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It goes without saying
that we were thrilled when we learned that Chris Carter would be
available to chat in conjunction with two high-profile DVD releases.
This issue, we kick off the interview with his thoughts on the first
of those two releases, the debut season of Millennium... Let's return
to the late 20th century and the early days of Chris' second classic
series for television, Millennium.
Let's talk about
the genesis for the series concept. How did it evolve in the
beginning?
It came from an X-Files episode. There was an episode
in season three called "Irresistible." It was about a human monster
rather than a supernatural monster, and it was a very successful
episode. It was creepy and scary and disturbing. I thought, "This is
interesting." You can tell these stories about people who are among us
and make a good scary show like The X-Files. So that's what I
set out to do. I had a character in mind that became Frank Black. The
only thing I didn't have was the concept of the oncoming millennium,
but that later presented itself to me. So it was those three things: A
murder mystery each week, the character of Frank Black and his cross
to bear, and the upcoming millennium. Those were the three elements
that made me interested in the show.
You mentioned
Frank Black, who was played by Lance Henrickson. What did finding
Lance bring to the table?
I wrote it for him. It was just a stroke of luck that I was
able to get it to him. He was staying at the same hotel that we had
all either lived at or stayed at during the early days of The
X-Files. Luckily, I had connections there at the hotel, and I had
someone slip a note under his door. I have to say, I did a little bit
of extra sales pitching with him. But he was very receptive, and I
think flattered. He loved the material and continues to. He and I have
spoken about doing a Millennium movie, whether or not that
would ever happen. Maybe it could, based on the success of this DVD
release.
So you had The
X-Files up and running, and then you also launched Millennium.
What was it like doing two shows at once? That must have been at least
a little bit taxing.
Yeah. I'd never done it before, so it was a trick. I wish I
could tell you that I had a system, but mostly it was just that I
worked like hell.
Do you remember
how many hours a day?
It was crazy. You were never not working. We did the X-Files
movie that year too.
Unbelievable. Is
there a moment or episode from that first season of Millennium
that you're most proud of?
I have to say the pilot. It's hard to come up with an idea
that will launch a thousand episodes, but I think that I came up with
the character and the idea, and you could see it. It only went 66
episodes, so it fell so much short of that goal. But the pilot sets up
beautifully the world, the character, the objectives, and the
obstacles, as all pilots should.
Your shows seem to
have a really strong thematic element to them. For you, what was the
theme of Millennium? What was it about?
It was about a person who was very good at his job, maybe even had a
gift for it, and who had to make a choice between protecting his
family and protecting the world. He had to weigh and balance and
juggle both of those things as the millennium counted down. It began
with the prospect of something terrible happening at the turn of the
century, which we were all very nervous about in Y2K. That was
interesting to me because it had been prophesied, not just in
Nostradamus but in the Bible. There was power in those ideas, and I
tried to use it as much as I could.
What about a
Millennium movie? what would that movie be, and what stage if any
is the project in at this point?
It's only in the, "Gee, wouldn't that be great?" stage. There's been
no talk about it, and I don't know if there would ever be any talk
about it beyond Lance and I saying, "That would be cool." I actually
have an interesting take on it, not even really a story, but an idea
for how Frank Black would get into a movie. While there's some
inspiration, I don't know if there will ever be opportunity.
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