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Summary:
A vicious serial killer is on the loose in Seattle, roaming strip
clubs and gay hang-outs, believing he is on a mission to cleanse the
plague-infested city of sin in preparation for the apocalypse. Meanwhile, renowned FBI profiler Frank Black retires to Seattle with his family as he gains membership in the secretive
Millennium Group. Frank soon realizes that he must be the one to bring
an end to the
so-called Frenchman's grotesque crimes, before further innocents are
brutally killed.
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Full Transcript Available
Synopsis: A
seedy peep show in downtown Seattle. As seedy men pay for
brief glimpses of female flesh, one customer has more than
sex on his mind. Mumbling obscure and ominous phrases, he
hallucinates sheets of blood pouring over the body of a
blond dancer. Later that night, she is savagely murdered.
Just
arrived in Seattle, Frank and Catherine Black, and their
five-year-old daughter Jordan, are happily settling into
their new suburban home. But the evil of the outside world
soon disturbs Frank's contentment. Spotting a newspaper
account of the dancer's brutal death, Frank contacts his
former boss, homicide cop Lieutenant Bob Bletcher. Frank
volunteers his expertise as a retired FBI agent specializing
in serial killers.
When he views the body, Frank catches vivid and bloody
glimpses of the crime, and knows the killer will strike
again. His intimate knowledge of the details spooks his old
friend. Now a consultant for a consortium of ex-law
enforcement officers called the Millennium Group, Frank
offers their resources to help the department find the
killer. Peter Watts, a member of the group, agrees with
Frank's assessment. Driven by an external stressor, the
killer is out of control...and out for more blood.
Stalking the gay cruising scene for
his next victim, the killer is lost in a warped world of
hallucinations, surrounded by passers-by with eyes and
mouths gruesomely sewn shut. Later that night, the cops find
his latest victim's charred, headless body, and nearby, an
empty coffin. Again, Frank's detailed knowledge of the crime
startles Bletcher. Frank's investigations and visions even
lead him straight to the killer, who manages to lose Frank
after a close chase.
Frank presents his findings to the
homicide department. Obsessed by apocalyptic prophecies, and
maddened by twisted sexual guilt, the killer believes he is
cleansing sin from plague-infested Seattle. Not
unexpectedly, the cops reject what they don't
understand...except for Bletcher. He demands an explanation
from Frank. And Frank, at last, reveals his
secrets.
His gift is also his curse. He sees what
the killer sees, becoming what we most fear to hunt what we
must destroy. In the past an anonymous person sent Polaroid
photos of his family to him, distorting Frank's knowledge of
evil into paralyzing fear. He quit the FBI, refusing to let
his family out of his sight. Then he was contacted by the
Millennium Group, an association formed to battle the
darkness that approaches with the coming millennium. They
offered to help him use his gift, and Frank moved his family
back to Seattle.
Frank must rush to the hospital when his daughter is
stricken with a high fever. Despite his love for Jordan, he
can't leave his job behind. Alerted by sudden insight, Frank
leads the cops to their most horrifying discovery: a man
buried alive, his eyes and mouth sewn shut, his fingertips
roughly amputated.
Finally, Frank tracks the killer to
the police department's own evidence lab. In a psychotic
rage, the killer savagely attacks Frank, raving about the
apocalypse. Just in time, Bletcher's bullet saves Frank from
the killer's deadly assault.
The killer's death releases Frank to
seek peace in the love of his family. But his serenity is
shattered by a nightmare sent in the mail: anonymous Polaroids of his family.
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Photographs:
- Inside the Ruby Tip peep show
- Calamity is murdered by the Frenchman
- Gruesome
evidence of the killer's crimes
- A
glimpse of the Frenchman's visions
- Calamity
burns in the Frenchman's vision
- Seattle
police uncover a woodland grave
- One of
the Frenchman's burning victims
- The
Frenchman lurks in Seattle shadows
- Frank
and police conduct a night search
- The
Frenchman presents his poetry
- Seattle
police discover a severed head
- A
victim, his mouth and eyes sewn shut
- Bletcher and Frank visit a crime scene
- Frank
reviews the killer's poetry
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Abyss Rating:
(5/5)
Media Review:
"In a season of massively hyped but
somewhat undernourished new series, here's a program that finally
delivers.
The anxiously awaited brainchild of
X-Files creator Chris Carter, Millennium stars craggy Lance
Henriksen as an ex-FBI agent whose specialty is tracking down serial
killers. What gives this hypnotically frightening program its special
twist is that Henriksen has the ability to see inside the minds of his
murderous prey...
