This July, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the sixth season of The X-Files and the third (and final) season of Millennium.
Human Essence is the second (and final) script from Michael Duggan. It is also, notably, the first episode of the third season not to credit Duggan as an “executive producer” before the final credits.
Human Essence is a terrible episode of television. However, it is interesting to note that it is mostly terrible in ways that generic television can be terrible. The third season of Millennium is often terrible because of decisions or realities imposed by or resulting from creative decisions relating to the show itself. In the case of something like Through a Glass Darkly, the terribleness results from a perfect storm of vices associated with Millennium as a show. The Innocents and Exegesis are hobbled by choices made about the direction of the show.
Human Essence is terrible in a much more generic way. It would be a terrible episode of just about any television show. One of the problems with the episode is that it feels like it could easily be a terrible episode of just about any television show. With some light revisions, Human Essence could easily become a terrible episode of The X-Files or a terrible episode of Law & Order. Change the character names, tweak the dialogue a little. It wouldn’t take more than some light scrubbing to remove any hint of Millennium from the script.
However, it would take significantly more scrubbing to get the smell of crap off the script.
Filed under: Millennium | Tagged: drugs, drugs are bad, emma hollis, frank black, heroin, human essence, michael duggan, millennium, racism, worst episode ever | Leave a comment »