When members of the Millennium Group are apparently raised from the dead, Mulder seeks advice from a man who's had close contact with them: Frank Black.
Plugged as heavily as this was, you'd think it would be an impressive episode that remains true to the spirit of both shows. To an extent it does, but creating zombies seems rather out of the purview of the Millennium Group, although the aspects of them wanting to bring about a new age rather than waiting for one hold true to what we know. The zombies also aren't much of a threat; they might be resistant to guns, but they still die if you shoot them in the head.
On the positive side, it's good to see what happened to Frank after the last episode of Millennium, and checking himself into an asylum seems perfectly in keeping with his desire to be the best father he can to Jordan. Lance Henriksen plays him as a tired, emotionally bereft man who has lost almost everything in his life and only his daughter is left, a daughter he's on the verge of losing too. The only problem with this is that Frank doesn't get much to do on this basis other than sit about and refuse to answer Mulder's questions. It's only at the end that things improve when Frank takes a more active role in proceedings.
More background and a sense of impending doom is also needed. Finding out what happened to the Group between the series end and this would be interesting, especially Emma Hollis. Plus, if the Group are raising people from the dead to effectively become the Four Horsemen of the APocalypse, how come they're so ineffective? This is apparently the time the Group has been waiting for for centuries, and this is the best they can do? A few useless zombies? All this story does is takes a creepy and sinister cult organization and tame it into a bunch of amateur magicians.
There could have been so much more to this episode, and there are moments when it shows that potential, but sadly the idea of a crossover and of Henriksen himself is ultimately wasted.
***
Would you like to go to the The X-Files Season Seven guide, head back to the main TV reviews page, read older reviews in the Reviews Archive or return to the front page?
Get your own Free Home Page