With its creepy soundtrack, terrifying
visuals and ingenious plot twists, Millennium is far and away
the best new show of the year."
—Joe Queenan, People
"Mr. Carter pushes all the right
apocalyptic buttons. There are the Bible's Book of Revelations, of
course, and quotations from Nostradamus. Literary sources include the
William Butler Yeats poem 'The Second Coming' and its declaration that
the 'the ceremony of innocence is drowned.' In a nod to J. D.
Salinger, someone says of Frank, 'Think of him as the catcher in the
rye, standing at the edge of the cliff trying to save the world'...
We're not in fluff-land anymore, Toto. Frank's little girl does get an
adorable puppy. Somehow, in this context, that cozy image is
foreboding." —John J. O'Connor,
The New York Times
"'Pilot' is perhaps the most perfect
opening episode to a one-hour suspense thriller television show ever
conceived. It manages to balance the necessary introductory exposition
(who Frank is, why he’s retired FBI and what the Millennium
Group is all about) with a tense, dread-filled storyline of sadistic
serial killing. The great thing about Chris Carter’s script is that it
never treats the murders as anything other than serious and finds
clever, unique ways to tie them in to some manner of evolving
mythology." —Bill Gibron, DVD
Talk
Trivia:
Early in 1995, The X-Files creator
Chris Carter was approached by the Fox network and asked if he would
consider creating a second television series. Carter commented
that he had begun thinking about a series focused on the coming
millennium and an unscientific approach to examining evil. Millennium, the culmination of those two key concepts, was
subsequently developed by Ten-Thirteen Productions and premiered the
following year.
The premiere of Millennium on Fox
was a record breaking ratings success, garnering the highest ratings
in the network's history for a drama series debut, thanks primarily to
a relentless advertising campaign. Over 17
million viewers were watching on October 25, 1996 as the series aired
for the first time.
While Chris Carter created the role of
Frank Black specifically for actor Lance Henriksen, the Fox network
intended to place film star William Hurt in the lead role of the new
drama series. Fortunately, Carter was successful in persuading
both Henriksen and Fox that his first choice was the only man for the
job.
Filling Fox's 9:00pm Friday timeslot,
Millennium took a scheduling position The X-Files had
held successfully for three years. The move was an uneasy one at
first for both fans and staff of the latter series, prompting star David Duchovny to comment, "You feel
a little like, you know, you were an only child for a while and then,
all of a sudden, you've got a little brother and maybe you want to go
to the crib at night and drop a rock on its head."
Chris Carter has revealed that at some
point in his family's history the surname was changed from Black to
Carter. Thus, the characters on Millennium take their
family name from their creator's genealogy, specifically Catherine,
who is named for Carter's mother.
Carter recorded an audio commentary to
accompany this episode for Fox Home Entertainment's DVD release of
Millennium: The Complete First Season.
Death Toll:
3
Title:
"Pilot" is simply an
entertainment industry term for any
television program produced as a prototype
of a series being considered for adoption by a network. When
this episode was novelized by author Elizabeth Hand it was given the
title "The Frenchman" and, subsequently, the episode
is also referred to by that alternate name.
Soundtrack:
"Head Like a Hole" by Nine Inch Nails
"More Human Than Human" by White Zombie
"Piggy" by Nine Inch Nails
"Roads" by Portishead
"In the Hands of Death" by Rob Zombie &
Alice Cooper
Awards:
People's Choice Award -
Millennium, Favorite New Television Drama Series (Winner)
American Society of Cinematographers
Award - Pete Wunstorf, Outstanding
Achievement in Cinematography in a Pilot (Nominee)
Starring:
Lance Henriksen as Frank Black
Megan Gallagher as Catherine Black
Brittany Tiplady as Jordan Black
Bill Smitrovich as Lt. Bob Bletcher
Terry O'Quinn as Peter Watts
Guest Starring:
Paul Dillon as the Frenchman
Stephen E. Miller as Det. Roger Kamm
Stephen J. Lang as Det. Bob Geibelhouse
Kate Luyben as Tuesday
April Telek as Calamity
Don MacKay as Jack Meredith
Mike Puttonen as Pathologist Curt Massey
Jarred Blancard as Sammy
Production
Credits:
Production #4C79
Music by Mark Snow
Production Designer Gary Wissner
Director of Photography Peter Wunstorf
Supervising Producer John Peter Kousakis
Co-Executive Producer David Nutter
Executive Producer Chris Carter
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