Shark Bytes

Never jumped. I liked the overall arc of the three seasons (even if it wasn't deliberate):

Season 1 - Frank is recruited by the Group and slowly regains his ability to use his gift to solve crimes.

Season 2 - Frank learns of the Group's true purpose and history and ultimately learns how dangerous they are.

Season 3 - Frank fights to take down the Group.

Lance Henriksen was always fantastic (this is the role he'll be remembered for); Megan Gallagher was good with what she had to work with (she really came into her own in Season 2) and Terry O'Quinn made Peter Watts one of the most enigmatic TV allies/enemies of all time. Even Klea Scott grew on me - I would have liked to have seen the reprecussions of her actions in a possible Season 4.

Now, Chris Carter, where's the Millennium movie?

Second season. The first season was a gorgeous, creepy, intriguing look into the dark heart of humanity. Then this got thown away when Wong and Morgan picked up the pencils for the show with their cliched writing("The Fourth Horseman", the family during a happy Mothers day lunch all bleeding and convulsing onto death), groan worthy plots and ideas(The Nazis aggravating the Owls/Roosters split, "Anamnesis",surely an inspiration for the Davinci Code, with an annoying, self-righteous teen brat as Jesus and Mary Magdelene's descendant)and the stupid use of weirdness for it's own sake(Lara Means tripping out over a music ***** that looks like a mediocre film student's idea of 'surrealism', Frank Black seeing demons dancing around everywhere, the Millenium group being turned into a kind of weird Illuminati-like conspiracy and all the crazy religious/philosophical clap-trap). Only Lance Henrikson's acting and a few good episodes(that were NOT written by Morgan and Wong) stopped it from being a total waste.

I was once a hardcore fan of this show and would never miss an episode. The performances from Lance Henriksen and Terry O'Quinn were topnotch but the writing was not (sans two episodes penned by the brilliant Darin Morgan).

For those of you who are still hardcore fans, I recommend a rental of Michael Mann's 1986 film "Manhunter." You will see that Frank Black is just an (older) carbon copy of William Peterson's character down to the wardrobe. And compare the series finale with the ending of that movie (killer at home with his blind girlfriend). Come to think of it, Dana Scully was a nothing more than a carbon copy of Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling also from a good film adaptation of a bad Thomas Harris novel (is there any other kind?).

Looking back, I probably should have tried to do something on Friday nights rather than waste my teenage years on this fear mongering garbage. The world didn't end in 2000 thus the show is pointless today. Live and learn. Live and learn...

I thought Millenium UN-jumped. Season 1 was boring as hell. Once they killed off the annoying wife, and got into the real mythology of the series, then it got interesting.

Like others have mentioned the first two seasons of Millenium were amazing. Talk about jaw-dropping stories. I'm not exactly sure where they went with the 3rd season but I think jumping the shark came when Megan Gallagher left the show. Catherine annoyed me sometimes but she did try to keep Frank in the "light" so to speak, but when he didn't share everything with her she just ended up angry. The way her death occurred was so very sad. I thought Lara Means was an interesting addition to the show's storyline...at least it was someone Frank could trust. Midnight of the Century, the Curse of Frank Black, The Hand of St. Sebastian were some totally amazing episodes, just great examples of awesome filmmaking--rarely have I seen anything close. As you can see I still miss the show--thank God for dvd.

Millennium was a show that suffered from a bad timeslot and even worse promotion from the network. In my opinion, the first season was brilliant, analyzing the dark side of humanity in a "killer-of-the-week" formula. While I respect Morgan and Wong, the second season was slow and boring. While the mythology was a nice twist, the second season couldn't be saved.

The show jumped the shark when Glen Morgan put his awful-looking and bad acting wife into the show and the finale with a whole show segment dedicated to her "breakdown". It is the most excruciating scene ever. I can't explain how horrible that scene and she is. Kristen Cloke should stick to motherhood.

Hello, and thanks for your time.

I am trying to find the name of an urban legend or phenomenom, which I believe was featured on an episode of Millenium.

It is a kind of spiriling vortex, cone shaped, made up of geometrical shapes, spinning slowly, and was transparent in that the geometrical shapes seemed to be made of yellow light.

If anyone knows if this was featured on Millenium or knows the name of it could you please email me at the address below.


Thank you ..


blucat@optusnet.com.au

why can Frank Black wear a fatigue jacket for 3 years but everyone else has to wear a suit?

The last show of season 2, in which Catherine dies, DEFINES a "Jump the Shark" moment. It was so GOOD, so intense (Frank's hair turns white overnight) and so appocalyptic (a fatal virus that makes you spew blood from every orifice is spreading across the US) that I said "End it now. Masterpiece. Great end to a ripping good tale."

Chris Carter's MILLENNIUM was one of the greatest shows on television still when it was cancelled in summer of 1999. It lasted three seasons, 67 episodes, was continued in unofficial script form by online fans for 22 more episodes ending in December of 1999. It had rocky moments (Third Season: "Human Essence", Second Season: "Siren") but there was an overall great quality to the writing, direction, acting and stories of this groundbreaking and brilliant series!

They went too far with some things in the second season. The one with the demons in the coffee shop and the one that blatantly made fun of Scientology (it is about time) were instances in which the show "winked" at me. A dark show like Millennium should never "wink" at the viewer. Those two hours could've been better spent building the mythology. Also, I didn't like the introduction of Roedecker as the Millennium Group's Seattle-based tech support guy. It was a complete ripoff of the Lone Gunmen. Would the Millennium Group really hire some long-haired, nerdy counter-culture, rebellious youth hacker stereotype guy to handle their IT needs? Do all computer guys have to be some variation of Seth Green?

I don't know if this constitutes Jumping the Shark (Those Kiss/Fox concert tie ins come closer) but where is the category for Nepotism. The episode "Monster" from the 2nd season is unbelievably bad. Glen Morgan clearly wrote this episode as a showcase for his wife Kristen Cloke which would be tolerable if her acting abilities weren't on par with Elisabeth Rohm's. She doesn't appear to be listening and hardly reacts to an of the other actors in the scene. Despite being a minor character to the story's plot line, she is somehow given half a dozen "soapbox" speeches and over a dozen close-ups. One of my favourite scenes with her is when she re-enters the Barbakow house and delivers a speech from the top of the stairs looking down at Gillian Barber in her own home. (I guess that would be the Quincy M.D. school of stage direction)

This show jumped the shark when they decided to ignore the events on the second two finale and continued the series as if nothing had happened. Not even the changes on the producing themes between seasons (from carter to james and wong to johannessen and duggan), made it possible.

It definitely jumped after season 2, but it tried to do a reverse jump. But it was too late and became cancelled before its time, another Kolchak.

The third season was the definite "jumped" point. There were some good episodes, but for the most part, season 3 destroyed the whole core of what Millennium was in seas. 1-2. Moving Frank from Seattle, killing his wife off, and especially bringing Frank back into the FBI and teaming him with a Scully-type partner made the show into X-Files lite. IMO, they should have expanded on the supernatural prophecies from season 2 and took the show even further into other-worldly territory, such as adding Lara Means to the cast or someone else who had a "gift" as supernatural as Frank. I only hope the new Millennium DVD release sells well enough so season 2 will also be released and I can get that, too. My grades are: Season 1: A- Season 2: A- Season 3: C+