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MILLENNIUM |
Season Overview
Frank Black - Lance Henriksen Peter Watts - Terry O'Quinn Emma Hollis - 
OTHER MILLENNIUM SEASONS Season 1 Season 2 OTHER VISIONARIES Afterlife Medium Haunted Ghost Whisperer 
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Season OverviewFollowing the traumatic events of the tail end of season 2, which saw Frank's wife killed in an outbreak of an engineered virus that could destroy the whole world, it was hard to see how the show was going to continue. In fact, the show just pretty much ignores it and gets back to what it was doing in the first season, telling tales of serial killers and mixing in a little mystery about the Millennium Group that might, or might not, be the cause of most of the evil that it is supposed to be fighting. Frank gets a new protege in the shape of FBI agent Emma Hollis, who starts off suspicious of his talents, but soon comes to trust him completely and thus not be interested when Peter Watts starts to show an interest in her. Many of the season episodes actually focus as much, or more, on her as they do on Frank, giving the show a new lease of life. The stories are more conventional on the whole, but there are still enough flashes of the wierd to ensure that you don't think you're watching any old cop show. What is best about this new (and final, at least to date) season is the closing double bill Via Dolorosa and Goodbye to All That which ally a seemingly straightforward killer story to the final moves of the Millennium Group in isolating Frank. This is a theme also in the impressive Seven and One. The quality of the episodes does vary, but not as wildly as Season 2 and at least gives the show a better send off. TopThe InnocentsThe viral outbreak that threatened the end of the world at the end of season two seems to have been contained within the Pacific Northwest area, but Frank Black's wife still died and he is still trying to come to terms with that. When a plane crashes, he is compelled to go and investigate. The investigation leads to women who are all very similar looking with strange eyes. The virus was apparently aimed at killing them off and now there is only one of 'the children' left. When you set loose a virus that is likely to take out the entire human race then you had better have a good direction to take your plot in afterwards. Alternatively, you can take the MILLENNIUM approach and just ignore it. A couple of lines about where it was contained and that's it. Well that's not really satisfactory. The build up to a truly apocalyptic finale makes for the return to relative normality very much and anticlimax. That said, the plot involving what appear to be generations of clones is sufficiently intriguing to start of the new season and we are introduced to a new sidekick early on as well. Still, it's way too low key after what has gone before. We will have to wait and see how it develops. TopExegesisThe investigation into the blue-eyed women continues and leads Emma to a secret CIA project using a woman of enormous psychic power spying on other governments. The women are her children and the children are her grandchildren. They are being systematically wiped out by what appears to be the Millennium group. The final showdown will be in an abandoned missile silo. Wondered what happened to the Millennium Group? Well, they're still there and in the background, but seem now to be quite firmly the bad guys. Even Peter Watts, whose allegiances were always a bit shared, seems now to be back in the fold. As for the rest of the plot, it plays itself out well enough, but the usual lack of explanations at least lets us know that we're back in MILLENNIUM country. TopTEOTWAWKIA shooting at a school basketball game leads Frank and Emma to a survival group who seem certain, through their ownership of a giant computer firm, that all civilsation is coming to an end on the night of the millennium and they are prepared to do whatever it takes to protect their own future. We can now look back on the Y2K bug with a wry smile, but for a while there it had the world terrified. There can never be any smiling about the Columbine High School Massacre. The combining of these two fears into a single story gives the episode some edge, but they never quite sit happily together and there is a slight bad taste of exploitation underpinning everything. The acronymic title stands forThe End Of The World As We Know It. TopClosureThe hunt for a trio of killers on a spree with no reason or rhyme brings out memories of a past trauma for Agent Hollis. It's like we were back in the early days of MILLENNIUM with the weekly hunt for the serial killers and nothing else. This is one of the best stories for a long time with a charismatic nutjob running the Feds a merry dance before inevitably falling foul of his own delusions of grandeur. The treatment of Hollis's childhood trauma is a bit trite and certainly not original, but the rest of the story is neatly handled, going off on strange tangents until you don't know what's going to happen next. . TopThirteen Years LaterTwo members of a film production making a splatter movie out of the story of one of Frank's old cases turn up dead. Frank and Emma investigate, but events turn increasingly bizarre and start to mirror the structure of a slasher movie. And it's Hallowe'en. Just when you thought that MILLENNIUM was getting back to its old ways the wierdness starts to crawl in again. All is clearly not as it seems as characters, including Frank and Emma, start acting uncharacteristically and the plot begins to make less and less sense. Fortunately, the reason for this isn't too hard to guess as the identity of the narrator is clear much earlier than the last second reveal. TopSkull and BonesA new road construction unearths a mass grave. The victims were named in strange letters mailed to the FBI and Frank tracks down the correspondant, a man who has painstakingly connected all the deaths to the Millennium Group, so when Peter Watts turns up at the grave site, Emma Hollis is put in danger. There can be no more doubts. The Millennium Group are evil and Peter Watts has lost all his previous reservations and gone back to their cause fully. There's a touch of stylistic nonsense at the beginning of the episode (talking chipmunks or something), but that subsides and an interesting