Both the X-Files and Millennium were Fox Network, Chris Carter created, conspiracy driven creepfests.

    Chris Carter became hugely famous with the success of The X-Files. The show focused on the exploits of two FBI agents investigating the paranormal and fighting against a hidden conspiracy by powerful men to sell the Earth out to an alien invasion. The fact that that premise sounds sooo stupid and yet the show makes it seem perfectly believable should tell you how well this show was made.

    Following the success of The X-Files, Fox offered Carter the chance to make more shows. He followed up with Millennium. Millennium centered around Frank Black, an Ex-FBI agent who was now working with a private security firm called the Millennium Group. Far from just being a security firm, they were also out to protect the world from Armageddon. The idea was that as the millennium approached, more and more crazies were coming out. Some were just nuts influenced to dark deeds by the idea that the millennium was arriving. Others were... well as it turns out actual dark supernatural forces were perhaps at work. Frank possessed the ability to see the world from the point of view of the criminals he tracked. He could basically crawl inside their head. This started out as a skill similar to real FBI profilers but soon became a psychic gift unique to Frank... and his daughter.

    The first season of Millennium was bleak, dark. After watching an episode Schindler's List might seem cheery. The second season moved the show into a new direction. Frank Black was set on a sort of spiritual journey of self discovery. He learned to trust his own feel for right and wrong more and more as the Millennium Group seemed less and less to be a totally beneficent organization. As part of this process of making the show less of a downer, Darin Morgan, writer of some of the best comic and yet very dark X-File episodes, was brought on as a producer. He also wrote the first truly comical episode for Millennium.

    One of Darin Morgan's greatest X-Files episodes had been one titled Jose Chung's From Outer Space. It centered around writer Jose Chung's investigation of a UFO incident involving Mulder And Scully. Over the course of the show, several different points of view from several different witnesses on the same incident proved that finding the truth is often very difficult.

    For Millennium's first comic outing, Darin Morgan brought back Charle's Nelson Riley's character of Jose Chung. It was called Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense and again centered on Chung investigating cases for his new book about a new age religious group which was a send up of Diep Pak Chopra, Scientology and everything in between. By the end of the episode Jose Chung, the connecting bridge between the two shows was dead.

    The third and final season of Millennium saw dramatic changes to the show. Frank's wife was dead. One of his frequent partners was also either dead or insane. Both of these horrors happened because of the Millennium Group. Turns out they didn't want to stop the apocalypse but to have control over it. They also would crush or kill anyone who got in their way. After recovering from a mental breakdown, Frank rejoined the FBI and crusaded against the Millennium Group, constantly butting heads with Peter Watts, his former colleague in the group. He also took under his wing a young FBI agent named Emma Hollis. But no one would believe Franks claims about the Millennium Group. By season's end, Watts died protecting Frank from the group and Hollis was compromised and seduced into joining the group. She would serve as their insider in the F.B.I. Frank lost his job at the bureau and he and his daughter were forced to go into hiding to keep from also being killed or worse. And that's how things were left. The show was cancelled in 1999 before Millennium could reach the actual millennium.

    Ah ha though! We are talking about a Chris Carter show. With other shows that are cancelled on a cliffhanger you might be out of luck but with The X-Files still going strong Chris Carter said that he would use The X-files to wrap up many of Millennium's plot threads that were left hanging in its finale.

    In an X-File episode centering on the millennium, Mulder and Scully finally met Frank Black. It seems four former F.B.I. agents who were also former Millennium group members had recently not only killed themselves but then had their remains stolen. Mulder and Scully were called in to investigate. Given the evidence, a tie to the Millennium Group seemed likely. But The Millennium Group had apparently disbanded after their cult/fanatical status came to light.

    To help solve the case the agents sought out Frank Black. They found him in a mental institution. Frank had checked himself in. It seems his in-laws were fighting him for custody of his daughter Jordan. They felt he was crazy and that he was putting his work ahead of her. Frank checked himself in to prove he was sane and he refused to even discuss the Millennium group for fear of jeopardizing Jordan's custody (talking about work don't ya know).

    In the end he did lend his aid though. It seems the four dead men in question formed a splinter faction of the Millennium Group. Their plan was to kill themselves and then have a man they had hired raise them as zombies on New Years Day 2000. They believed they would rise as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and bring about the end of the world. As with any good zombie story, the only way to kill the zombies was a gunshot to the head. In the end, surprise, the plot was foiled and the episode ended with another piece of X-files history. At midnight as 1999 ended, Scully and Mulder shared their first kiss. Echoing both millenninal fears and fans fear that a romance between the two would ruin the show, following the kiss Mulder said, "See, the world didn't end."

    But let me say something about this episode. Namely this: what the hell???? This is the closure on Millennium we were promised? When the show ended, the Millennium Group was still going full force with no one believing Frank's claims. All of a sudden they're disbanded and we're watching a fight with a splinter faction. Huh? And Frank might lose his kid because he puts his work before her? Again, when last seen, Frank had LOST his job and was going into hiding with Jordan. How could he put his job ahead of Jordan when he was unemployed? And what happened to going into hiding? This episode basically backed things up a few paces and then left them just as vague as before. We see Frank reunited with his daughter but we are not told he has won the custody battle or anything.

    This episode tries to jam too much in. A Millennium crossover, the start of Scully and Mulder's romance and a plot that is a tribute to Night Of The Living Dead. It ends up being bad and a, I'm guessing, unintended tribute to the king of bad sci-fi stories. Look at the plot: an attempt to take over the world by raising up zombies but only four zombies are raised. So the Millennium Groups huge plan to take over the world is Plan 9 From Outer Space? Hey, Chris Carter, when you're using plots Ed Wood invented, that is not a good sign.

Other X-Files Crossover Links
The X-files and COPS
The X-files and Homicide: Life On The Street
The X-files and Law And Order: Special Victims Unit
The X-files and The Lone Gunmen
The X-Files and Picket Fences
The X-files and The Simpsons
The X-Files and Strange Luck

Click here to return to main Crossover List

Buy these shows on Amazon.com and support this site at the same time! Catch Jose Chung in X-Files Season 3 and in Millennium Season 2. Also see Frank Black in X-Files Season 7 (That X-Files episode is also available on the Millennium Season 3 DVD set).





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