Um...guys? What about "Millennium - Season 3"? (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

on Frank and Jordan but not really the plague. There's a great episode called The Sound Of Snow that deals with its effect on Frank. And to a lesser extent, Omerta deals with that too.

 

[Ric Easton]

A real shame since that's when I thought the series really became about something.

 

[TravisR]

It's weird because nearly every Millennium fan thinks that Season Two is easily the best year but it sure seems like every person that actually worked on the show thought it was the worst.

 

[JediFonger]

recently finished every single ep of millennium. still sorry to dig this out of the grave but i gotta get this off my chest.

s1 is still the best because it is a study of the nature of evil. frank's "ability" isn't supernatural, just flashes of how he gets into serial killer's heads. s2 became a morgan&wong joke but had episodes of brilliances whenever it reverted back to season1 styles. same with s3, but s3 wanted to be X-Files, well we already HAVE the X-Files, why bother?

anyway, i still think it'd rock to have a millennium movie just about frank black and serial killer investigation and the study of the nature of evil. i liked the premise that your next door neighbors could be those monsters, because in reality they could be. that type of stuff rocks. we never see peter watts body, he can always be resurrected in the film
.

s1 was the best because it IS truly what millennium stood for. s2 didn't take s1 seriously and took the same themes for a joy ride, it was almost like another show that happened to have f. black in it. s3 wanted to be an XF+cop show, but failed at being both.

if this show ever came out on HD medium, i'd probably buy just s1 or s2 (cause s2 contains the conclusion story from s1 and some good eps), but i wouldn't ever buy s3. there's just no redeeming episode and i felt like i wasted 22 hrs of my life, ah well =).

 

[JoshuaB.]

I'm one of the fans who really liked S1, but grew weary of the constant serial killer angle. I loved S2 because Morgan and Wong threw in Biblical prophecies and mysticism and other assorted weirdness and the season finale, which was considered a series finale because the producers didn't think Fox was going to renew Millennium, was mind blowing. Unfortunately S3 had to backtrack from the S2's "apocalypse", but though the writers really tried, the series limped to cancellation.

The DVDs are great because the series still holds up over a decade later: its relentessly dark tone, unequalkled in the late 90s, would not be uncommon on the airwaves today. And every episode still looks filmic, thanks to great cinematography and the multi-purpose location of Vancouver.

Lance Henriksen, who has fallen back to appearing in direct-to-video horror crap or Alien Vs. Predator nonsense, has expressed an interest in a Millennium feature film, but the way things have soured between Chris Carter and Fox, I don't see anything happening in the future. At least we have the season sets whenever we pine for pre-millennial mayhem.

 

[JediFonger]

i don't get why people are tired of the serial killer of the week. that's a vehicle to study the nature of evil, but this BS with prophecy and conspiracy crap is left to Lonegunmen and X-Files, Harsh Realms and many other 1013 shows. those things don't belong in millennium. i hated the morgan&wong episodes in s2, but loved darin morgan's eps. darin is pretty talented but his brother isn't. somehow satan got behind me is an awesome allegory, just absolutely loved that episode.

 

[Craig Beam]

Great to see this thread... I just finally broke down and picked up seasons 1 & 2 (I'll get season 3 this weekend), and I'm four episodes into season 1. I watched the series when it originally aired, gave up on it early into season 2, then came back late in season 2, then watched it faithfully till the end.

I love the show. Yes, it's flawed in numerous ways, but even at its low points its still vastly entertaining.

 

[JediFonger]

s1 is so much better than s2&3. i'm glad you're into it! =D. s1 totally rox, imho no low points at all! s2&s3 were filled with low points.

what did you think the flaws were? i felt s1 was flawless.

seatle has some of the highest # of serial killers, so it's not completely unreal.

 

[TravisR]

Did they ever have 22 serial killers operating there in a nine month stretch? Actually, they had Frank travel alot so all the killers weren't all in one area.

Some of the S1 episodes are truly great scary episodes (like Pilot, Dead Letters, 522666 and Lamentation) and some are... not so great (like The Wild And The Innocent which might as well be from another series). Don't get me wrong, I love the first season but I think they did enough sick maniac of the week stuff (some of which was probably only done for shock value) that if they did another 22 episodes of that, it would have felt stale. The second season decided not to copy the first season and do different things with the show. I'd rather see them stay within the confines of the show and try something new rather than do the same thing over until it becomes old.

 

[JoshuaB.]

I think Millennium's problem holding on to viewers was its inconsistent tone every season. A lot of viewers were turned off by the serial-killer-of-the-week motif, but many were equally turned off by the prophetic weirdness of S2 or the let's-be-like-the-X-Files S3. I still think Millennium should have followed the X-Files--perhaps it would have made it to the real millennium. One of the constant criticisms of the show at the time was its darkness and disturbing imagery, which is funny today with the proliferation of forensic crime shows (the CSIs, Criminal Minds, Bones, etc.) which are quite dark and graphic (though not as good as Millennium ).

Everyone here has different opinions on the various seasons, but even as weak as S3 was, it's still far and above most of the crap that's on today.

 

[Chris Cheese]

Mark me down as one who thought that season 1 was a great season, but one that took that particular angle about as far as it could go. Season 2 needed a change, because it would have run itself into the ground if it was just another version of season 1's serial killer episodes. I absolutely loved the story arc of season 2. It is one of the single-greatest seasons of a TV show ever, and it's too bad people here don't seem to be giving it any credit. Season 3 did suffer a lot from having to backtrack after the finale of season 2, but if you can look past how it doesn't make any sense, there's still some pretty good episodes there, even if some of the supporting actors don't have much charisma.

 

[TravisR]

Back when the show ended its run, S2 seemed to be the fan favorite by far. I recently checked out the IMDB message boards on Millennium and it seems like everyone there hates S2 but I think most of those people are just loser trolls who just say the opposite of everyone else says so they can be 'different'*.

For me, I loved The X-Files but if I had to pick one season, I'd say that the second season of Millennium is my favorite year of any 1013 show ever.

*For the record, I'm not referring to anyone in this discussion as being that type of creep.

 

[JediFonger]

i hated s2's arc because the tone was so inconsistent with s1. in the making of, you had cast+crew saying that lance actually came to someone and say i can't do this this isn't frank black, etc. it's such a POS direction that s2 took. i'd love to see chris carter's vision of s2 onward. i think he would have taken a more sublime approach. XF's season2 was absolutely amazing, now THAT is the greatest season of TV bar none =D.

the reason why s2 didn't work because you had TWO different writing teams (as explained in the making of) vying for DIFFERENT goals. it's basically TWO different shows merged as 1 season. the best episodes (imho) were written by the s1 team and darin morgan (like, somehow satan got behind me), NOT morgan+wong.

even lance said that when you took serial killing *less* serious you destroy the serious tone of the s1. it should be more gradual the way XF did it. they didn't hop onto the weird train right away, it was very gradual and controlled, methodical. i would have liked that transition more. because those 2 tones didn't jive, s2 suffered and that's why it didn't work for me.

 

[Jonathan_Clarke]

I got Season 3 just this Christmas, watched the opening 2 parter and just STOPPED. It had nothing. Not the firghtening grim tone of S1 or the mystical portent of S2. It was just hard to get through and I don't know when I'll try another episode.

 

[TravisR]

For what it's worth, there are some good episodes in S3 and the season does pick up steam by the last 1/3 or so. And best of all, there isn't a cliffhanger ending.