Millennium, Season 1: 11-16

[lookingland]

Welcome to Millennium Monday. Lost a week back there since I was out of town, so I have a lot to catch up on. Hopefully I can do so with relative competence. My memory is not so good these days, so I'm relying on Fourth Horseman Press Millennial Abyss to jog me on the details.

The episodes ~

"Weeds"

Another gated-community storyline. This one was good for the kidnappings and the peculiar motives of the killer, but it sort of bogged down under the weight of the obviousness of the suspects. Was it just me or was the murderer too easy to identify? Or were we supposed to know? I couldn't tell so that weakened the overall effect for me.

"Loin like a Hunting Flame"

Here's another one where the elaborateness of the killer's methods feels so extreme it's almost goofy. It's a good episode to make use of Frank's abilities to crack the case, but still leans on the silly side. Interestingly, the final near-victims in this one don't fit the profile of the other victims. Also, the killer's life seems to draw a lot from Peter Kurten (the Dusseldorf vampire). I'm not sure whether this annoyed me. I wanted them to go farther with it and the episode just seemed to hold back. P.S. I liked the perspective of the character of Detective Thomas in this one.

"Force Majeure"

How can anyone not love Brad Dourif? This was a great, creepy episode about a doomsday cult of "clones". Finally we're back to the whole "millennium" thing. It's a bit odd seeing Dourif as Hoffman here as a conspiracy theorist after he was a serial killer in the X-files. He made a repeat appearance on that show. Maybe he will again on this one?

"The Thin White Line"

I'm going to have to watch this episode again because for some reason I just couldn't get into it. There's a copycat killer, the guy he's copying is in prison where Frank put him many years ago. Frank spends a lot of time thinking about how he should have killed the guy. Mostly straight-up procedural with some too-dimly lit flashbacks and a lot of scenery-chewing in Frank's encounters with the "deadly" Hance. Neh.

"Sacrament"

More evidence here that Jordan has inherited her father's "gift". I really liked this episode because it was totally personal. And I liked meeting Frank's brother (and liked him as a character!). It was a bit too obvious that it was the father who was pulling the son's strings, but emotionally the story was very satisfying and had a nice combo of police biz and the supernatural.

"Covenant"

Here's one in which a man murders his whole family ~ or did he? While this one leaned a little heavy on the psychological explanations toward the wrap-up, I really loved the gruesomeness of the crime and the way Frank unravels it all. I also loved the character of Officer Reilly. It was nice, again, to see more drama on a personal level with the investigators. I think that's one thing this show does really well.

Final impressions for 11-16: We're still in Season One and the show still feels a bit uneven, but I can tell it's starting to pick up some speed now that the major themes have been established. There's also a lot of hints that Frank's idyllic family life is bound for rocky waters ~ and soon. I kind of don't want to see his family fall apart or get killed off because then he'll just be another grim detective. I am enjoying holding onto his humanity right now.

More next week!

: D

Comments

[utter-scoundrel.livejournal.com]

I was not a fan of Covenant...

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i thought it was too chatty ~ but it was an interesting case and fun to watch Frank scramble to prove his theory. sometimes i think some of these episodes suffer from being too short ~ like if there was a little more room the plots could be a little more intricate.

maybe that could also be a backhanded way of saying that many of the scripts aren't written very tight in the first season.