Anthrax, Dr. Strangelove, and TV's Millennium

A Different Drummer ^ | 9 June 2002 | Nicholas Stix

[mrustow]

A lot of Millenarians say that the second year was the best, but I loved II and III equally. At the time, I didn't know that James Wong and some other writers were fired or left after the second season, but the addition of Klea Scott's Emma, the playing out of, and tragic resolution of the conflict between Frank and Peter, and the development of the Jordan character were, for me, as good as anything that happened in the second season.

And that is NOT a put-down of the second season. I recall seeing an interview with Chris Carter during the second season. I think it was with the great Tom Snyder, who briefly had a wonderfully anachronistic, intimate, late night talk show. (Snyder in turn had David Letterman as his patron.) Carter said he'd had a dream, and that following the dream, the entire second season "would be about getting back to 'the yellow house.'"

A dark TV series based on images of such power would be unlikely, I suppose, to appeal to a very broad public. I feel very fortunate that Chris Carter had the pull to save the series for three entire seasons. A show created by a less influential producer would have been canceled in the second or third week, at the latest.

[Green Knight]

Loved that show, too. And yes, the 2nd season is the best. I was SOOOOO disappointed when Millennium got canned. Only for it to get replaced by that turd "Harsh Realm". Only reason I bothered watching that show was because it had Terry O'Quinn in it. (And Lance Henrikksen made a cameo in the pilot as some general.)

[mrustow]

Lara's special talent was that she could see angels - and she was the one who gave her vaccine to Frank so he could use it on Jordan - see if that stirs your memory!

Unfortunately, no. I see that that episode was the one immediately before the story in which the Group released the toxin; maybe I missed that one. I see that she was in several second season episodes, so I had to have seen her at SOME point.

[Green Knight]

A lot of Millenarians say that the second year was the best, but I loved II and III equally.

Oh, that's not a slight on the first and third season. I would've never gotten into the show if the first season weren't great, and I wouldn't have stuck with it if the 3rd season weren't great, too. Just if I had to pick a "Best Season", the 2nd would be it. That year it felt like the show was firing on all cylinders in nearly every episode. Sort of like X-Files season 6, where episode after episode after episode was fantastic (At least til they hit the "giant mushroom" episode). Damn, I really miss Millennium. Frank Black was one hell of a character.

[El Sordo]

Laura Means wasa somewhat secondary character in the first two seasons. It wasn't until the third season that she really got the face time.

The third season episode 'Anamnesis' was almost solely dedicate to her and Frank's wife Catherine.

For those who wondered, anamnesis means a recollection, or a recalling to memory.

[colette_g]

A dark TV series based on images of such power would be unlikely, I suppose, to appeal to a very broad public. I feel very fortunate that Chris Carter had the pull to save the series for three entire seasons. A show created by a less influential producer would have been canceled in the second or third week, at the latest.

You are right, unfortunately. Thanks to Chris for getting such a great series aired in the first place, and keeping it going for that long. I really need some more dark TV though!

[El Sordo]

Whoops... Anamnesis was second season......

[colette_g]

You've gotta watch the episode entitled something like "the Insanity of Lara Means", it's one of my favourites - but get the beers in first, and drink a few of them before watching, it really, really improves the episode ( was feature length when it was aired in UK ). It's unlike anything you've seen Chris Carter do before, and the beer is really important for the psychedelic sequence. Once you've seen it, my comments might make a bit more sense :-)

[colette_g]

I was just about to get anal and point that out :-)

Did Lara just go inside, or did she die - can't quite remember....

[colette_g]

inside = insane :-)

[El Sordo]

The Four Horsemen and The Time Is Now covered Lara's spiral down the tubes.

They were the last two episodes of the second season. Dunno if Lara died or if they had planned to file her away for a hoped for later story arc....

[mrustow]

41. Anamnesis

gs: Gwynyth Walsh (Emma Shetterly) John Pyper-Ferguson (Ben Fisher) Genele Templeton (Clare McKenna) Garry Davey (Ray McKenna) Brendan Fletcher (Alex Hanes) Kristen Cloke (Lara Means)

Catherine and Lara investigate a girl who appears to be having visions.

b: 17-Apr-98 pc: 5C19 w: Erin Maher and Kay Reindl d: John Kousakis

NOTE: Features the song "Dancing Barefoot" by Patti Smith.