and tense story unfolds. It's a set up story that will lead on to more information, we hope. TopThrough a Glass, DarklyA child murderer returns to his hometown after twenty years in jail. Soon after, another girl goes missing and the offender is immediately assumed to have taken her. As the victims are left to die of thirst, there are only a few days in which to discover where she is, but that means breaking through the killer's wall of silence. This is another episode that harkens back to the early days of the show. Sure, they've already done child killers, they've done small towns jumping to conclusions and they've done killers not being killers before, but the plot hangs together well, there is enough tension to be going on with and it certainly beats all the religious hogwash that pervaded season two. TopHuman EssenceAgent Hollis is accused of being in possession and using illegal drugs. Whilst the investigation is underway, she skips the country and goes to Canada where her sister is a drug user and where there is a drug on the streets that might be turning people into monsters. When MILLENNIUM first started it was full of episodes that were dark and dangerous and disturbing. This ranks right up there amongst the best of them. There is a strong sense of reality about the life of the drug addict and that gives a strength to everything else that happens. The story might be fantastic, but the place and time that it is taking place seems only too genuine. As a result, you care not only about Agent Hollis's future but about that of her sister, seemingly destined to be turned into a monster or burned alive. TopOmertaFrank takes Jordan to the Vermont home of 'Littlefoot' to avoid their first Christmas without Catherine. There, though, he gets caught up in the dramatic appearance from the dead of a mafia hitman and two girls who seems to have the power to raise the dead, although the mafia now intends to use its power to make everyone dead again. MILLENNIUM steps back into the realm of the uberwierd again, abandoning the dark and realistic approach that has marked its better shows, even in this series. There's a surreal edge to it all that makes you sure that it's going to turn out to be a bedtime story or something, but in the end it just plays out unsatisfyingly. TopBorrowed TimeA number of people who faced death and survived have suddenly died, drowning despite being nowhere near any water. Frank's daughter Jordan seems to be the next on the list. Frank and Emma track down a man who appears to be involved, but how and why remain a mystery and time is running out for Jordan. This is a very unsatisfying episode because of the lack of explanations, although it is tense and interesting and well-played. Who the man is with the power to drown people on dry land or his purpose are not even remotely hinted at except to say that people who should have died are given a little extra time, but then it is taken away later. This makes the turnaround in the outcome of a train crash seem simply to be televisual sleight of hand. TopCollateral DamageWhen Peter Watts' daughter is taken hostage, Emma is put on the investigation and Frank helps out, despite his feelings about the Millennium Group in general and Peter in particular. The investigation leads to a Gulf War veteran who was ordered to fire biological weapons on US troops to test the effectiveness of their gear, killing them all. He wants to expose the source of that order, the Millennium Group. What starts off as a strong episode with a graphic kidnapping scene and disturbing washdown of the victim, as well as the antipathy between Frank and Peter, starts to descend into silliness. The motivations of the Millennium Group in infecting US soldiers is dubious in the extreme as there are much easier, cheaper and more controlled ways of testing this. That said, the reappearance of the virus that killed Frank's wife leads to some intense moments on a radio talk show, but otherwise this is an opportunity that ends up being missed. TopThe Sound of SnowFrank receives an audio tape with static on it. The static, though, summons up visions of dead wife Catherine. Frank investigates the source of the tape and finds two other victims who might have been affected by the tape and forced to relive traumatic moments of their lives, driving them to end it. He travels to the cabin where he last saw his wife alive and sees her again in a vision, telling him to keep Jordan safe. This is a frustrating episode because it is another in which nothing is resolved or explained. Yes, the creator of the tapes is discovered, but why they were created and who sent it to Frank initially and why he doesn't end up killing himself like the other victims remain mysteries after the final credits have rolled. TopAntipasInvestigating the death of a gardener on the estate of an important politician threatening to become a Governer, Frank comes into contact with Lucy Butler, a woman from his past and whom he immediately suspects of being responsible. She comes to him in a dream and it quickly becomes clear that her interest is in the politician's child, a child that proves to be hers and which she claims is also Franks! Because this case is personal for Frank it proves to be more interesting. The way in which his nemesis plays with his head is as good as the show has been for some time and certainly a good step up from the most recent offerings. TopMatryoshkaAn ex-FBI agent commits suicide, but the manner of it piques Frank's interest and he determines to find out why. The case takes him back to a time when the atomic bomb was being developed at Los Alamos and parallels between the atom and the soul led to much darker experimentation. One thing that you could never accuse MILLENNIUM of being is consistent, not just in quality, but also in content and in style. The case here is told in two time periods, that of 1945 when the young FBI man is investigating a murder that leads to what is effectively a retelling of the Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde story. In the present, the team uncover the same plot whilst also realising that the consequences of that case still resonate in the modern world. We find out quite a bit about the founding of the modern face of the Millennium Group under J Edgar Hoover and that proves to be as interesting as the unfolding mystery. Barbara Bain makes a