Millennium: Season 2

In its 1997-'98 season, Millennium evolved in a fundamentally different direction. While season one had been primarily guided by series creator Chris Carter's vision for the show, during the production of season two, Carter was busy with his other long-running TV series (The X-Files) and its feature film, so creative control over Millennium was passed along to X-Files alumni James Wong and Glen Morgan. Morgan and Wong's vision dealt less with lead character Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) solving brutal homicides and more with the mythology of the Millennium Group and the larger worldwide conspiracy. The season opens with the kidnapping of Frank's wife by the stalker who'd been mailing Polaroids to Frank throughout the first season. She's subsequently rescued by her husband and forced to watch as he kills her abductor in a fit of not wholly unjustified rage. This leads to the couple's immediate separation, and also marks a notable turn in focus towards the characters' inner struggles. Due to the familial stress, Frank's talent of seeing into the mind of perpetrators falters when for a period all he sees is the personal, and instead of Polaroids he now finds himself haunted by prank calls. All the while the Millennium Group continues its investigation into prophesies, the shift in the balance of good and evil, and the conclusive evidence of the upcoming millennial doomsday. Though by mid-season internal dissention grows within the organisation and it splinters into two factions. Simultaneously Frank's growing distrust of his employers peaks and he leaves the Group, marking the second of three significant plot curves found in the 23-episode season. Unfortunately Fox has learned nothing from the release of the first Millennium season and once again slights the frustratingly overlooked series in the extras department, including commentaries for only two episodes and limiting the bonus features to a documentary on the making of season two and a new Academy Group featurette on Victimology. (Fox)