frank black | the m0vie blog

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Millennium in Comics (“Immaculate” & “Mini-Series”)

Posted on September 7, 2021 by Darren

I’ve been really honoured to be a recurring guest on The Time is Now across its coverage of Millennium, a vastly underrated and under-appreciated television series. The podcast has finished its coverage of the show, but I was thrilled to join Tony Black for a discussion of the tie-in comic books published after the show finished up.

To be fair, it seems like Millennium only really came back as an extension of IDW’s management of the larger X-Files brand, as the publisher tried to figure out if the market would support an X-Files-adjacent comic book as hype built around the franchise’s return to television. Still, the results were interesting and worth discussing on their own merits, an effort to bring Frank Black and the Millennium Group into the twenty-first century.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Comics, Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: frank black, joe harris, millennium, podcast, the time is now, tony black | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 7, Episode 4 (“Millennium”)

Posted on July 31, 2021 by Darren

With The X-Cast moving on to coverage of the seventh season of The X-Files, and the episode Millennium fast approaching, it seemed like a good time to resurrect the Time is Now podcast. So I joined Kurt North to talk about the controversial episode.

Millennium is a very strange episode of television. It is designed to serve as a de facto series finale for Chris Carter’s Millennium while folding it into the mythology of The X-Files. However, it is an episode where two of the three credited writers have never worked on Millennium, and which builds to a climax of the mythology of Millennium which doesn’t really fit with anything that appeared on screen. However, it is also the episode that builds to the first on-screen kiss between Mulder and Scully, which creates an interesting tension in terms of the episode’s priorities.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: frank black, kiss, kurt north, Lance Henriksen, millennium, the x-cast, the x-files, zombies | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 3, Episode 22 (“Goodbye to All That”)

Posted on April 13, 2021 by Darren

Last year, I was thrilled to spend a lot of time on The Time is Now discussing the second season of Millennium. Since the podcast has moved on to the third season, I have taken something of a step back as a guest. That said, I have been a bit more active in the second half of the third season. I was flattered to get an invitation to discuss the show’s final episode, Goodbye to All That, with host Kurt North and guest Chris Knowles.

The series finale of Millennium is a strange beast. It tries to do a lot, and doesn’t always accomplish what it attempts with particular grace or finesse. Still, it does represent an attempt to reconcile the show to itself, to bring the characters and the narrative to a place where something resembling closure is within reach. It doesn’t entirely work, but it is a valiant effort.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: chris knowles, conclusions, endings, frank black, goodbye to all that, kurt north, millennium, peter watts, serial killers | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 3, Episode 12 (“The Sound of Snow”)

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Darren

Last year, I was thrilled to spend a lot of time on The Time is Now discussing the second season of Millennium. Since the podcast has moved on to the third season, I have taken something of a step back as a guest. That said, I was flattered to get an invitation to discuss The Sound of Snow with the fantastic Kurt North and the wonderful Chris Knowles.

The Sound of Snow my favourite episode of the third season of Millennium, serving as a nice epilogue to the second season finale The Fourth Horseman and The Time is Now. It is an episode that is largely about grief and moving on, about coming to terms with loss and about working through it. In some ways, it feels like a necessary story for the third season of Millennium as a whole, and it is only a shame that it takes half a season for the show to reach the point where it can tell this story.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: catherine black, chris knowles, death, frank black, grief, kurt north, millennium, podcast, the sound of snow, the time is now | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 23 (“The Time is Now”)

Posted on July 1, 2020 by Darren

And with that, The Time is Now finishes its coverage of the second season of Millennium, and I was flattered to be invited to discuss the second part of the two-part season finale The Time is Now with the fantastic Kurt North.

I’ve talked a great deal before about how the second season of Millennium is one of my favourite seasons of television ever made. And it has been an absolute joy revisiting it for these podcast discussions. It’s been amazing to see that the show still holds up more than twenty years after it was originally produced, and to see how it resonates in entirely new and surprising ways with the world as it exists today. Twenty years later, the second season is still a monumental and underrated piece of television.

It has been a huge honour to talk so much about the season. I think, outside of Kurt, I’ve been the contributor who has appeared most frequently on these episodes. I hope I’ve been able to make a coherent and convincing case for why I think so many of the individual episodes – and indeed the larger season as a whole – are masterpieces of storytelling and among the very best material that Ten Thirteen ever produced. Thanks to Kurt and Tony for having me, and thanks to the listeners for putting up with me.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: apocalypse, death, destruction, end of the world, frank black, millennium, podcast, the time is now | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 14 (“The Pest House”)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Darren

I am in the middle of a run of appearances on The Time is Now at the moment, and taking the time out to discuss the rare second season episode of Millennium that I don’t consider to be a highlight. I’m discussing The Pest House with the wonderful Kurt North and the fantastic Adam Chamberlain.

