📺 Millennium, S 1 E 22 “Paper Dove” (1997)
Okay, that’s a wrap for season one. Looking back, I realize I only caught two episodes when they originally aired. What’d I think? The pacing is slow. Sometimes the show can be boring, but somehow always riveting. And Lance Henricksen always delivers.
Finished reading: Write Ahead the Future Looms 2019 📚
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 21 “Maranatha” (1997)
This episode’s mood was so thick you’d choke on it. It was steeped in the history of the Chernobyl disaster and its related mythology of the apocalypse. Chernobyl translates into “wormwood,” which many compared to the Biblical star of Wormwood in the Book of Revelation. The episode was pretty gruesome for 1997 mainstream TV: shotgun blasts to the head, the cutting of fingers, and an autopsy. Oh, and the devil may or may not have made an appearance. But actor Bill Nunn definitely did.
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 20 “Broken World” (1997)
“We’re witnessing the birth of a psychosexual killer.”
Oh, hey, look, it’s Donnelly Rhodes! Loved him as Doctor Cottle in Battlestar Galactica. He almost looks naked without a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Love the Equus vibe of this episode. Now I think about it: What if Richard Burton played Frank Black? And I gotta wonder if this episode influences Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men.
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 19 “Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions” (1997)
I’ve been craving a major arc for this series, but now that I’m getting what I wanted, I want the show to go back to serial killers. But I guess I’m in the long haul because I just purchased season 2 from eBay.
Oh, and in this episode, a mother’s neck was slit with a Swiss Army knife. Is that even possible?
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 18 “Lamentation” (1997)
Late last century, TV producers have been leaning more and more towards telling a larger story in a series rather than the monster-of-the-week. Almost, but not quite. This episode was gripping, but by the end of it, I was wondering how it would wrap up. But it didn’t. A supporting character died, Frank’s marriage is in doubt, and a killer is still on the loose. And not even a “To be continued.” I had to restrain myself from immediately watching the next episode.
I’m waiting on my physical copy of Birthing, the new SWANS album. Should be showing up in the mail soon. ‘Til then, I’m listening to it over on Bandcamp—can’t help myself.
Most of the songs came together while they were out touring in 2023 and 2024. They played them live, let them grow, then took them into the studio to shape them up right. A couple of the tracks, “Red Yellow” and “The Merge”—were made from scratch in the studio, no roadwork behind them.
Gira said it all started with him sitting alone with his guitar, just strumming and dreaming up these songs. Then he brought in the band, and together they turned those bones into something big and heavy and beautiful. Birthing, along with Live Rope, is what he’s calling his last big hurrah in this wild, all-consuming sound SWANS is known for. They’ve got one more tour planned for the end of 2025, then that chapter’s closing. I missed their LA show back when the pandemic hit—sure as heck ain’t missing this one.
SWANS’ll still be around after that, just in a simpler, quieter way.
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 17 “Walkabout” (1997)
Whoa, brutal cold open. Literally gave me chills. Millennium was steeped in the fears and taboos of later 20th-century America, and “Walkabout” was about our nation’s increasing usage of antidepressants and why.
Horror aside, one of the things I like about this series is that it’s almost always raining in every episode. And you can see breath streaming from everyone’s mouth when they shoot outdoor scenes. I also like that everyone’s clothes look normal, not tightly fitted, as we see on TV shows today. The clothes on Lance Henriksen hang off his body.
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 16 “Covenant” (1997)
Mark Snow does a fine job scoring music, but I do not like his work. That said, the music Snow composed for the opening scene was pretty, and the camera work using reflections was creative.
Over the years, I have accumulated many books I never finished. I have resolved to read this book within the next two years. So far, the process has not been the slog I thought it would be. Marguerite Duras’s The Lover was simultaneously crushing and romantic and stylistically written as if by a more elegant Cormac McCarthy. Phil Freeman’s Ugly Beauty: Jazz in the 21st Century turned me on to many musicians and albums I need to listen to (I’m playing an album by Zonal as I write this). Write Ahead the Future Looms 2019, which is one of the books I am currently reading, is breezy cyberpunk, and one of the reasons I enjoy it is due to unintentional editing; one of the writer’s story notes was revealed, giving me insight into how other writer’s work.
Up next is Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez, which I’ve put off reading for far too long.
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 15 “Sacrament” (1997)
Episode after episode, I’m astounded how successful this bleak tv show was with mainstream audience. Today this would be a prestige show like True Detective. This show hits hard because the protagonist’s brother’s wife was abducted during a Christening, and possibly raped and tortured.
Finished reading: Ugly Beauty: Jazz in the 21st Century by Philip Freeman 📚
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 14 “The Thin White Line” (1997)
Highlights: a can of “Smeat” and the killer’s line, “If they make a movie about me, I want Gary Busey to play me. He’d be perfect for the part. Is he still popular?”
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 13 “Force Majeure” (1997)
Self-immolation makes for a great opening. And, hey, Gríma Wormtongue (Brad Dourif) is in this one! And this is the episode where Millennium’s mythology kicks off.
Finished reading: Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion by James Maffie 📚
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 12 “Loin Like A Hunting Flame” (1997)
X-Files’s format was pretty much monster-of-the-week. Millennium’s format, at least in its first season, was serial-killer-of-the-week, which meant the writing team had to come up with new and creative ways for the antagonist to kill their victims. This episode used the drug Ecstasy. Oh, and hey, we meet a new member of the Millennium Group!
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 11 “Weeds” (1997)
Millennium was all about delving into America’s late 20th-century fears, at least the first season did. This episode is focuses on gated communities and the illusion of safety they provided its denizens. Makes me wonder what 21st-century Millennium would be like.
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 10 “The Wild and the Innocent” (1997)
Pretty ballsy of Millennium to do a show within a show. This episode leans into Midwestern serial killers hard (think Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate). Even Mark Snow’s music score is Americana-ish.
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 9 “Wide Open” (1997)
Late last century, if you missed an episode of your favorite TV show, you might not see it again unless you are lucky enough to catch it as a rerun. I missed the latter half of this episode back in 1997, but what I did see haunted me to this day: a serial killer who hides himself in homes during open house viewing and comes out at night to hack a girl’s parents to pieces, leaving their young daughter to survive. Just writing that bothered me. I am glad I finally watched Charles D. Holland’s gruesome tale’s conclusion decades later.
📺 Millennium, S 1 E 8 “The Well-Worn Look” (1996)
If you’re going to do a show dedicated to the serial killer-of-the-week format, then it will be dark. Even so, it’s amazing that Millennium could be as explicit with its themes as it was. This episode breaks with that format and is still bleak as it deals with incest. Megan Gallagher does stellar work, as do Paul Dooley, Lenore Zann, and Christine Dunford.
“You’re not a victim. You’re a survivor.”