The top 10 episodes of ‘Millennium’ Season 3 (1998-99)

On my list of all-time favorite TV showrunners, Chris Carter ranks considerably higher than Glen Morgan and James Wong. Yet it’s hard to not side completely with Morgan and Wong in the conflict that is well known to “Millennium” fans.

Carter — swamped with “X-Files” tasks — handed off the “Millennium” baton to Morgan and Wong for Season 2, and they ran with it, creating a flawed but invigorating batch of episodes that is widely considered to be the series’ best.

It was a highly serialized season, it broke up Frank and Catherine, it made the Millennium Group into a mysterious cult, almost every religious nutjob was proven correct, and a new favorite character was Lara Means, a Morgan/Wong creation. And it killed off Catherine.

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Carter takes back the reins

Most of this was done well, but at the same time, Carter wouldn’t have done ANY of these things if he was plotting the season. So he fired Morgan and Wong and shifted gears for Season 3 (1998-99, Fox). This would be easier to accept if: One, Season 3 didn’t start off so blandly compared to the end of Season 2, and two, Carter wasn’t so blunt in his dismissal of a season beloved by the fans. He admitted as recently as the Season 2 DVD documentary to not even watching every episode from Season 2!

Technically, Carter wasn’t the showrunner for Season 3, but he did write some episodes, and the exec producers were his hand-picked guys, Chip Johannessen and Michael Duggan.

So in the Great “Millennium” Debate, there really is no debate: Morgan and Wong are the good guys and Carter is the bad guy. And it’s hard to argue against that when watching the first half of Season 3, which kills the momentum from Season 2.

Lara Means will never be heard from again (sure, she went crazy in the Season 2 finale, but she wasn’t dead); the epic viral outbreak from the end of Season 2 is re-imagined as a localized event; Frank is working for the FBI with a new partner and a Skinner-like boss, moving “Millennium” closer to Carter’s “X-Files” comfort zone (and, indeed, we get more supernatural-themed episodes); and the Millennium Group, rather than being ambiguous and internally fractured, is now Just Plain Evil, but for no clear reason.

It’s tough not to be bitter about the first half of Season 3, but (deep breath to let the bitterness wash away) things get better starting with episode 11, “Collateral Damage.” It’s not a great episode, but it has good guest turns by James Marsters and Jacinda Barrett, and it was just enough to get me enjoying “Millennium” again.

A new partner

As for Frank’s new partner, Emma Hollis: There’s not a thing wrong with her. Klea Scott nicely moves Emma from being a wide-eyed rookie to a respected partner of Frank’s; she has an interesting, expressive face. And this was never really a Jar Jar Binks situation where she was blamed for ruining the show. The early episodes were bad, but it was clear the problems ran much deeper than a new character, and Scott was never blamed.

It could be argued that while Season 3 isn’t as good as the first two seasons, it is generally more crisply written and more accessible, what with the tried-and-true formula of two FBI agents solving crimes — Frank doing his profiling-and-visions thing with Emma’s good old-fashioned cop work assisting him. These 22 episodes generally make more logical sense than what we saw in the first two seasons, even if they aren’t as memorable.

“Millennium,” maybe more than any other TV series, calls to mind a bevy of paths not taken. What would Carter’s Season 2 have been like? What would Morgan and Wong’s Season 3 have been like? What would Season 4 have been like? How would the show have handled the actual turn of the millennium if it had still been on the air?

The latest question to arise is: What would a “Millennium” movie be like? Even Lance Henriksen has lobbied for a movie — he says on the Season 3 DVD documentary that he’s “haunted” by not having made a “Millennium” movie yet, and argues that Carter is sitting on a gold mine. And I have no doubt that it could be great, but I’m not holding my breath that we’ll ever see it. (I’m even starting to worry about the lack of buzz for a third “X-Files” movie, which is such an obvious fit for December 2012.)

We got the Season 3 we got, and no, it’s not a great season (and it includes perhaps the worst episode of TV ever made, the nonsensical, overly stylized “Omerta”). But it’s the only Season 3 we’re ever going to get, and while I am firmly on Morgan and Wong’s side in the Great “Millennium” Debate, I’d also argue that Season 3 is worth watching once it hits its second-half stride.

Here are my top 10 episodes from the disappointing-but-not-as-terrible-as-its-reputation Season 3 of “Millennium”:

1 and 2. “Via Dolorosa” (episode 21, written by Marjorie David and Patrick Harbinson)/“Goodbye to All That” (22, Ken Horton and Chip Johannessen) 

Season 3 wraps up with its best work, as we follow a creepy serial killer who uses night-vision goggles to invade homes at night, then stages his victims in scenes of domestic bliss. By part two, he has shacked up with an unsuspecting blind woman (allowing for a voyeuristic effect where we can see what he’s up to, but she only has vague suspicions).

