`X-Files' Wastes Y2K Opportunity (San Jose Mercury News)

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Published Saturday, November 27, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News

`X-Files' wastes Y2K opportunity

THE X-FILES

Sunday, 9 p.m. Ch. 2 Ch. 35

**
BY CHARLIE MCCOLLUM
Mercury News Entertainment Editor

http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/ent/docs/xfiles27.htm

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

IN A time of sweeps-period crossovers, ``The X-Files'' has one of the strangest this Sunday night.

Instead of getting some extra Nielsen punch out of bringing in characters from a successful TV series, the show instead brings in the lead character from ``Millennium,'' a dark, cheerless and ratings-challenged series that has been off the air since last spring. Both ``X-Files'' and ``Millennium'' come from the paranoid mind of producer Chris Carter, and he has taken this opportunity to tie up some loose ends of a show he clearly liked a whole lot more than the general public did.

For fans of ``Millennium,'' Sunday's show is a chance to visit once again with dour profiler Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) and the Millennium Group, a batch of rogue FBI agents who think the ``end-time,'' or Armageddon, is upon us. If I were Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, I could think of a whole lot better ways to spend New Year's Eve than with this crew.

But that's precisely what happens. Just before the New Year arrives, someone is out digging up the corpses of deceased Millennium Group members and turning them into an ersatz Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. (See Revelation 1:18.) And Mulder and Scully turn to the expert: Black, who has committed himself to a mental hospital ``to get his life straight.''

There are a number of those wry throw-away lines that mark the best ``X-Files'' episodes. But the end of the show seems particularly rushed and the scariest member of the undead who turns up is Dick Clark, hosting New Year's in Times Square. What's a shame is that by going with this story line, Carter has kept his franchise series from doing something really special about the millennium and Y2K.

But ``Files'' fans will want to stick around to the bitter end to witness the first-ever, as-themselves lip-lock by Mulder and Scully. It's a sweet little moment even if it doesn't promise great passion in the future.



-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 28, 1999

Answers

Related detail: Gillian Anderson ("Dana Scully") actually mentioned y2k on the Letterman show, back in February of this year, I think it was.

She's the ONLY showbiz person I've ever seen talk about it. She clearly "got it," too, altho Dave & his audience were way too stupid to listen, & she didn't go into much detail. But it was a memorable moment all the same (plus she just looked incredible in a leather pantsuit).

-- great moments (in@teot.wawki), November 28, 1999.


Bette Midler admitted in an interview that her basement is fully stocked, and she feels compelled for moral reasons to have extra for those in need. I saw her interview, I think it was with Bryant Gumball? (help me out here, if anyone else saw---I was getting ready for work, so was preoccupied). What impressed me though was that the narrator mocked her, and she still held her ground and talked about a sense of responsibility to prepare so that she could respond to persons "in need".

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), November 28, 1999.

This article is in error to anyone who was a fan of the Chris Carter-produced 'Millennium'. In season 3, Frank Black DID in fact battle programmers who saw cataclysm coming. The show ended, as I recall, stating what many here already know----that people would be the determining factor.

As a Chris Carter/XF/Millennium fan, I share the article's belief that XF could've provided a great show. But to say Carter missed a chance and didn't want to touch the topic is patently false.

Regards.

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), November 28, 1999.


Hey guys, By any chance did anyone tape this episode? I absolutly promiced my husband I would tape it for him and I was not able to. I simply forgot to do so and he has been looking forward to it all week long. If anyone has this I will gladly pay for it and shipping too. Please....the email is correct.

-- shellie (shellie01@hotmail.com), November 28, 1999.

Although y2k has never been dealt with directly on the X-Files (why should it be? Its no mystery after all) there have been many episodes that deal with y2k-related issues. Apocolyptic religious cults, survivalist/militia groups, unexplained computer glitchs, technology run amok, mass evacuations, military interventions, even panic-stricken people cleaning out the 7-11. For conspiracy theorists you have the Secret Government, black helicopters, mind control, HAARP, bioweapons and vaccines, lots of lying politicians and spin doctors--they have even touched on trepaning (Mulder did actually get a hole drilled in his head) and nano-critters (which will be reinfecting Skinner any day now). The only thing they haven't touched on is contrails/chemtrails.

I think Chris Carter gets it--he just isn't using a sledgehammer to get the point across.

-- Sam Mcgee (weissacre@gwtc.net), November 28, 1999.



Gil lian Anderson on "The Late Show with David Letterman", Jan. 1999, promoting "Playing By Heart"

LETTERMAN: All right, let's just... Let's come back to this. We'll go to another topic.

GILLIAN: Okay, all right.

LETTERMAN: Are you concerned about the end of the Millennium?

(laughter)

GILLIAN: Actually, you know what? I actually have been doing a lot of research on Y2K. I have indeed. Did you... Do have a specific question? Am I interrupting?

LETTERMAN: I have many. (laughter) (cheers and applause) Well, it's my show. I've got to talk occasionally.

GILLIAN: Okay.

LETTERMAN: No, this is how dumb I am. I didn't know anything about the Y2K till a couple of months ago, and I'm thinking, I'm thinking, well, certainly people must have been working on this since like the 1940's, and it turns out nobody's been working on it at all.

GILLIAN: Well, no, I think in a way that they have been. But the problem was that they had a specific language for computers way back then, and when that language was invented, they had no idea that the computer was going to take off. And so, every other language that has been built up on top of that and on top of that, and it's about getting back to that initial language.

LETTERMAN: Now, when you hear people talk about what might go wrong, they can paint a very dire picture.

GILLIAN: Oh, absolutely.

LETTERMAN: Give us an example of how bad things might be. This is a conjecture, it's conjecture, but it might be.

GILLIAN: Well, you know, there's a possibility that there could be a huge food shortage in stores, that...

LETTERMAN: Born of what? Why is there... What is the computer thing have to do with food shortage?

GILLIAN: Well, because in terms of, like... In terms of getting the food in the trucks to go to all the different cities around, and if the computers aren't working to regulate that system, then...

LETTERMAN: Everything breaks down.

GILLIAN: Then everything kind of breaks down.

LETTERMAN: So dependent have we become on the computer.

GILLIAN: Oh, absolutely-- which is so ironic, because I think what this is about right now is, this is an opportunity for us to get back to basics in a sense, and for us to unite as communities to help each other, so that eventually, if there is a devastating effect, that at least we can join together with the people around us, instead of, you know, acting out of fear and robbing our neighbors for food, or for money, or whatever, because there's nothing around. And the ironic thing is that... Why are you guys laughing?

(laughter)

(Applause)

GILLIAN: Because I'm so serious?

LETTERMAN: You've got them... They're worried.

GILLIAN: Let me finish making my point.

LETTERMAN: People are scared now. You've frightened us again.

GILLIAN: Okay, I'm sorry. But the ironic thing is that, it is... Will you just let me say this, please?

LETTERMAN: Let her... Come on now! (cheers and applause) let her speak her piece.

GILLIAN: Is that it is technology and computers that have separated us and moved us more apart. It is. You know, there's e-mail. You don't talk to anybody anymore. Everybody e-mails each other.

LETTERMAN: Sure.

GILLIAN: And it's the computers that are going to force us back together again.

LETTERMAN: Invoke some humanity.

GILLIAN: Thank you.

(Cheers and applause)

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), November 29, 1999.


Oh great, thanks for wrecking those years of expensive aversion therapy: that's my Gillian Anderson obsession re-kindled. ;)

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 29, 1999.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