chris carter's MILLENIUM

I haven't seen this since the original run, but I remember it as super-grim, trying to be a lot more serious than X Files and generally succeeding. Henriksen is really good in a much more developed and depressing role than the rote villains or sidekicks he usually gets to play. The music was great; my favorite was the episode in which Frank was mourning/being haunted by his dead wife to the accompaniment of "The Dark End of the Street."

Could be wishful thinking but:

Though it was never quite as well known as creator Chris Carter's other FOX series, "The X-Files," "Millennium" has, since its three-season run in the late 1990's, developed a sizable cult following. The show starred Lance Henriksen as a criminal profiler with the uncanny ability to put himself inside the mind of a killer. Now, thirteen years after the show went off the air, Henriksen tells ComingSoon.net that Frank Black could still return on the big screen.

"I think it's going to happen," Henriksen said today at the press junket for the upcoming animated series, "TRON: Uprising." "I really do... There's a big push on right now and there's a lot of crazy people involved in it. They've written a book with interviews with everybody that was on the show including (Frank) Spotnitz and me... It's crazy that you wouldn't give it a shot. It doesn't have to be a $30 million movie either. There's a lot of fans out there in 65 countries. I can't go into any other country without them wondering when the movie is going to be made."

Following the demise of the series, Henriksen made one final appearance as Black in an episode of "The X-Files," timed to air just before the end of 1999. What's happened since then, Henriksen explained, would help fuel the film's narrative.

"Ever since 9/11, the world has changed so radically," he continued. "If 'Millennium' was made today with those characters, it would be a far more interesting show than the limited palette they had with serial killers. I love the idea of a non-judgemental character like Frank Black was... He wanted to know why and how all these things happened, but he knew that judging someone for what they've done would just get in the way of finding out things. Imagine that kind of morality and focus, like a master chess player. There's beads on a string and suddenly you've got a necklace. He knew how to do it. It would be much more interesting now than it was then."

Certainly the existence of TRON: Uprising upends all previous notions of what is possible, along with all moralities.

Frank's boss's reappearance as Locke on Lost is one of the connections that most short-circuited my brain over the last decade.

Locke was a regular on that other Chris Carter show too: Harsh Realm

There's beads on a string and suddenly you've got a necklace. He knew how to do it.

zomg how tell me