Millennium - The Complete First Season

Amazon.com

Millennium marked the second major television series created by Chris Carter, who'd already made his name as the brains behind The X-Files. And, like its predecessor, it shares a lot of the same themes--it's a crime thriller that gradually unfolds into a grand conspiracy involving the government and the fate of the entire world.

Agent Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) is a former FBI agent who has transplanted his family from Washington, D.C. to Seattle, after suffering something of a breakdown. He's an expert criminal profiler--arguably the best, thanks to his ability to "see" into the minds of killers--and he fears for the safety of his wife and young daughter. In Seattle, he joins the mysterious Millennium Group, an agency of freelance crime-busters who investigate particularly brutal crimes. As a result, Millennium is downright bleak viewing, as Black jumps from horrific slaying to horrific slaying. Moreover, there's a growing sense of unease about the workings of the Millennium Group, so that in typical Chris Carter fashion, you don't know who to trust. With its pre-Y2K angst and overwhelming darkness, as well as its general humorlessness, Millennium hasn't dated as well as The X-Files. Still, thanks to Carter's vision and Henriksen's compelling take on the tortured Black, it's difficult not to get hooked. --Ted Kord

Description

Retired serial-profiler Frank Black has moved his family to Seattle to escape the violence and horror he dealt with while working for the FBI in Washington, D.C. Although his uncanny and often unsettling ability to see into the twisted minds of serial killers has caused him much inner torment, Black knows his "gift" can still be used to help protect and save others. For that reason he has joined the mysterious Millennium Group, a team of underground ex-law enforcement experts dedicated to fighting against the ever-growing forces of evil and darkness in the world.

Customer Reviews:

You don't enjoy Millennium. You sit through it........2007-08-01

The X-Files Collection is a worthy hobby and next to Star Trek is certainly one of largest of the television series DVD collections, running an extra two seasons longer than the maximum seven season Star Trek series. Although The X-Files is not the longest running television media franchise, it can boast being one of the longest running SF series airing for nine seasons between 1993 and 2002. Between 1996 and 1997 the X-Files creators made a new type of television show with the same high quality production values called Millennium.

At around 950 minutes per box, you are looking at 3 boxes with approx. 47 hours worth of viewing. So you have 2 days of non-stop Millennium if you get the whole collection. Millennium finished in Season 3 in 1999, a 3 season span is still considered a very good run (when compared to most television shows that only last a season) but paled in comparison to its contemporary X-Files parent than ran for 9 seasons and one movie. There is also one crossover episode with the X-Files. It should be seen last after the end of Millennium Season three and is found in the X-Files Season seven, episode four: Millennium.

The X-Files creator Chris Carter wanted to concentrate on human evil rather than just the paranormal and so developed the idea of a new show with more adult themes than what his mainstream creation, the X-Files, was doing at the time. This meant that instead of aiming at a teenage and family audiences Carter would create stories about extreme iniquity aimed squarely at adults. The result is a very dark, scary and often mind shattering experience. You don't enjoy Millennium, you go through with it.

Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) is a former homicide detective turned private investigator with the Millennium group who hunts killers using his special profiling techniques. The series is set during the end of the 1990s and is focused on the end time events as expected by apocalyptic cults in the run-up to the year 2000. While working on individual cases Frank Black is sometimes teamed up with members of the Millennium group such as Peter Watts (Terry O'Quinn), works alongside Lt. Bob Bletcher (Bill Smitrovich) and often talks about his work with his wife Catherine Black (Megan Gallagher) and entertains his daughter Jordan Black (Brittany Tiplady), both who are being threatened by a mysterious serial killer at large whom Frank cannot trace. Most episodes play along with the theme of Frank Black being called to investigate a case only for his family to become involved while he is trying his best to keep them away from what he does.

The DVD case is nothing special but more importantly the six discs with episodes are firmly in place in a plastic flip case inside a thick season box. Although the inside is slightly flimsy, these DVDs are presented on the cheap and so economically Millennium is sound value for money but the presentation is nothing to brag about and when we get around to seeing what is on the discs we will not be so blown away either. There are usually 4 episodes per disc, and 6 discs in total for a grand total of 22 episodes (last disc has only 2 episodes). There are no commentaries and no bonus material. They could have at least provided us with the Millennium remastered in 5:1 Dolby Digital but have instead just presented the series as it was aired in 2:1 surround. Again, everything here is on the cheap. The transfer quality however is very good for most of it. Since the show was shot in full frame, these dimensions are retained.

