Millennium deserves better: Why isn’t Chris Carter’s best non–X-Files series streaming anywhere
Chris Carter will forever be synonymous with The X-Files, but while Mulder and Scully were off chasing conspiracies, aliens, and government cover-ups, Carter was also quietly creating something darker: Millennium. The grim, apocalyptic crime drama may never have enjoyed the same mainstream visibility as The X-Files, yet it remains one of the most daring and mature series of the 1990s. However, if you don’t already own the DVDs, you may be out of luck, as Millennium isn’t streaming anywhere.
What is Millennium?
Starring the always-excellent Lance Henriksen as former FBI profiler Frank Black, Millennium stripped away the paranormal spectacle and replaced it with pure human evil. The show took cues from some of The X-Files’ most disturbing episodes—particularly Irresistible, with its chilling portrait of death fetishist Donnie Pfaster—and built an entire series around that. The result was something that felt closer to Se7en than network television, pushing moral, psychological, and spiritual boundaries years before prestige TV made that kind of storytelling fashionable.
Black is a man both gifted and burdened with the ability to see the world through the eyes of violent criminals. Consulting for the shadowy Millennium Group, Frank investigates crimes while desperately trying to shield his family from the growing sense of dread surrounding the approach of the year 2000.
The series underwent a significant evolution over its three-season run. The second season leaned more heavily into supernatural and apocalyptic themes, deepening the mythology and revealing the true nature of the Millennium Group itself. The third season shifted course again, with Frank returning to the FBI and finding himself in open conflict with his former employers. Although the show was ultimately cancelled, Frank Black later resurfaced in The X-Files with a crossover episode, but many fans felt it failed to do justice to the series or provide a truly satisfying conclusion.
Why Isn’t Millennium Streaming Anywhere?
The reason behind Millennium’s continued absence from streaming platforms appears to be the same issue that has kept other classic shows from making the jump to the modern era: music rights. Throughout the course of the show, Millennium featured music from Nine Inch Nails, Rob Zombie, The Carpenters, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, Kiss, Blur, and more.
At PhileFest 2023, Chris Carter explained that the holdup comes down to difficulty in clearing all the songs. “So, especially in season 2, there was a lot of really good music and I believe they are having a hard time securing those music rights,” he said. “And I think the reason is because Disney and Fox are so cheap. But I hold out hope that somehow they’ll make it happen.”
Those original music licenses were negotiated long before anyone could have anticipated on-demand, worldwide digital distribution, meaning new agreements must be reached before the series can legally land on a streaming platform. Shows like WKRP in Cincinnati, The Wonder Years, and Northern Exposure ran into the same problem, but their solution was often to replace any song they couldn’t clear. This may have solved the legal issue, but it infuriated longtime fans and fundamentally altered the shows themselves.
Millennium Is Hard to Find on DVD
All three seasons of Millennium are available on DVD, both separately and in a complete series box set; however, they can be difficult to find at a reasonable price. You can find used copies on Amazon or eBay, but many will cost you well over $100.
For now, Millennium remains a casualty of outdated licensing deals and modern streaming realities. But I can only hope that Frank Black’s story will eventually resurface in its original form. When it does, audiences may finally realize that one of the darkest and most ambitious shows of the 1990s was quietly laying the groundwork for the television we celebrate today.
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