ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 10, 1997 Commentary TAG: 9701100119
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Once upon a time, ``The Twilight Zone'' hatched eerie little parables of human frailty. Along with a dependable chill, each episode was designed to give the viewer meaning, closure, even the prospect of redemption.
Although clearly its descendent in TV's metaphysical menagerie, ``Millennium'' is way past twilight. By now, night has fallen. Darkness rules.
On ``Millennium,'' which airs tonight at 9 on Fox's WJPR/WFXR (Channel 21/27), it's always raining. And no one is about to let a smile be their umbrella.
Least of all Frank Black, for whom a smile seems as unlikely a contortion as tucking his heels behind his head. Played by Lance Henriksen, whose face suggests something left to spoil in the refrigerator, Black is a retired FBI agent haunted by the hideous cases he handled at the bureau.
So he has transplanted his loving, long-suffering wife (played by Megan Gallagher) and their winsome little daughter to a new town, where he hopes to find healing for his tormented soul.
Why couldn't he have picked a sunny spot like Palm Springs and taken up golf? Instead, his family resettles in Seattle, where, when it rains, it pours on Frank, who just can't tear himself away from the psycho-chasing game.
And no wonder. He's so cut out for it. He can get inside the minds of the killers he tracks, and see what the killer sees. Talk about over-identifying!
Frank hooks up with a shadowy consultancy whose name, the Millennium Group, reflects its associates' belief that as the year 2000 approaches, things are getting wiggier and awfuller. These guys figure they've got to do more to prepare than stock up on Moet & Chandon.
As Black might say, ``The easy thing to do here is overlook the complexity. There's an act of hubris at work here, a perverse calculus.'' That is, he might say it when he isn't muttering about ``red rain falling in the face of the beast'' or quoting Nostradamus.
In a world as truly unforgiving as Frank thinks this one is, such sotto voce sourness would trigger comebacks like ``lighten up, dude'' or ``speak English!'' from those within earshot. But no. They eat Frank with a spoon.
``Millennium,'' a first-season nightmare of nihilistic bogeymen created by Chris Carter, basks in the irreconcilable, not unlike Carter's smash-hit ``The X-Files,'' now in its fourth year mocking Scully and Mulder with answers as unreachable as mirages.
Cosmic helplessness is what these shows trade in. A government agency is after you. Aliens are in your neighborhood. A sweating, wild-eyed serial killer has you on his things-to-do list.
And to give it all a weighty feel, the dialogue is sparse and the action even sparser. This isn't a drama. It's a sick tease.
Now if you think ``Millennium'' makes good on Carter's pledge that it's a serious exploration of good and evil, you probably consider ``Baywatch'' a weekly update on the elastic properties of modern man-made fibers.
Or maybe you don't think much of anything about ``Millennium.'' After a delirious reception by viewers when it debuted in October, its household ratings have plunged by more than one-third.
Perhaps some retooling is in store. A recent ``Millennium,'' which dealt with a troubled youth who just couldn't resist the funerals of strangers, seemed to back off from the show's usual apocalyptic piffle and concentrate on two things that, until then, had been of minimal concern: story and characters. It was a marked improvement.
But ``Millennium'' has mostly been satisfied to reduce evil-doing to gruesome specificity, and evil-doers to sweaty, wild-eyed stereotypes bent on grossing the viewer out.
Which they certainly do. Depending on the week, a nasty so-and-so FedExes someone a human tongue, buries folks alive with their mouths sewn shut, fries a priest on a cross, or gets sexual release by blowing up a singles bar. All too eagerly does ``Millennium'' depict the violence it officially deplores.
The driving force behind ``Millennium,'' besides a warbling violin, seems to be this tortured logic: The more oddball and disgusting the offense, the worse it reflects upon the whole human race, and the greater doubt it raises that anyone, including Frank Black, can make sense of evil or inroads against it.
``You caught the bad man?'' asks Frank's little girl.
To which Dad responds, ``I'm not so sure the bad man can be caught.''
Catch this: ``Millennium'' is as fatuous as it is despairing, and as grisly as it is self-righteous. It should be sponsored by 2,000 Flushes.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 linesby CNB