cameo appearance as a suitably oblique Millennium Group member. TopForcing the EndA heavily pregnant woman is kidnapped from her home by a group of Jewish fanatics who intend to raise her child as a priest to ensure his purity and to welcome onto Earth the second coming of the Messiah, an event that will bring about the end of days. This is a real return to form for the show. There is the emotional connection of a family sundered, a baby helpless and in danger. There is also enough biblical prophecy to go around twice, but it is at least comprehensible and adds to the overall atmosphere that gets built up throughout. The various set pieces (kidnapping, birth, stoning of a supposed traitor) are terrific and the finale atop a building where the leading fanatic is so desperate to escape that he is endangering the baby is truly exciting. If only all of the episodes had been this good and this clear. TopSaturn Dreaming of MercuryA new family moves into the neighbourhood, but Jordan believes the father to be evil. She appears to bite the son at school, stab the man with shears and starts talking to an imaginary friend with the same name as the unborn child of a woman killed in Phoenix, killed in the same manner as the local neighbourhood greeting lady. Wierdness goes off the chart again in this tale that is based around Jordan's emergent psychic abilities, but then throws in potential demons, devil children, possessed glass eyes and (momentarily) Frank's nemesis Lucy Butler. It's atmospheric, fascinating and dark, but makes not one iota of sense and explains nothing at all along the way. TopDarwin's EyeA young woman who killed her father and cut off his head, shot her mother execution style and murdered a guard during here escape persuades a young police officer that she is, in fact, innocent of the crimes and that she can lead him to the truth. Frank and Emma search the clues for the truth about what really happened in an attempt to find the couple and save his life. This is a straight police investigation story of the kind that MILLENNIUM likes to throw up every so often to confuse enveryone. There are no conspiracies, no supernatural overtones and no mysterious visions, just the madness of one woman and the investigators trying to get inside her mind. The ending is inevitable and doesn't come as any surprise to anyone, but the performances are convincing and earnest and Emma's private pain is troubling. TopBardo ThodolWhen a group of severed hands is found in a cargo ship, the FBI attempt to track down the owners. Agent Hollis comes up with a match to a geneticist with links to the Millennium Group, but Frank finds that same geneticist in a monastery, slowly being killed by something terrible. This is both a great and frustrating episode. It starts off well with the discovery of the hands and the geneticist going into hiding, but then never really moves on from that. Frank spends almost the entire epsiode waiting for the scientist to die whilst Hollis follows the investigation to a conclusion that is no conclusion. Stories like this show what the series is capable of whilst simultaneously not acheiving that same level. TopSeven and OneFrank receives some more polaroids in the post, this time of his own death. A man breaks into his house, but leaves no physical evidence. Frank's psychiatrist is killed and Emma ends up buried alive. The lead investigator starts to believe that Frank is doing this all himself. This is a really spooky episode. The threat remains faceless and unknown for the majority of the story, making it all the more creepy. The idea of someone getting inside your head and feeding on your personal fears is worse than any gory death of a stranger. Once more, the events here are more than can be explained away by purely natural means. Evil is a force incarnate and it has targeted Frank, taking away all those that might have supported and helped him, isolating him and making him vulnerable to the evil itself. Except that agent Hollis isn't about to give up on Frank any more than he is going to give up on himself. Definitely one of the best of season three, and of the show as a whole. TopNostalgiaFrank and Emma travel back to a town that she remembers as the last good place she ever knew before her sister died. A girl's foot has been discovered and that leads to a string of six girls who have gone missing in what appeared to be a quiet town. This is an effective episode that hasn't got a whole lot new in it, but just does what it has done before as well as it has done it. The plot is actually pretty straightforward and you end up trying to outguess it and make it more complicated than it really is. Though it's mentioned that this was Emma's home and the sheriff was her friend, there is no sense of connection between her and either him or the place until late on and that's only through a soliloquy from her about what she is thinking. It would have been better had it come out more naturally throughout the episode. TopVia DolorosaThe man whose case brought about Frank's abilities goes to the electric chair, but another man starts to kill in the exact same way. As Franks begins to suspect that the new killer is engineered, probably by the Millennium Group, Emma gets a visit from Peter Watts who offers to restore her father to health if she helps return Frank to the group. For the most part, this is the MILLENNIUM of the first season, an investigation into the mind and methods of a killer, but it then starts morphing into something deeper and darker as Millennium Group involvement starts to emerge. TopGoodbye to All ThatAs Emma's father's condition continues to deteriorate, she is forced to face the choice between seeing him locked in a padded cell or selling her soul to the Millennium Group. Frank is close to catching the killer who can provide proof of Millennium Group involvement, but Peter Watts warns him that both his life and that of his daughter are in danger. The final episode of the season brings some surprises with it. The strongest one is the turning of Emma, Frank's closest ally, into a Millennium Group alumnus. This is really well handled and completely believable. The investigation into the killer comes to a close much like any other in the show, but Frank is left on the run, out of the FBI and looking at an uncertain future. Top |
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