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"Millennium"


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Episode 7ABX05

Title: Millennium

First screened in Australia: 29 March, 2000
First screened in the USA: 29 November, 1999

Credits: Director: Tom Wright
Writers: Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz Starring: Guest Stars: Plot:
The graves of four FBI agents who commited suicide are desecrated and a symbol is left that has Mulder suspecting that someone wants to end the world. Found in a psychiatric ward, ex-FBI agent Frank Black is enlisted to help Mulder and Scully investigate the Millennium Group's ritualistic killings and apocalyptic plans, while a Group member who has the power to summon the dead is trying to bring the world to an end as the millennium draws to a close.
Australian Media Review # 1:
Sealed With A Kiss

There wasn't any crotch thrusting, but it still had great rhythm that made our hearts go pitter-patter.

Nor was it very wet, but is was drenched in love - the type of kiss that leaves dreamy-eyed women with a sigh on their lips and romantic-minded men with a goofy grin on their mugs.

We're talking, of course, of the long anticipated kiss between Mulder and Scully.

The moment of passion occurs in this series in an episode titled 'Millennium', and it's to be hoped 'The X-Files', duo follow up on their promising mouth-to-mouth debut.

After all it would be a shame if their closing kisser-act in 'Millennium' turned out to be a one-hit wonder. 'Millennium', which features Lance Henriksen as Frank Black for the series of the same name, is one of the eeriest episodes 'The X-Files' has produced.

The riveting story was overshadowed, however, when Mulder and Scully finally released their pent-up passion by sharing a sweet kiss to celebrate the arrival of the year 2000.

Now, of course, everyone is trying to figure out where the two partners' relationship - and the show itself - will go from here. But something suggests the kiss won't change much.

Mulder and Scully will go on loving each other, as they clearly have for some time, but we suspect that they will keep their lips to themselves - at least until the saga's final chapter.

This is more of Mulder-type hunch than a Scullyesque conclusion drawn from any tangible evidence.

Both agents recognise that opening a romantic can of worms would be a major distraction, especially as the pair strive to save the world from an extraterrestrial menace.

Even if they remain platonic, we expect the relationship between Mulder and Scully to become stronger and closer than ever.

From a slightly off-kilter perspective, the sight of Mulder walking out of that hospital room with an affectionate arm around his faithful Scully will serve as a constant reminder that the two partners will be joined at the hip, if not the loins, in the months ahead.

From: Melbourne Herald Sun Wednesday March 8, 2000
Transcribed by Kim.
Australian Media Review # 2:
Just One X

Fans of The X-Files may feel betrayed next week when Special Agents Mulder and Scully do exactly what the show's creators promised wouldn't happen.

When the offbeat series began, Chris Carter was at great pains to stress there would be no love interest between the two main characters. Apparently that goes out the window when the agents share a kiss.

However this is The X-Files and things aren't always what they seem.

The big moment comes at the culmination of an episode which features Lance Henriksen, the star of Carter's other less successful creation Millennium.

At the beginning of the show, a man called Mark Johnson approaches a widow at a funeral, claiming to be a colleague of her late husband.

After the other mourners leave, he returns to the funeral parlour with a mobile phone which he places in the dead man's hand.

A week later, Johnson waits outside a cemetery, his phone rings and he walks towards a grave.

Agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) are called in to examine the empty grave. As usual, Scully is sceptical, but Mulder thinks its an example of necromancy- the raising of the dead. They discover the dead man was a member of the Millenium Group, and their inquiries lead them to criminal profiler Frank Black (Henriksen), who is initially unhelpful because he is involved in a custody battle for his daughter.

But he agrees to help with their investigation, explaining that members of the Millenium Group believe they can bring about the end of the world by killing themselves before the dawn of the new millennium.

When Sully is attacked by a dead man, the duo race against time to find Johnson.

Then, at the climax, comes the fateful kiss.