Millennium: Season one is as hard as adult dramas can get. It frequently contains sex related crime themes and horror. In many ways the show is more disturbing than expected coming from its X-Files production background. Millennium is devoid of any humour, is often very squeamish and many episodes push the psychological boundaries beyond disturbing. While some episodes are somewhat tame on the gore and psychological peril, other episodes are the kind you wished you never saw. When Millennium pushes the tension factor up it usually decides to go well beyond the 10. For this reason you never know if the episode you are watching will be an interesting one or an episode that just suddenly turns very nasty without warning. It is hard to imagine another television series that hit as hard as Millennium did when it was first aired.

Season one of Millennium is about the Millennium group, cults, troubled profilers, priest murders, body parts, serial bombers, funeral murders, incest, security systems, child kidnapping, sins, rape drugs, related suicides, copycat killers, kidnappers, filicide, hallucinogens, prison escapees, Satanism, animal mutilations, the apocalypse and matricide.

The most popular episodes are Gehenna, The Judge, Weeds, `Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions' and Maranatha. Broken World stands out as probably the most edge-of-your-seat thriller episode that Millennium has to offer. Lamentation has a shocking twist.

Overall Millennium is certainly not for everybody. Even some fans of the X-Files will find that its core theme of sex crimes and violence is as far from Mulder and Skully as you can get, however if you like the production values of the X-Files then Millennium is just that and then some more. Not many people will want to get inside the head of Frank Black but if you find that a tough gritty crime thriller series if your cup of tea then it doesn't get much tougher than Millennium.

4.5. Twisted stuff, but I like it.......2007-06-14

I remember watching the "Millennium" premiere way back in `96. I would've had to have been twelve at the time, and though I'd watched "The X-Files" from the very beginning and had long had a predilection for horror-oriented entertainment, "Millennium" proved a bit much. The pilot. . .disturbed me. As did the next episode. And the next, and pretty much every episode I watched of it at the time. Nothin' but serial killers, so it seemed, and the lead was apparently dead as well. It was all just too damned depressing, and I watched it less and less over time. Nevertheless, it did make a strong impression on me, and I never forgot it. Still, I didn't think about "Millennium" too much for many years, but with the recent DVD revolution, nothing is going to be forgotten or unavailable for very long, and I recently got through my long-overdue viewing of the first season. I must say, I'm quite impressed. At nearly twice my prior age, it doesn't even have a shadow of the original impact, but "Millennium" is still an impressively dark, gruesome TV show, particularly in its first season. And, more to the point, it's just flat-out good.

"Millennium" focuses on one Frank Black and his family as they move to a new home in Seattle. Frank is a former profiler for the FBI, and this move represents a new beginning for him, his wife Catherine and their young daughter Jordan. They live in a cute little yellow, suburban house in a picturesque neighborhood with friendly neighbors seemingly transplanted from a `50s sitcom. Still, as a killer-hunter, Frank is intuitively in tune with the darker side of life, and he can't escape it. He hasn't really abandoned his old occupation anyway, and he now works as a consultant with the Millennium group which basically amounts to continuing work as a serial killer profiler, but with a, well, millennial bent. They think that the increase in violent, disturbing crime a symptom of the impending apocalypse, though we don't hear too much more about this during this season. As it turns out, these elements work best when they're just under the surface, adding a subtle, binding element to the season as a whole.

It's difficult to define just what makes "Millennium" so effective and so different from most everything else on TV. It's not one thing, but rather just the overall milieu of the show, an accumulation of a thousand different details. "Millennium" is an admitted "Seven" cash-in, and it generates the bleak tone in much the same way, with darkened corridors and endless rain, with biblical and general religious themes, both overt and covert, with a contrast between an idealized, middle class life and the degeneracy of the world as a whole etc. This final contrast is an aspect which I particularly enjoy. For whatever reason, the ideas of both utter purity and total depravity particularly intrigue. Perhaps we don't have much of either in day to day life, at least not in suburban, middle-class American life, but that just makes it all the more interesting I guess. Still, when it comes to looking at light vs. dark, "Millennium" is much more intimate with the dark. While it's not shocking the way it once was, "Millennium" still proves to be easily the darkest show I've ever seen on network television or non-premium cable. Though we don't get to see most of it it in much detail, we've got plenty of bad stuff: eyes and mouths are shown shut while the victims are still alive; families are slaughtered while the children are forced to watch; clergyman are burned and tortured alive; teens forced to drink the blood of others; organs are stolen from still-conscious victims etc. And that's just a small taste of the unremitting grisliness of the show.

