"Millennium" is the fourth episode of the seventh season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network in the United States on November 28, 1999. It was written by Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz and directed by Thomas J. Wright. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Millennium" earned a Nielsen household rating of 9.1, and was watched by 15.09 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed reviews from television critics; some felt that the episode's plot was creepy and engaging, while others felt that it was not a decent conclusion for the Millennium television series.
The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. Mulder is a believer in the paranormal, while the skeptical Scully has been assigned to debunk his work.
In this episode, an associate of the Millennium Group—a secret society which believes the apocalypse will happen on the new year of 2000—resurrects the dead for use in bringing about the apocalypse. As a result, Mulder and Scully have to ask the help of criminal profiler Frank Black (Lance Henriksen), a man who has former experience with the shadowy group, for assistance.
The episode serves as a crossover with the series Millennium, also developed by the creator of The X-Files, Chris Carter, and was meant to bring closure to the recently cancelled series. The writers had a difficult time coming up with a story that would successfully allow Frank Black and Mulder and Scully to cross paths. Lance Henriksen later expressed disappointment with the episode. The idea to use zombies had originally been slated to appear in an aborted project X-Files remake of George A. Romero's cult 1968 zombie film Night of the Living Dead. In addition, the episode is notable for featuring Mulder and Scully's first romantic kiss. Thematically, the episode has been analyzed for its use of Biblical quotes from the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation.
Plot
Background Frank Black (Lance Henriksen), the protagonist of the series Millennium, is a freelance forensic profiler and former FBI agent who possesses the unique ability to see the world through the eyes of serial killers and murderers.Chamberlain and Dixon (2012) p. 231. For the first two seasons of the show, Black worked for a mysterious consulting firm known as the Millennium Group.Shearman and Pearson (2009) pp. 105–22.Shearman and Pearson (2009) pp. 145–63. He lived in Seattle with his wife Catherine (Megan Gallagher) and daughter Jordan (Brittany Tiplady).Chamberlain and Dixon (2012) pp. 89–100. During the first season, Black and the Group largely focused on various criminals. However, during the second and third seasons, Black began coming into conflict with the Group, which appeared to contain demonic elements and was focused on the fulfillment of apocalyptic biblical prophecy at the start of the new millennium.Shearman and Pearson (2009) pp. 188–206. During the third season, Frank returned to Washington to work with the FBI following the death of his wife at the hands of the Group. In the third season finale, Black realized that the Group was preparing to come after him, and took Jordan from school as they fled Seattle.
Events In Tallahassee, Florida, on December 21, 1999, a memorial service is held for a former FBI agent named Raymond Crouch. His widow is approached by a mysterious man, Mark Johnson (Holmes Osborne), who claims to have worked with her husband. After the other mourners have left, Johnson returns to the funeral parlor, dons the corpse's clothes and places a cell phone in the coffin. One week later, Johnson is monitoring Crouch's grave when his phone rings; he walks towards the grave with a shovel.
Subsequently, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are called in to examine Crouch's empty grave. They notice damage done to the interior of the casket; Scully theorizes that the scene was staged. A briefing is held by Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), who notes that Crouch is one of four former agents whose graves have been exhumed; all four men had committed suicide. Because of the presence of goat's blood encircling the grave, Mulder states that the crime was an act of necromancy. After the briefing, Skinner takes the agents aside and asks them to investigate Crouch's possible ties to the Millennium Group, which is now dissolved.
Mulder and Scully go to a mental institution in Woodbridge, Virginia, to visit Frank Black. Black is initially reluctant to help them, as he believes that any further involvement with the Group may hinder his custody battle for his daughter Jordan. When he finally agrees to assist, he explains that the four former members of the Group believe they can bring about the end of the world by killing themselves before the dawn of the millennium, acting as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Meanwhile, Johnson is changing a tire on his truck when a deputy comes upon him. Discovering Crouch's body in the back, the deputy attempts to arrest Johnson but is attacked and killed by a suddenly reanimated Crouch.