Written by Brett Debritz from: What's ON - Qld Times March 23-29, 2000
Transcribed by Lucy.
Australian Media Review # 3:
The Kiss… at last

During the last six years of The X-Files, Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully have encountered hundreds of paranormal perversities, being either shot and spat at by everything from small demonic children to the Devil himself and both have been to the brink of death and made it back.

But now it's all coming to an end. After six of the most successful seasons of any television show, The X-Files is now screening on Ten with the final series. This week viewers see the long awaited kiss between the two agents.

A man who claims to have worked with her late husband, approaches a widow at her husbands funeral in Florida. After the other mourners have left, the man returns top the funeral parlour and places a phone in the dead man's hand. A week later he waits outside a cemetery, his phone rings and he walks towards a grave. Mulder and Scully are called in to examine the empty grave.

From the evidence available to them, they conclude that someone broke out of the casket, however Scully theorises that someone made it look that way. Later, Mulder and Scully are watching the New Year's Eve countdown when fireworks spark between them.

Other episodes in series seven will answer most of the questions X-Files fans have been mulling over for the past six years…but not surprisingly, the final episode is being kept under wraps.

After playing two of the most recognised characters on television, it appears there will be life for actors David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson after The X-Files, with rumours both will be pursuing film careers.

From Bundaberg News-Mail TV Guide March 23, 2000
Transcribed by Lucy.
My Rating: 8/10

An interesting episode that everyone seemed to think was going to be the moment shippers had been dreaming of, but the kiss turned out to be New Year's inspired rather than anything else. This one moment was blown out of all proportion and over-shadowed what was a slid episode, very much in the Millennium vein, dark and forboding. Millennium was a much-underrated show and every bit as good as The X-Files in my opinion. It was great seeing Frank Black return.

Notable Quotable:
Mulder: The world didn't end.
Scully [smiles]: No, it didn't.


Where Have I Seen That Face Before?
Lance Henriksen played the same character in Chris Carter's (sadly missed) second show, "Millennium". Henriksen's latest movie at the time of this episode screening was "Scream 3". He's also appeared in many well-known (and some classic) movies such as "Dog Day Afternoon", "Network", "Damien: Omen II", "The Right Stuff", "Terminator", "Jagged Edge", "Aliens", "Alien 3", "Color Of Night", "Powder" and "The Quick And The Dead".

Brittany Tiplady played the same character in "Millennium" and is in a new series called "Sports Pages". Her only other appearances have been in TV movies, the first at age 3 called "Sin and Redemption" and "Echo".

Thomas J Wright Information
Director Tom Wright has directed episodes on many genre shows such as "Millennium", "Dark Skies", "The Pretender", "Nowhere Man" and "Highlander" as well as The Goldberg Variation episode. Wright has had a varied career ranging from property master on "Dead Man Walking" and "JFK", an illustrator on "Staying Alive" and second unit director on movies such as "Staying Alive", "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Howard The Duck".

The Pain Factor:
Mulder suffers at the hands of a bunch of zombies.

Trivia and Research:
The description of the Four Horsemen comes from Chapter Six of the Book of Revelations in the Bible:
(Rev 6:1) And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. (Rev 6:2) And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. (Rev 6:3) And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. (Rev 6:4) And there went out another horse [that was] red: and [power] was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. (Rev 6:5) And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. (Rev 6:6) And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and [see] thou hurt not the oil and the wine. (Rev 6:7) And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. (Rev 6:8) And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
Necromancy is the black magic dedicated to summoning a corpse or the spirit of the corpse for the magician's use. These necromancers would use the spirit's knowledge to acquire wealth, such as finding a buried treasure, or help harm the conjurer's enemies. The most well-known "handbook" of this dark practice, the Necromonicon, is a text dating back to authentic ancient sources. Authentic as it may seem, most people believe this fictitious book sprung from the mind of the occult writer, H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937).

In this story, the necromancer uses a magic circle of salt to protect against corpses. True necromancers, however, do not use salt in any of their rituals. Salt has been long associated with repelling demons and spirits, and in Christianity it is representative of goodness and purity.

The necromancer recites a passage taken from the Burial of the Dead in the U.S. Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer:
I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.

