It's "end times" thrills for secularists in X-Files creator Chris Carter's crime drama Millennium, which explores millennial paranoia from a worldly perspective while also maintaining an unrelenting, uncanny sense of creepiness. Throughout the 22 episodes from the debut 1996-97 season collected here, it's clear that retired FBI criminal profiler Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) has some paranormal simpatico with serial killers and other deviants, but there's a grounded rationality to his unraveling of murders and other awful acts springing from twisted religious faith, apocalyptic prophecies, terrorism, and biblical mania. In other words, the evil that men do here isn't rooted in the supernatural but instead in an obsessive belief in the supernatural, and while it delves into the most heinous things humans can do, Millennium is never exploitive or sensational (in fact, this may be one of the least melodramatic explorations of human aberrance ever witnessed on the small screen). Henriksen was nominated for a Golden Globe and has yet to match the rooted intensity of his performance here as a man driven by demons internal and external, as well as a desire to protect his wife (Megan Gallagher) and young daughter (Brittany Tiplady), as well as their innocence regarding the world's depravity. DVD extras include a pair of commentaries (one by Carter on the pilot episode), a 50-minute "making-of," and two featurettes. Highly recommended. (M. Johanson)
Millennium: The Complete First Season
Fox, 6 discs, 946 min., not rated, DVD: $59.98 December 13, 2004
Millennium: The Complete First Season
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