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The following article, written by
Richard Preston, first appeared in the pages of TV Zone
magazine, issue number 143. The quotes scattered throughout offer
valuable insight into Lance Henriksen's opinions regarding
Millennium's production. The article's content strongly reflects
Preston's and Henriksen's personal opinions regarding the quality of
the show...
Even though The X-Files spin-offs
were short-lived, no one could accuse them of being dull.
Millennium was set in the same 'spooky' universe as Mulder and
Scully's adventures, but it didn't seem to gain the same trust from
the networks. Now Season Three is to get its first screening on
British television, and series star Lance Henriksen reveals to TV
Zone he has mixed feelings about three seasons playing Frank
Black.
"The second season I wasn't as crazy about," he says. "The third I
thought was pretty wild though as I didn't know where it was going,
ever. The first season is the season I liked the most, because it was
Chris Carter doing it and he had a real control over it. He had his
hand on the helm in other words. So doing Millennium was always
an adventure because I never knew what was going to happen when they
handed me a script. That's kind of an exciting thing, you can't refuse
the scripts if you don't like them."
It is fairly well known that Season Two
was not Henriksen's favourite and, like The X-Files, it was
sometimes noticeable which episodes Carter had a hand in producing and
directing — as if there was an element of his passion coming through.
Perhaps the universe created by Carter really needed Carter himself to
be there to make sense of it all. But after a whole year with the
creator and whole year without, was Henriksen feeling reluctant about
doing a third season? "You can't predict the future, you really have
high hopes for the season that's coming. Season Three was OK. Season
One was fresh and new and it was trying to find itself and I just
think that Season Two got off to a crazy start with the guys who wrote
it, but they were OK. The third season was not the worst it was just
more scattered. I think that once the Millennium Group was found out
to be a group of bad people, the guy producing it didn't know where to
go with it. I think Fox made a big mistake canceling Millennium."
The Good and the
Bad
Was Henriksen perhaps upset at the way the second and third seasons
developed after Carter's departure? "I don't think so. Chris has a
very philosophic view of this thing, when he makes a decision he
sticks with it," says Henriksen. "Some of it I'm sure he didn't like
but if in a year you're doing 26 shows and 10 of them are excellent,
you've really done something. Some of it was very good television. It
was shot well and it was well thought out. I don't think anyone should
feel that it failed in anyway. The reason it came off the air was
totally a Fox decision, we were all ready to go again."
Perhaps Carter saw something unique in Henriksen he new producers
didn't. "I have no idea why he hired me, Chris never told me. But I
read the script and thought, 'Wow it's so dark, what's the redeeming
quality in this guy?' Chris and I met at a restaurant and talked about
it and he said that the heroic nature comes from the fact that this
guy will never give up, he won't quit but despite this, it did get
very dark, there's no doubt about that."
As fans will know, Millennium came to an end shortly before the
end of the real millennium and if it were to come back to our screens,
wouldn't the fact that it is now the 21st Century dampen the concept
of the series? "It isn't about the millennium finishing, it's really
something else. The millennium was a good hook but in reality it was
about something that is going on all the time. Like, right now there
is an awful lot of strange cases going on in America and everywhere
else. My biggest hope was that we would have done a Millennium
feature film. If anything ever leant itself to a feature it would be
Millennium. It would be pretty dark and with language too,
that's the best part. I think the reason to do a feature is that it
would have language. On television you could only get away with so
much. Millennium if anything needs language. I would love to
see what the movie would be."
Season Four?
Henriksen seems keen that the series, or at least the character of
Frank Black, could return in some form. If Millennium was to
spawn a feature film the repercussions on its universe would be very
interesting. If the desired project did go ahead it could leave the
door open for a fourth season, but what route would that take? "In a
Season Four there would be less solving the case by the hour, and
there would be many more cases going on simultaneously so that you
would never know when the show was going to end. You would just be
totally involved in the world that these characters were in. Because
some cases in reality take years, you don't do it in the course of a
show which is what I wanted to see from the very beginning.
Artistically it would become more poetic and deal with issues in a
more abstract way."
With The X-Files about to enter a ninth year, there will be
spooky goings on for quite some time. "It's pretty extraordinary. If
Chris Carter wants it to continue he'll put his vitality into it. If
he gets distracted with something else, then everything suffers just a
little bit. I guess you can't be the bride at every wedding and the
corpse at every funeral," the actor jokes.
With the parent show continuing, could Frank Black turn up again just
as in the Season Six episode "Millennium"? "I had no idea what they
were doing with that. I thought it was going to be the close of it all
but it turned out it had nothing to do with ending Millennium
it just had to do with The X-Files having a zombie show. It was
a little disappointing for me because I wanted it to be something a
little more. The only thing that ended Millennium was the fact
that it was New Year's Eve. But I'd probably come back as Frank Black,
I'd love to, but depends on what they would want me to do though."
Carter Control
From watching the second and third seasons of the show, it seems
apparent that those who had inherited Millennium didn't put the
same amount of heart and soul into it that Chris Carter had during the
first season. The show became more about the character of Black and
the cases he solved than his ability. Did the cancellation of a show
that Henriksen enjoyed and was obviously proud of upset him? "Yes it
did, but only in the respect that it was potentially a really great
show," Henriksen sighs. "I really miss the opportunity. Chris Cater
was much more honest to the original idea which was of this character,
Frank Black, and his world. If Chris had stayed with it, it would have
evolved even better and been more hardcore. It would have been really
good. I can't look back on it and think that way though. It's like
sour grapes; it would be foolish to go and pick the episodes apart
now. It was a good and powerful experience and a lot of I hard work."
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