Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #90527 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-11-14
• Format: NTSC
• Number of discs: 18

Amazon.com
Millennium - The Complete First Season
Millennium marked the second major television series created by Chris Carter, who'd already made his name as the brains behind The X-Files. And, like its predecessor, it shares a lot of the same themes--it's a crime thriller that gradually unfolds into a grand conspiracy involving the government and the fate of the entire world. Agent Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) is a former FBI agent who has transplanted his family from Washington, D.C. to Seattle, after suffering something of a breakdown. He's an expert criminal profiler--arguably the best, thanks to his ability to "see" into the minds of killers--and he fears for the safety of his wife and young daughter. In Seattle, he joins the mysterious Millennium Group, an agency of freelance crime-busters who investigate particularly brutal crimes. As a result, Millennium is downright bleak viewing, as Black jumps from horrific slaying to horrific slaying. Moreover, there's a growing sense of unease about the workings of the Millennium Group, so that in typical Chris Carter fashion, you don't know who to trust. With its pre-Y2K angst and overwhelming darkness, as well as its general humorlessness, Millennium hasn't dated as well as The X-Files. Still, thanks to Carter's vision and Henriksen's compelling take on the tortured Black, it's difficult not to get hooked.

Millennium - The Complete Second Season
The groundbreaking show Millennium was about to take a new, visionary direction in its second season. Millennium could have continued its successful formula of introducing new, apocalyptic "Se7en-esque" serial killers for Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) to hunt down. But as any viewer can attest, it was the exploration of the mysterious "Millennium Group" and Frank Black's role that held the key to the show's potential longevity. And who better to build a mythos for the Millennium than the minds behind The X-Files: producer/writer team Glenn Morgan and James Wong. Stepping in when Chris Carter stepped aside, Morgan and Wong immediately began to focus season 2 not on the killers and their impact on Armageddon, but on Frank Black and his struggle for his personal stability and sanity. The Millennium Group, whose identify and function was never really explored in season 1, now becomes a central entity in season 2 complete with its own Masonic-like mythology.

Millennium - The Complete Third Season
In the third season of Millennium, we find Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) a widower and a single father who is completely disillusioned with the Millennium group and their evil intentions. Hell-bent on revenge, Frank rejoins the FBI, gets a new partner, Special Agent Emma Hollis (Klea Scott), and launches a personal crusade to dismantle and expose the Millennium Group. Interestingly, the visionary, quirky, X-Files mythos-like direction in which the producer-writer team of Glenn Morgan and James Wong took Millennium in season 2 didn't sit well with many fans. Now that a good chunk of the Earth's population had been wiped out by the Group's killer plague, which also claimed Frank's wife Catherine (Megan Gallagher), Chris Carter decided to take the helm once again and redirect season 3 back to the dark, apocalyptic crime-fighting genre in which it was intended. The mythos element is still present, but season 3 is a definite return to the look and feel of season 1 where most of the episodes are individual dark crime stories. The scripts in season 3 are consistently sharp (especially Ken Horton's and Chip Johannessen's), and the interesting, new dynamics introduced could have easily carried the show onward for many more seasons. Sadly, it was never meant to be. Like an apocalyptic metaphor, one of the best-written, best-produced, and most-influential shows of the 1990s would be canceled at the end of season 3, less than one year before the year 2000. Fans were left to wonder about the future of Frank Black, Jordan, and the success of his personal vendetta. Fortunately, The X-Files was still going strong at the time and fans got a bit of closure with The X-Files’ season 7 tie-in episode "Millennium" (included on this DVD set).

Customer Reviews

two great seasons, one mediocre season = pretty good
Season One of "Millennium" has got to rank as the most grim season of any television series ever broadcast on network TV. There is an air of misery, despair, and doom that hangs over every episode. Other shows have gone further in terms of gore -- "CSI" leaps immediately to mind -- but none of them have gone as far in terms of tone. For a lot of people, that makes this first season hard to watch, but if you're game for it, then I think it's probably Chris Carter's finest single season on any of his shows. A dark, brooding masterpiece.

Season two still bears Carter's name, but he was busy working on the "X-Files" movie, and consequently left Glen Morgan and James Wong in charge of "Millennium" this particular year. Some fans see the second season as a too-abrupt change of pace from season one, and indeed there is a palpable difference in both content and tone. The show is still dark, but the plot opens up to become a bit more of a standard "X-Files"-like conspiracy show, with the Millennium Group put a bit more front and center. To me, this seems like a natural outgrowth of the first season, so no complaints. And about half season two's episodes are not just good, they're GREAT -- this season is HIGHLY recommended.

Unfortunately, season three is a colossal disappointment. Without giving anything away, let's say that season two ended on, well, a BIT of a cliffhanger, and one that seemed as if it was pushing the series in a very specific direction. The beginning of season three almost totally ignores that intended direction, and if you're one of the people who feel that season two went against the grain of the first season, well, maybe that's a good thing. For everyone else, it just feels like a huge cheat. Again, I don't want to say too much, lest I spoil parts of the plot for newcomers; but suffice it to say that I just DO NOT accept the direction the third season took. It definitely doesn't match with season two, but I personally don't think it matches with season one, either. It's not a complete waste of time, as the production values remained high, Lance Henriksen remained awesome as Frank, and several individual episodes managed to be good ones. But there are also a few that are laughably bad, and all in all, it's just not good.

Still, the first two seasons are absolutely terrific, so this set as a whole is definitely recommended.

This was a groundbreaking series....
But, unfortunately, mainstream viewers were not ready for it. Frank Black is one of the most intriguing characters that I have ever seen portrayed on television, and Lance Henrikson did a superb job of portraying this dark character. The series really found its voice in the second season, mixing crime-drama, paranormal and spiritualism. Season two was largely the work of Morgan and Wong, who did a phenomenal job of taking the series to new heights. The second season finale was the most intense finale that I have ever seen. The third season was *good*, but unfortunately, Chris Carter felt it necessary to take a step back from the novel and visionary storylines that Morgan and Wong created. There has never been a show like this on television before, and unfortunately, there will probably not be one like it again.

Millennium
The series is one of the best and most thought provoking American television has ever put out.

The characterization is first rate and the situations are gritty. It is not an easy show to watch, but once you start it, Lance Henriksen and crew take you on a rollercoaster ride with their humanity out there for all to see in the face of some of the worst situations ever put on film.

I loved this show.