Acting upon information from Black, Mulder concentrates on trying to find Johnson while Scully is attacked in the morgue by the dead deputy; Johnson saves her by shooting the deputy before disappearing. The two agents put all their effort in to finding Johnson before it is too late. Mulder breaks into his house but is locked in the basement and attacked by the four corpses of the FBI agents, managing to shoot and kill one of them. Black shows up; after tying up Johnson, Black shoots two of the zombies. As his gun runs out of bullets and death seems imminent, Scully arrives and shoots the final zombie, saving both men. Black returns to the hospital, arranging to have himself discharged. Scully informs Black that he has a visitor and brings in Jordan. Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve is on television; Black and his daughter leave just before the countdown begins. As the clock strikes zero and the crowd begins to sing "Auld Lang Syne" on screen, Mulder and Scully kiss to ring in the new year.
Production
Background
"Millennium" serves as a crossover with the Fox series Millennium, also created by Chris Carter. Although Millennium, which debuted in 1996, had enjoyed critical acclaim, it suffered from low ratings and was cancelled after its third season.Shapiro (2000), p. 54. Unfortunately, the final episode of Millennium had been filmed before the cancellation notice, resulting in the series concluding on a cliffhanger. This episode features the last appearances of Frank Black and Jordan Black, and for this reason, is often cited as a way to bring closure to the Millennium series and its story arc. Incidentally, this episode is actually the second crossover between The X-Files and Millennium; the previous crossover involved a minor character—author Jose Chung—from "Jose Chung's From Outer Space", who appeared and was killed in the Millennium episode "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense".
The idea to use zombies for "Millennium" arose from a separate aborted project. Reportedly, Stephen King, who had co-penned the fifth-season episode "Chinga", wished to write an episode based on George A. Romero's cult zombie film Night of the Living Dead (1968). Romero was also slated to direct the episode. According to "Millennium" co-writer and executive producer Frank Spotnitz, the staff of The X-Files met with both King and Romero, and the two showed an interest in producing the episode. While the episode was slated for the seventh season, it never came to fruition. Zombies as a plot device were then later relegated to what would become "Millennium". However, Mulder's line, "Shoot them in the head, it seems to stop them", mirrors a very similar line from Night of the Living Dead: "Shoot them in the head, that's a sure way to kill them."George Romero (1968). Night of the Living Dead (Digital). WebArchive. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
Writing and filming The producers of both The X-Files and Millennium had started to mull over the idea of doing a crossover when both shows were still on the air, and after Millennium was cancelled, The X-Files staff realized that a crossover made sense. Nevertheless, writing the story proved difficult, as the writers did not know whether to pen a story that dealt solely with wrapping-up Millennium, or if they should feature elements of Millennium intermixed within an X-Files investigation. The writers eventually went with the latter. With that said, Vince Gilligan, the co-writer of the episode, explained that he and Frank Spotnitz were more interested in "what would happen if Frank Black came into Mulder and Scully's world?" Gilligan also maintains that the episode was written to finally bring zombies into The X-Files universe. He explained: "It wasn't about the plot as much as getting [Mulder and Black] down in the basement of this creepy old house with these zombies climbing up out of the ground, and having to [shoot them] in the head." Gilligan also claims that the fear surrounding the perceived Year 2000 problem (that is, an issue for both digital and non-digital documentation and data storage situations which resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits) served as an inspiration for the episode. Gilligan later joked that he was "proud to say I never bought into any of that Y2K BS for a minute!"
Regarding the episode serving as a de facto series finale for Millennium, John Shiban said: "We realized that the story needed to be an X-File and that any Millennium ending we came up with had to come second. We needed to do what we always do, which is to follow Mulder and Scully through their case." For these reasons, Lance Henriksen, who portrayed Frank Black, was unhappy with the finished product, believing it to be a lackluster ending for the Millennium story. After the cancellation of Millennium, Carter called up Henriksen and asked if he would be interested in appearing in an episode of The X-Files that would wrap up the show's arc. Henriksen was excited about the episode, but when he received the script it was about zombies, much to his dismay. He noted that the episode's story was "a reasonable X-File but it's not Millennium." Spotnitz later admitted that the episode "was not completely successful, I suppose, but still seems worth it for having brought back Lance Henriksen."