| "Force Majeure" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Millennium episode | |||
| Episodeno. | Season 1 Episode 13 | ||
| Directed by | Winrich Kolbe | ||
| Written by | Chip Johannessen | ||
| Production code | 4C12 | ||
| Original air date | February 7, 1997 (1997-02-07) | ||
| Guest appearances | |||
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| Millenniumseason 1 | |||
| List of episodes | |||
"Force Majeure" is the thirteenth episode of thefirst season of the Americancrime-thriller television seriesMillennium. It premiered on theFox network on February 7, 1997. The episode was written byChip Johannessen and directed byWinrich Kolbe. "Force Majeure" featured guest appearances byBrad Dourif,Morgan Woodward andC. C. H. Pounder.
Millennium Group consultantFrank Black (Lance Henriksen) investigates a pair of suicides connected to a cult which has been experimenting with human cloning. Black is dogged on his travels by a strange man interested in both the Millennium Group and doomsday predictions.
"Force Majeure" features stock footage of the 1996Saguenay Flood, and makes mention of aconjunction of planets which occurred in May 2000. The episode was viewed by approximately 6.9 million households during its original broadcast, and has received positive reviews from critics.
When ahailstorm hits a university campus inWashington State, students run to find shelter. One girl, Lauren (Kristi Angus), stands in the rain, lights a cigarette and goes up in flames.Millennium Group consultantFrank Black (Lance Henriksen) travels to the campus to interview witnesses. A teaching assistant tells Black that Lauren was highly intelligent, pointing out anarmillary sphere she had constructed. Black is also told that the previous Millennium Group contact had taken great interest in this sphere.
Black meets the Group member in question, Dennis Hoffman (Brad Dourif), who describes his theories that when several planets achievesyzygy on May 5, 2000, a series of natural disasters will bring about theapocalypse. Black contacts another Group member, Peter Watts (Terry O'Quinn), who tells him that Hoffman had attempted to join the Group years earlier and, although he was refused admission, has continued to track the Group's activities harmlessly. Watts finds that Lauren was not her parents' biological child but cannot find any record of heradoption. Group coroner Cheryl Andrews (C. C. H. Pounder) finds traces of accelerant on the body and rules the death asuicide. She also finds anastrological symbol representing conjunction carved in the girl's thigh.
At a waterfall, another girl commits suicide by drowning. The girl, Carlin, looks identical to Lauren. Andrews performs an autopsy on Carlin as well, finding the same astrological symbol. The two girls are revealed to beclones, produced using a technique similar to that used to create identical cattle. Black believes that this is connected to Hoffman's theories, that someone is breeding offspring destined to survive the predicted cataclysm on May 5, 2000.
Hoffman provides the Group with information leading them toPocatello, Idaho, where a group of more cloned girls is found living in acommune. The police fear that acult-involved suicide is being planned and take the girls into protective custody. Black speaks to their biological father, a preacher confined to anegative pressure ventilator (Morgan Woodward). He reveals to Black that he attempted to create acaste of pure and innocent people who could repopulate society benevolently after the cataclysm. He contacted some of the girls to let them know he would die before the apocalyptic date, and they committed suicide shortly afterwards. That night, a power cut stops the man's ventilator, killing him.
When Black leaves to meet with the girls in custody, he finds that the bus driver was another of the cult leader's offspring and has escaped with the clones; Hoffman has also disappeared. Black realizes that the building they found the girls in is located in an area of extreme geological stability and is built on shock absorbing foundations—Black does not know where the cult has escaped to, but he does know where they will be on May 5, 2000.
"Force Majeure" was the second of four episodes helmed by directorWinrich Kolbe, who had previously worked on "Kingdom Come", and would return later in the first season for "Lamentation" and "Broken World".[2] The episode also marks the second writing credit in the series forChip Johannessen, after the earlier "Blood Relatives". Johannessen would go on to write an additional eleven episodes across all three seasons, including the series' final episode "Goodbye to All That".[2][3][4] AfterMillennium's cancellation, Johannessen would also contribute an episode to itssister showThe X-Files, 1999's "Orison".[5] Johannessen would also become one of the series' executive producers during its third season, alongsideKen Horton.[6][7]
Footage used in the episode to demonstrate cataclysmic flooding was taken fromstock footage of the 1996Saguenay Flood, a series of flash floods across theSaguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region inQuebec. The "little white house" visible in the footage has since been converted into a museum.[8][9] The episode features the third appearance byC. C. H. Pounder as Millennium Group pathologist Cheryl Andrews. Pounder would appear in four other episodes as the character, appearing across all three seasons.[10][11][12][13]
The conjunction of several planets which Brad Dourif's character Dennis Hoffman speaks about was reliably predicted at the time of the episode's broadcast. The effects of such an alignment had been debated for some time, with studies both linking conjunction to several major earthquakes and debunking the theory entirely. Several similar alignments have occurred in the past without resulting in any additional natural activity on Earth.[14] The predicted conjunctiondid occur in May 2000, with no consequence on Earth.[15][16]
"The episode is just odd enough to be distinctive (Carter is wearing hisLynch on his sleeve even more than usual), and, beyond the pleasure of the series finally stretching its legs, it's nice to have a storyline that doesn't just exist to lecture us about how we're all going to Hell".
"Force Majeure" was first broadcast on theFox Network on February 7, 1997.[18] The episode earned aNielsen rating of 7.1 during its original broadcast, meaning that7.1 percent of households in the United States viewed the episode. This represented 6.9 million households, and left the episode the sixty-third most-viewed broadcast that week.[19][nb 1]
The episode received positive reviews from critics.The A.V. Club's Zack Handlen rated the episode an A−, describing it as "sort of kind of pretty much batshit insane". Handlen felt that the episode "was a lot of fun to watch, though, even if it didn't entirely come together. The script isCarter and company's usual hodepodge of crackpot theory and weird extemporization, but it's a huge relief to shift away, even for a week, from the grind of heavy-handed murder parties that define so much of the series".[17] Bill Gibron, writing forDVD Talk, rated the episode 4.5 out of 5, calling it "superb" and "very atmospheric". Gibron praised Dourif's guest role, and noted that the episode helped to lay the groundwork for the direction the series would take in its second season.[20]Robert Shearman andLars Pearson, in their bookWanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated "Force Majeure" five stars out of five, describing it as "rich and dark". Shearman felt that the episode's plot was "borrowed fromThe X-Files", and came across as "just a collection of ideas". However, he praised Dourif's "barnstorming performance", comparing it to his role inThe X-Files episode "Beyond the Sea", and noted that "Force Majeure" was "an episode which bravely redefines what [Millennium] is capable of".[21]
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