Millennium – The Complete Second Season
Picture: B
Sound: B- Extras: B- Episodes: B
Facing a battle for ratings and not holding on as well as
Fox had hoped, X-Files creator Chris Carter decided to come up with a
big twist for his sister series Millennium. With Lance Henriksen back as Frank Black, a former expert in
crime solving whose special psychic-like abilities jump any case ahead, even
cold ones, he discovers that his association with The Millennium Group may not
be as mutually beneficial as he first thought.
It was they who got him on problematic cases, and if you have not seen
the first season, you should stop now and either read my review for the first
elsewhere on this site or see that entire season. The following will give away too much, but that cannot be
avoided.
Millennium- The Complete Second Season has
Black’s wife (Megan Gallagher)
Kidnapped, his daughter (Brittany Tiplady) needing more
protection than ever and Frank staring to realize The Millennium Group has not
been so forward with him about what else is going on. The only problem with this off the bat is, if he can use his
psychic powers to sense danger, past murders, future murders, evil spirits and
other strange phenomenon, why could he not sense they would be a problem? This is never worked out in a satisfactory
way and though the twist is interesting initially, it eventually hurts the
series in the long run. The
supernatural angle eclipsed the detective angle, which in this case did not
click as had been hoped for.
At the same time again as noted in our look at the first
season, the show was experimental and succeeded on that level far more often
than not, still remaining far more distinctive and rich than the shows that
followed in its wake. The new set of
episodes are as follows:
1) The
Beginning & The End
2) Beware
If The Dog
3) Sense
& Antisense
4) Monster
5) A Single
Blade Of Grass
6) The
Curse Of Frank Black
7) 19:19
8) The Hand
Of Saint Sebastian *
9) Jose
Chug’s “Doomsday Defense” (guest stars Charles Nelson Reilly)
10) Midnight Of The Century (Holiday)
11) Goodbye Charlie
12) Luminary
13) The Mikado *
14) The Pest House
15) Owls
16) Rooster
17) Siren
18) In ArcadiaEgo
19) Anamnesis (guest stars Brendan
Fletcher of Scott Smith’s Rollercoaster)
20) A Room With No View
21) Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me
22) The Fourth Horseman
23) The Time Is Now
The aspect ratio this time out is an anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image, versus the exception full frame 1.33 X 1 image from
the first season. The show looks even
better than before, still considering the dark look the show was produced in
and the color is again not so ridiculously desaturated. As a matter of fact, this may be the best
anamorphic 16 X 9 series on DVD we have seen to date. There continues to be three languages of Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
for each show, all with Pro Logic surrounds that are used better than most
shows use them to this day. The idea of
5.1 remixes were passed on, but we have seen shows have 2.0 to start with, then
5.1 later. Mark Snow’s scoring is solid
as usual. The combination is
exceptional.
Extras include commentaries on the two shows marked above
with an * mark, with Tom Wright on Hand Of San Sebastian and Michael R.
Perry on The Mikado. The
original Academy Group does another stellar featurette called Victimology
that runs just over 24 minutes and an exceptional look at the second season
called The Turn Of The Tide.
Running about 33 minutes, the latter discusses how Glen Morgan and James
Wong took over the show is discussed, for better and worse. They are obviously very talented, but their
comedy style is too distinct, had already been established on X Files,
and went way too far on The Lone Gunman. That would make sense on the latter show, but for Millennium,
it turned it too often into something it was not. The duo turned down participating in the piece. Even in the shadow of TV imitators still on
the air, however, the second season of Millennium holds its own and is
some of the best television of the 1990s.
This is one of the highest quality TV boxes on the market to date.
- Nicholas Sheffo