For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For if we live, we live unto the Lord and if we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.
The necromancer character is named Mark Johnson, after the filmmaker who produced Vince Gilligan's movie "Home Fries." Johnson has also produced "Donnie Brasco," "Rain Man" and "Diner."

This story takes place in the days leading up to New Year's Eve, 1999. Frank Black watches a college football game between Notre Dame and Boston College. In 1999, that game was actually played on November 20, 1999. BC beat the Irish, 31-29.

From The Official X-Files Web Site

Media Story:
Kiss intended to bolster sexual tension on X-Files

by Marina Jimenez, National Post

Mulder And Scully Finally Investigate Each Other: FBI Special Agents Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder (David Duchovny) will kiss during Sunday's episode of The X-Files. Fans have debated for years on the Internet whether the two should get romantic and are split between "romos" and "no-romos."

After six chaste seasons, the lips of FBI Special Agents Mulder and Scully are finally going to lock on Sunday in an onscreen kiss that signals a new romantic twist to their relationship.

The kiss comes during The X-Files' seventh -- and most likely final -- season, in an appropriately apocalyptic episode called Millennium that centres on the agents' battle against "necromancy" -- where the dead are brought back to life and threaten to bring about the end of the world.

The kiss is the culmination of a simmering sexual tension between Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), as Chris Carter, the series' creator, has tantalized viewers with their unresolved passion for years.

Frank Spotnitz, the series' executive producer, recently promised: "We ... will really develop the relationship this season in a way that we never have before."

The kiss, which takes place as the new age dawns with Auld Lang Syne playing softly in the background, is more love than lust, and is sure to inflame the debate among viewers about whether Mulder's and Scully's relationship should progress.

Fans have hotly debated the topic for years via Internet chat rooms, where they divide into two camps: the "no-romos," who believe the show's eerie premise will be lost with two fawning protagonists; and the "romos," who, naturally, favour an affair.

Cynical observers call the kiss a ratings grab, although, according to Global Television, which airs the Fox Television drama in Canada, the show's popularity has not declined since it moved from Vancouver to Los Angeles two years ago. Last season, it was Fox's highest-rated show, averaging 15.2 million viewers a week, although it received only eight Emmy nominations, half its usual total.

Advertising space for the Nov. 28 kiss episode has already sold out in Canada, said Shea Warrington-Hayes, a publicist with Global. "We expect a spike in viewership," she said. "This is something they owe the viewers."

Others say that the kiss, while intense, may not lead to a permanent coupling.

"We have been gradually building to this. Mulder and Scully have had moments of close proximity that took us to the threshold of a kiss where they touched or held each other," notes Prof. Paul Heyer, a communications professor who specializes in media history at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C.

"I predict they will acknowledge it and talk about it obliquely and then decide that there is a higher calling they are engaged in -- a search for aliens."

The history of the kiss' impact on television ratings has been uneven, he said.

On Moonlighting, ABC's 1980s hit, the unlikely detective team of Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) and David (Bruce Willis), kissed at the end of the first season in 1986 in a parking garage, and made love at the end of the second season. Two years -- and many romantic entanglements -- later, the show ended, bogged down in production problems and behind-the-scenes personality conflicts.

On Who's the Boss, an ABC sitcom that aired from 1984-92, Angela (Judith Light), a high-powered executive and Tony (Tony Danza), her handsome housekeeper, flirted for years. In the seventh season, just when the show seemed to have outlived its format, the pair fell in love, kissed, but never married.

Technically, Mulder has kissed Scully before, in a 1998 episode, "Triangle." Scully responded by belting Mulder in the mouth. The kiss, however, wasn't really a kiss, because Mulder had gone back in time and was kissing a Scully-look-a-like who was actually a CIA agent. The pair were about to kiss in The X-Files movie, but the moment was interrupted when Scully was stung by a bee.

This season, The X-Files can afford the risk of a kiss. "It may attract attention or may bomb. It doesn't matter," Prof. Heyer said.

Transcribed by: Dana


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