The Pest House is an interesting episode. It’s written by the second season showrunners Glen Morgan and James Wong, and plays into some of their interests in the horror genre. It’s very much a celebration of slasher movie clichés, which would be reflected in their projects after finishing up on Millennium – from Morgan’s Black Christmas to Wong’s American Horror Story to their joint Final Destination. However, the episode often feels like a mess of tropes and ideas, at least two different episodes stitched inelegantly together.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: adam chamberlain, frank black, kurt north, millennium, the pest house, the time is now | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 10 (“Midnight of the Century”)

Posted on December 24, 2019 by Darren

It’s Christmas, so The Time is Now has a special treat lined up for you. It’s the night before Christmas, so it was the perfect opportunity to discuss Midnight of the Century with the wonderful Tony Black. It’s something of a companion piece to our discussion of The Curse of Frank Black at Halloween.

It’s strange to imagine Millennium producing a Christmas episode. It’s even stranger to realise that’s a pretty much perfect episode for the season, following Frank Black through his Christmas Eve as he tries to work through his own complicated feelings about the holidays. Then again, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, the second season was show run by Glen Morgan and James Wong who had written Christmas-themed episodes like Beyond the Sea on The X-Files and River of Stars on Space: Above and Beyond. It is a delight.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below. Have a Merry Christmas!

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: christmas, frank black, midnight of the century, millennium, podcast, tony black | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 6 (“The Curse of Frank Black”)

Posted on October 31, 2019 by Darren

Because it’s Halloween, The Time is Now has a special treat. I was flattered to talk about The Curse of Frank Black with the one and only Tony Black. A perfect piece of Halloween viewing, it is one of my favourite episodes of Millennium, and so was a huge honour to be asked to sit in on this one.

I’ve gone on record about this before. The second season of Millennium is one of my favourite twenty-odd-episode seasons of television ever produced. It is hard to pick a single favourite from a season that features episodes like Jose Chung’s “Doomsday Defense”, Owls and Roosters, and The Fourth Horseman and The Time is Now. Nevertheless, The Curse of Frank Black is one of those episodes of television that has really stayed with me over the years. I have lost track of how many times I have watched it, and every time I still find something new. So this was a delight.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below. I really hope you enjoy.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: discussion, frank black, halloween, Lance Henriksen, millennium, podcast, review, the curse of frank black, the time is now | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 1, Episode 19 (“Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions”)

Posted on September 2, 2019 by Darren

Wrapping up a late-first-season exploration of Millennium with the incomparable Christopher Knowles, I was thrilled to pop onto The Time is Now to discuss Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions.

In case the title doesn’t give the game away, Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions is a delightfully weird episode of television. It finds Frank Black confronting the loss of his best friend Bob Bletcher by becoming embroiled in an epic and existential conflict that exists at the very limits of his understanding. It might involve a ritualistic killer and a corrupt lawyer, but it may also involve renegade angels and the forces of hell operating on the mortal plane. The beauty of Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions lies in the ambiguity.

Indeed, that ambiguity was a huge part of the fun in discussing the episode with Chris. I think we both had slightly different reads on what the episode was about and where it was coming from, which speaks to its strength as an episode of television. It’s a staggering piece of work, one that obviously lays the groundwork for Patient X and The Red and the Black in the fifth season of The X-Files.

As ever, you can listen to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: angels, chris knowles, demons, epic, frank black, millennium, war in heaven | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 1, Episode 18 (“Lamentation”)

Posted on August 26, 2019 by Darren

As ever, a delight to stop by The Time is Now to talk about Millennium, this week as part of triptych with the great Kurt North and the wonderful Christopher Knowles.

An interesting installment this week. Kicking off a loose two-parter that effectively serves as Millennium‘s version of a mythology episode, Lamentation offers a clear escalation in the stakes of the first season. It’s a fascinating episode that seems to mark a clear transition in what Millennium is about, a strong signalling of creative intent from the production team. It’s a weird and eccentric episode of television, a real showcase of what Millennium could do when it set its mind to it.

I was pleasantly surprised at the variety of opinion on here, with each of the three of us having very different takes on the episode’s strengths and weaknesses. As ever, you can listen to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.