• Clare says the following: "And the savior said: 'The visionary does not see with the soul or the spirit but with the mind that exists between these two. That is what sees the vision and that is what...' I bet you'll love to know what comes next." This is quote from chapter 5 of The Gospel of Mary. Lara notes correctly that "what comes next" is missing. Only fragments of The Gospel of Mary remain.
• This episode appears to be partially inspired by Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Legacy by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. The former book theorizes that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and began a bloodline which merged with the royal bloodline of France's Merovingian dynasty. According to Baigent, et al, this bloodline survives to the present day and is protected by a secret society called the Priory of Zion. This secret society appears to be the inspiration for "The Family". The statue of the Black Virgin coming to Clare in a boat appears to be a reference to a legend cocerning a mysterious boat without oars that docked in Bologne Sur Mer, France during the reign of Dagobert I. On board was a statue of the Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus in her left arm.
• The title of this episode "Anamnesis" means in Greek "calling to memory past matters" or, more specifically, "citing a past author from memory".

---

[El Sordo]

Cool!

Thank you.

[mrustow]

Anamnesis

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Episode Information

Episode Number	41
First Aired	April 17, 1998
Production Code	5C19
Writer	Erin Maher and Kay Reindl
Director	John Kousakis

Guest Stars: Gwynyth Walsh (as Emma Shetterly) John Pyper-Ferguson (as Ben Fisher) Genele Templeton (as Clare McKenna) Garry Davey (as Ray McKenna) Brendan Fletcher (as Alex Hanes) Kristen Cloke (as Lara Means)

Rating

Average Rating:	9.67
Number of Votes Cast:	3
Episode Rank:	10

Synopsis

Catherine and Lara investigate a girl who appears to be having visions.

Notes

• Features the song "Dancing Barefoot" by Patti Smith.
• Clare says the following: "And the savior said: 'The visionary does not see with the soul or the spirit but with the mind that exists between these two. That is what sees the vision and that is what...' I bet you'll love to know what comes next." This is quote from chapter 5 of The Gospel of Mary. Lara notes correctly that "what comes next" is missing. Only fragments of The Gospel of Mary remain.
• This episode appears to be partially inspired by Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Legacy by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. The former book theorizes that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and began a bloodline which merged with the royal bloodline of France's Merovingian dynasty. According to Baigent, et al, this bloodline survives to the present day and is protected by a secret society called the Priory of Zion. This secret society appears to be the inspiration for "The Family". The statue of the Black Virgin coming to Clare in a boat appears to be a reference to a legend cocerning a mysterious boat without oars that docked in Bologne Sur Mer, France during the reign of Dagobert I. On board was a statue of the Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus in her left arm.
• The title of this episode "Anamnesis" means in Greek "calling to memory past matters" or, more specifically, "citing a past author from memory".

Quotes

Lara: "Through the years we've investigated many well-documented apparitions: Lourdes, Marpingen, Fatima. In each case, young girls were the recipients of messages that..."
Catherine: "Young girls whose bodies are changing and who feel isolated..."
Lara: "Visionaries at Medjugordje still receive messages from the Virgin and the similarities among the sightings..."
Catherine: "That's like saying alien abduction exist because abductees report the same experiences."
Lara: "The Virgin appeared to George Washington at Valley Forge and showed him the future of America without any faith."
Catherine: "It's unclear to me how you can claim to be objective when you've already made up your mind that this girl is a visionary."
Lara: "You've already made up your mind that she isn't."

Catherine: "Before launching into gnosticism, she parroted a speach that the preacher gave this morning. If all hell hadn't broken loose, maybe she would have added a little 'It was the best of times; It was the worst of times' just to keep things lively."

Lara: "I know who you are."
Ben Fisher: "Then we're even. Since The Family and The Millennium Group split, this is our first time knocking heads with you people. And honestly, I am not that impressed. I expected someone more formidable, instead I get a canidate fumbling in the dark, so obviously afraid... Not only of what she knows, but of what she doesn't know."

