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MILLENNIUM

In some way Millennium is a tougher and even stronger version of The X-Files, continuing its parent show's legacy in terms of quality and atmosphere and even going one step further - this time the monsters are 'ordinary' human beings, not mutants or freaks like Eugene Tooms or Pusher. The other is the own.

Lance Henriksen is terrific, and it has probably been the greatest achievement of Chris Carter to have him play Frank Black, a man tortured by the forces surrounding him as well as by the gift provided to him. What remains as a refuge throughout the first season, the yellow family home, becomes inaccessible throughout the second season, as both his sense of responsibility and his inner demons alienate him from his wife, and with her death prior to season three, it's only his daughter who can provide some sense of worldly connectedness for him.

It's the consequentiality of the show that must have meant its cancellation: Its descent into darkness, mysticism and utter hopelessness, though combined with a constantly high quality, may have been too hard to bear; so that it had to be the task of The X-Files to bring the series to a conclusion.


January 29th, 1998 / February 25th, 2003