Lance Henriksen's performance as Frank Black is the key to "Millennium". Henriksen doesn't seem to have a whole lot of range, but what he does he does well, and this show contains some of the best work I've seen of his. He has to walk a thin line, since Frank is a quiet, largely humorless and cold figure, but Henriksen still imbues him with a certain amount of life, and never makes him seem bored or indifferent. He isn't dull, but intense and thoughtful Megan Gallagher is Frank's wife Catherine, and she's not as good, though still adequate. Her relative weakness is probably more a fault of how her character was written than how she was performed, but it's a concern either way. She's just a bit of a drag and a worry wort, frankly. I'm not sure what Frank sees in her, honestly, though it may have something to do with her being 20 years younger than him. (Way to go Frank! Put those psychic profiling powers to good use!) Still, even if I don't especially care about her as a character, I buy that Frank does, and that's good enough. The other recurring characters are mostly cops, of sorts, and most of them don't make too strong of an impression other than Terry O'Quinn as Peter Watts, Frank's major contact in the Millennium group. He's not as prominent this season as he'd become, but he O'Quinn still gives nuanced, sympathetic performances which adds a bit more life to the show.

Truth be told, I have a hard time coming up with specific standout episodes. They are all pretty similar, for the most part. And no, not every episode deals with a crazed killer of some sort, but most of them do. The "Pilot" is still particularly effective, with plenty of nasty ideas, though it is perhaps a bit too obviously derivative of "Seven", even as this show goes. I also especially like "The Wild and the Innocent", one of the more unique, episodes, involving a young couples murderous trek across the south in search of their stolen child, and "Lamentation", an episode which initially looks like a typical "Silence of the Lambs" knockoff, but which moves in unexpected directions and helps bolster the supernatural angle of the show which steadily comes into greater play as the season progresses. On the plus side, part of the reason why there aren't many particular standouts in my book is because there are no obvious dud episodes either.

On the downside, "Millennium" doesn't maintain this quality forever. Season 2 sees Carter cease to be much involved, and the show moves in a less bleak, more conventionally "X-Files"-esque direction with some rather bizarre plot developments. It's far from bad, and perhaps this formula would wear thin after a while, but season 2 is still not as good as the first. Still, this is what we've got, and it's more than good enough. Hell, it's pretty surprising that they were able to keep it this unrelenting morbid for as long as they did, so we should consider ourselves lucky to have this much. Anyway, it you're a fan of pitch-black, horror themed entertainment, you'd be pretty damn stupid not to check out "Millennium"

One of the best in its genre!.......2007-06-02

Having been a longtime fan of the ground-breaking series The X-Files, it was only natural that I watched another of Chris Carter's shows, Milennium. The show centers around Frank Black [played consummately by Lance Henricksen, who had supporting roles in movies like Aliens]a former FBI agent who leaves the bureau to spend more time with his young family, comprising his wife Catherine [Megan Gallagher] and his young daughter Jordan [Brittany Tiplady]. They move to Seattle but a peaceful existence is made difficult by Frank's talents in solving serious crimes, often involving serial killers and even otherworldly phenomena. He finds himself drawn into helping the secretive Millenium group, comprising former officers and federal agents. Terry O'Quinn plays Peter Watts, Frank's main link to the group. The show is really dark and each episode provides viewers a glimpse into the dark recesses of the human soul, and brings the fight between the forces of good and evil to play...the season ends with Frank's wife being kidnapped by a guy who had been stalking Frank's family but whose identity remains unknown. It is a truly gripping series!

Too heavy.......2007-05-17

Well, the movie indeed made me feel but feel sick. Don't take me wrong - this is a very good piece of work, great acting, music, atmosphere but it's just too heavy for my taste. Well maybe I shouldn't have watched it every night... If CSI and other standard criminal series are too light-hearted for you and you crave for gore not only physical but deeply psychological this one will be just it. For me there's too much suffering and problems in the real world to watch this series as "entertainment". It's just too real and horrifying.

Good beginning..........2007-05-14

Good beginning series. It sets the tone (very dark) early and sets up teh characters well. Unfortrunatley the series just meanders mostly through unconnected episodes for far too long and only comes back on track right at the end.

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