Topping it off, there’s the Millennium Group connection: Apparently they created this killer! And Emma is offered a Devil’s bargain to join the group in exchange for her father’s Alzheimer’s cure. Considering what it had to work with up to this point, it’s not a bad two-parter to close out the series. (Yeah, there was the matter of that “X-Files” crossover the next year, but even the writers admitted that was just an excuse to catch up with Frank Black one last time.)

3. “Nostalgia” (20, Michael R. Perry) 

This is a good old-fashioned serial killer mystery set in a small town (Emma’s hometown, in fact) that prefers to brush such things under the rug. The guest stars do good work, and indeed the episode feels nostalgic toward the early days of the series, when it was all about Frank getting into the minds of killers and solving the crimes.

4. “Darwin’s Eye” (17, Harbinson) 

One of the best serial killers since the early days of Season 1 is played by Tracy Middendorf (also a memorable guest star on “Angel” and “The X-Files”). She has a perfect sweet-yet-slightly-off look for playing someone who may or may not be innocent. It’s also interesting how Frank is so good at getting into serial killers’ heads by this point that he almost seems to sympathize with them as much as their victims.

5. “Collateral Damage” (11, Perry) 

It has a standard plot about a veteran done wrong by the U.S. government, but it’s neat to see “Buffy’s” James Marsters using his own American accent (although he has Spike’s bleach-blond hair, suggesting that he squeezed this into his shooting schedule), and Jacinda Barrett as Peter Watts’ daughter.

6. “The Sound of Snow” (12, Harbinson) 

Frank sees visions of Catherine in this episode that doesn’t totally come together yet is the fan-favorite of Season 3 for the way it serves as a coda to Season 2. Then again, a lot of the earlier seasons’ episodes had big plot holes and we still loved ’em, so in that sense, this is a refreshing throwback.

7. “Antipas” (13, Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz) 

Lucy Butler is back to taunting Frank, who is — as ever — the only one who realizes she’s the Devil. He even has a line where he says something to the effect of: “You can’t trust her. She’s the Devil.” Henrickson and Sarah-Jane Redmond do a great job of playing this rivalry.

8. “Saturn Dreaming of Mercury” (16, Jordan Hawley and Johannessen) 

Brittany Tiplady might not be the most amazing child actor ever, but she has great chemistry with Henriksen. So when we get a Jordan-centric episode like this one, it’s easy to connect because we see her through the eyes of Frank.

9. “… Thirteen Years Later” (5, Perry) 

Michael Perry attempts to channel Darin Morgan in an offbeat Halloween episode where a horror movie is being filmed based on Frank Black’s career — very similar to the “Hollywood A.D.” episode of “The X-Files” that would arrive a year later. This one is slightly more successful, as the weirdness (KISS makes a guest appearance, for crying out loud) falls just on the side of interesting rather than stupid.

10. “TEOTWAWKI” (3, Carter and Spotnitz) 

I have a soft spot for TV episodes that do not at all survive the test of time. This is a glaring example because the bad guy is driven by Y2K fears to kill his own children. It must have seemed stupidly crazy at the time, but now it’s stupid, crazy … and a deliciously absurd time capsule.

What were your favorite episodes of Season 3? Are you a Season 3 apologist or the type who prefers to believe “Millennium” ended with the Season 2 finale? Share your thoughts in the comment thread below.

Up next, I still have to post my review of “X-Files: I Want to Believe,” thus wrapping up the Chris Carter portion of “Rewatching and Reviewing the Classics,” at least for now (“Harsh Realm” is still out there for the watching, and I might get to it someday; I’ve heard it’s great, but I didn’t like the few episodes I saw when it aired).

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Comments

Thank you. I FINALLY tracked my childhood favourite TV show down.. And i was so disappointed with everything that came after Catherines death. It is like a completely different show.. With many actors that cannot actors that don’t act properly.. And very cheesy lines in almost every show. The female detective just doesn’t fit in for me. And franks new fbi boss is frankly an annoying character.. I don’t buy him as a high ranking boss. Where as season 1 and 2 had an artistic feel to it.. Season 3…like you rightly say.. Just feels like a normal detective show. So disappointing . Anyway.. Thank you for clearing all this up for me. It was really bugging me how one can just mess up sometime that was so amazing.# Posted By Furter | 12/6/14 2:49 AM

Thanks for reading. It looks like we won’t ever get another X-Files movie or a Millennium one, but did you see that Millennium is returning in comic form? Frank Black made a cameo in the latest issue of X-Files Season 10 (issue 19) and a Millennium series is starting in January. It’s overseen by Carter and written by Joe Harris, who also does the X-Files comics. No Morgan or Wong, unfortunately, but it might be worth a peek. As I said about Season 3, it’s not great, but I still give it a slight edge over having no Season 3 at all. And I guess I feel the same way about the new Millennium comic.# Posted By John Hansen | 12/6/14 1:42 PM