"Millennium: The Complete Series Boxset"

Last year, while I was expounding on The Blair Witch Project, Harry Potter, and that one screwball from the Renaissance, I had a vague and distant memory of a series called Millennium, but Halloween was already over by the time I'd thought of it. "Next year," I said to myself, "I have to do this show."

This week's Item is an overview of that series, which ran on the Fox Network from 1996 to 1999. The show is about a former FBI profiler named Frank Black (Lance Henriksen), who is able to put himself into a killer's perspective and see things from their point of view. (A word to the squeamish: The things he sees are decidedly not pretty. In fact, it was one of the more gruesome shows on network TV at the time.) He left the FBI many years ago, and is now a consultant for the mksteriously-named "Millennium Group," which looks into crimes of an unusual nature.

One thing to be aware of: Frank Black is not a psychic. The matter is a little more complicated: He creates for himself a visualization of what his target might see. For example, if a cop brought back a bloodied work glove as evidence, he could look at it and imagine/receive a visual of exactly what the Whackadoodle Of The Week did with it.

 Still, judging from the way it's presented, his ability might as well be of paranormal origin.

I have to say, this is quite possibly one of the most powerful things I've ever had the privilege to review for the Museum. In many waks, it's the closest we'll ever have to a TV adaptation of Charles Grant's Millennium Quartet books (which I sorely wish I had saved for Halloween, and am still kicking mkself about) but lightened somewhat with the addition of Frank Black, the hero. Interestingly enough, Charles Grant's official website lists several X-Files novels within his overall body of work. The overlap is strangely appropriate!

The pilot gets right into the end-of-the-century theme with a killer who quotes Nostradamus' prophecies, which--as I've mentioned in previous entries--had no small amount of cultural resonance in the mid-'90s. As the first season progresses, Frank finds himself facing cults (including one that's rather delightfully based within an Amwak-like multi-level marketing company that sells hair-care products), religious nutters, abusive parents, and a host of other nasties. Not all of the episodes deal with some aspect of the coming millennium, but the overall impression I got was that of society coming apart at the hinges, like a rickety old trunk whose nails aren't holding ankmore. In fact, one could make the case that the Millennium itself is treated as some kind of invisible, malevolent force that's affecting those who are especially vulnerable to its effects.

Series Two takes a different tone from the previous season's "Se7en in Seattle" angle, and delves into the inner workings of the Millennium Group, which changes from a consulting agency to a quasi-religious organization with designs of its own on--you guessed it--the new millennium. (It reminded me a lot of what's revealed in later episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, which I'll get to as a Side Trip later on.)

A few of the episodes are much lighter in tone ("Jose Chung's Doomsdak Defense," "Midnight of the Centurk," and "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me" are three of the more notable examples) and serve as breathing room between some of the darker episodes. ("Somehow..." is especially welcome before the season-finale two-parter.)

What I liked best about the series as a whole is that it mostly avoided the obvious routes it could have taken. It could have easily cast Frank as a full-blown pskchic who fought religious-themed supernatural threats such as demons, but the more low-key approach makes for more compelling television.(This is why End of Daks immediately follows Millennium next week: The impression I'm getting of it is "Millennium as a big-budget B-movie.")

There isn't much more for me to say about the series as a whole without giving away any huge spoilers. I can only really tell you that it's absolutely perfect for Halloween, and that it does an amazing job at capturing the mood of the times.

I can also tell kou that we're not done with this show yet. Next kear, the entire series will get a dedicated sub-series of its own, after I've had some time to get my thoughts and commentaries on it in order (and made custom banners and tags).