Peter: "We've watched worse things happen with less reason."

Catherine: "My own husband couldn't tell me that I was being stalked by a psychopath, I don't suppose that you could tell me why a similar psychopath is stalking a little girl. The Millennium Group doesn't uncover truths, Lara. It buries them."

Catherine [reading]: "She will come in a boat, like the daughters of Danaus and the Virgin of Bologne-sur-mer."
Ben Fisher [voice over]: "She fed the saint which inspired the warrior monks to dig up the stable of a thousand horses and take their treasure to help the angels build the churches. Their treasure returned to Bethania and at the cutting of the elm they asked themselves, 'Whom does one serve by virtue of serving the Grail?' Thus, the sorcerer kings become The Family."
Clare [voice over]: "She suffered every indignity from them and she could not return to the Father. In a human body, she came to be confined. And thus, from age to age, she passed from body to body, into one female body after the other. Thus, she became the lost sheep."

Goofs and Nitpicks

• Clare says the following: "'I know the first ones, and those after them know me... I am... the power of the powers and my knowledge of the angels who have been sent at my word... I am peace and war has come because of me. I am the first and the last... The alpha and the omega.'" She quotes bits of The Thunder, Perfect Mind a gnostic text that is part of "The Nag Hammadi Library" (a collection of thirteen ancient codices containing over fifty texts that was discovered in upper Egypt in 1945). Lara correctly notes that she tacts on "the alpha and the omega." It should be noted, however, that in the text of The Thunder, Perfect Mind the quote "I am the first and the last" precedes the other selections she cites.
• Lara claims that the following 'contradictions' appear in The Thunder, Perfect Mind: "I am the virgin and the whore" and "the mother and the daughter". The first strictly speaking is a misquote, but it appears to be an amalgam of "I am the whore and the holy one...I am the wife and the virgin." The second adage is not misquoted. It does appear in The Thunder, Perfect Mind, but it is not really a contradiction. Lara, however, may be referring to another passage: "I am the mother of my father and the sister of my husband and he is my offspring."

Analysis

Cultural References

Clare: "And the savior said: 'The visionary does not see with the soul or the spirit but with the mind that exists between these two. That is what sees the vision and that is what...' I bet you'll love to know what comes next."

This is a quote from Chapter 5 of the Gospel According to Mary. More Info

Claire: "'I know the first ones, and those after them know me... I am... the power of the powers and my knowledge of the angels who have been sent at my word... I am peace and war has come because of me...'"

This is a quote from the gnostic text The Thunder, Perfect Mind. More Info

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[mrustow]

Whoops... Anamnesis was second season......

I was just about to mention that.

[El Sordo]

"She suffered every indignity from them and she could not return to the Father. In a human body, she came to be confined. And thus, from age to age, she passed from body to body, into one female body after the other. Thus, she became the lost sheep."

I've always suspected that this was intended to be part of the development of the character of Lara Means.

Maybe her claim to fame was not any ability she had, but who she really was. Perhaps this is my biggest disappointment at the cancellation of the series, not seeing where they may have planned to take Lara Means. A "Who am I?" story arc for Lara would have been fun.

[foreshadowed at waco]

Is this the episode where Lara talks to Catherine about Jordan's visions and also ends up giving Catherine x-rays or medical files with DNA or something that would link the visionary girl genetically back to Jesus...the Gnostic Gospels...Mary Magdelan as Jesus' wife...one of the reasons that I stopped watching in the 3rd season was that they dropped the religious thread in mid-air---

BTW my favorite episode was a Christmas story about Frank's mother (who also saw angels) and Frank re-uniting with his Dad--and his Dad giving Frank a ceramic angel for Jordan whom he had never seen--and Jordan and Frank can see the souls of the dead (including Frank's dad) walking to Church on Christmas Eve?

[colette_g]

I'm starting to remember more the more this is discussed. That development would have been a great twist.

[colette_g]

A great moment - I had forgotten about that one.

[hergus]

One little error in their synopsis...it's the Priory of Sion.

Millenium was my all time favorite show....I want to own it so bad. Fox was airing late night after X-Files last year, but our station bumped it for paid programming. I was soooo pi____.