept the reality of season one whilst tapping into the new direction sucessfully. Mike Perry was hired by Carter before he left and was never really utlised well (Perry talks of his distaste for M+W's plans and how they tried to muscle in on the editing for his only episode which he fought hard against). Ken Horton also takes a stab at marrying Seasons 1 and 2 but to only average effect in 'A Room...' and he too speaks of the walls thrown up between M+W's new wave writers and the Season One stalwarts.

Ultimately, I think it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. If the Season One writers felt they were being frozen out of the season, they should really have tried to make their case more strongly either to M+W or to Frank Spotnitz/Chris Carter if they wouldn't listen. They were clearly dismayed at what was happening but only Chip J seems to have made a concentrated effort to enforce new vision on the season (3 episodes isn't bad for one season but Perry/Horton only manage one apiece). Perhaps they did approach Carter but he did nothing if that is the case. Either way, he really cannot absolve himself completely because a lessened focus on Millennium is not the same as not paying any attention at all for a whole year! It is still puzzling how on earth he managed to get away with having himself credited as Exec Producer of S2 when he didn't have a hand in any of it!

Millennium is one of those rare shows that suffered from having too many writers with 'Grand Vision'. I know that's a bit of a pompous title but I don;t know how else to characterise it. Writers of grand vision are those who devise the long term plans of seasons, tap into how a show can be crafted to make it really appeal to people. You can be a good writer and not have grand vision. Take Vince Gilligan from the X-Files for example or Nicole Yorkin/Dawn Prestwich from Carnivale. These were excellent writers in terms of quality episodes and character work but they didn't have the kind of facility that created whole worlds like Glen Morgan and James Wong, Chris Carter, Daniel Knauf, Aaron Sorkin etc etc etc.

Millennium had Carter, Morgan and Wong, Chip Johanessen and possibly TJ Wright. All of these can be said to be writers/directors of grand vision. They made each season truly unique and important in their own way. Other fine writers like Jorge Zamacona, Ted Mann, Walon Green, Ken Horton, Mike Perry, Patrick Harbinson lacked that 'mad scientist' property that infused the show with such gravitas and meaning. They were all superb writers (Patrick Harbinson for example has worked on loads of shows from Millennium, through to ER and I don't have a bad word for him as far as writing great, watchable episodes) but on their own, could not I believe, have created something like Millennium in any of its incarnatiosn.

[4th Horseman]

Millennium had Carter, Morgan and Wong, Chip Johanessen and possibly TJ Wright. All of these can be said to be writers/directors of grand vision. They made each season truly unique and important in their own way. Other fine writers like Jorge Zamacona, Ted Mann, Walon Green, Ken Horton, Mike Perry, Patrick Harbinson lacked that 'mad scientist' property that infused the show with such gravitas and meaning. They were all superb writers (Patrick Harbinson for example has worked on loads of shows from Millennium, through to ER and I don't have a bad word for him as far as writing great, watchable episodes) but on their own, could not I believe, have created something like Millennium in any of its incarnatiosn.

[Guest ___ L@the_of_Heaven___]

Millennium had Carter, Morgan and Wong, Chip Johanessen and possibly TJ Wright. All of these can be said to be writers/directors of grand vision. They made each season truly unique and important in their own way. Other fine writers like Jorge Zamacona, Ted Mann, Walon Green, Ken Horton, Mike Perry, Patrick Harbinson lacked that 'mad scientist' property that infused the show with such gravitas and meaning. They were all superb writers (Patrick Harbinson for example has worked on loads of shows from Millennium, through to ER and I don't have a bad word for him as far as writing great, watchable episodes) but on their own, could not I believe, have created something like Millennium in any of its incarnatiosn.

MDM - you are another one whom i consider a "pillar" here at TIWWA...your post does nothing to discredit my assessment...I think in a nutshell, each person liked a particular season for various reasons, some, like myself, loved S1 and S3 because they dealt more with the supernatural, more with a sense of urgency when dealing with evil. S2 as we have all hammered to death, tended to veer more into the Group's narcissistic desire to control the outcome of Armageddon, as exemplified by the need to have the "cross in our possession" "should Armageddon occur".....mythical focus, nothing wrong, it was just a departure from what we came to expect. And in regards to Lucy Butler, ok, so Lamentations was moved up in order to retain ratings. I really dont see anything out of the ordinary here, every series will do that, the quality of episodes ALWAYS get more interesting as they get closer to the rating period. The problem i had was that Carter did miss the boat a bit by not continuing the confrontation in a later episode during S1. Yet, Morgan and Wong, with the exception of "A Room with No View" reeled in the bait before we could take a bite. I personally feel this omission at the expense of trying to formuate the theory of the group seeking total control,ell far short of what we had come to expect. M&W never really did not focus on the Frank/Lucy issue at all, at least not to the extent that Lamentations did. A face to face confrontation would have been nice, as we saw again in S3 with Antipas..I personally would have rather seen more of this good vs evil than a mutation in the Group's purpose. But that does not mean that i found S2 dismal or uneventful.

If i am allowed to extrapolate a bit here, i would think, that with all the subtle bitching about S2 expressed in the S3 interviews, that there was possibly quite a bit of tension during S2. I think there is irreputable evidence, via interviews in S3, that there was a great deal of unhappiness with the direction that M&W took the show in the second season. My question to Chris Carter would be that if they found S1 too dark and foreboding, then why turn around and hire them to control the second season? And if they came back and started righting the wrongs THEY precieved, unless they were given unconditional authority to change the origional concept by Carter himself, then to me that smacks of arrogance. Perhaps they should have run their intent to change course in midstream by Carter first and get his approval. After all, MillenniuM was his "baby"..It was obvious that they had visions of taking the show into "lighter" areas, and that position was in direct conflict with every interview i have seen with CC..

AGAIN, THIS IS ALL SUBJECTIVE, AND THIS POST ONLY REFLECTS MY OPINIONS..NOTHING MORE..

you are absolutely correct in your assessment that MillenniuM had probably the greatest talent pool available. The truely frustrating theme of MillenniuM is that they were trying to balance the darkness without turning off too many viewers. They really were in a kind of "no-win" "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation...

4th Horseman..

Both you guys are truly amazing and very rounded out in your observations; it is fascinating how many different facets of the situation you are able to comment about in such a way to be very thought provoking.

I am really starting to grasp more fully now how many 'forces' so to speak were at work here from Seasons 1 to 2. A very good observation in MDM's comments above that perhaps there were indeed too many visionary 'chefs' so to speak... Sure does sound like it. Also, 4H above, you make an excellent point on how M & W did seem to concentrate more on The Group's striving for control of The End rather than showing a further progression of the confrontation of Good and Evil as was building up in Season 1. I had completely missed that. Also good thought about how M & W could have run some of these 'Grand Ideas' by Mr. Carter first; this almost certainly would have yieled a more balanced result.

You guys are great! Keep it coming!