(Courtesy of Resurrection Films)

In an exclusive interview with Villain Media, Executive Producer Troy L. Foreman discusses the lasting impact of the gripping crime thriller starring Lance Henriksen in Millennium After The Millennium. The insightful documentary from Resurrection Films explores how Millennium paved the way for the new Golden Age of Television.

In 1996, Chris Carter followed up his popular sci-fi hit, The X-Files, with the darker and more sophisticated Millennium, a gothic horror drama. The Fox show pit actor Lance Henriksen against a thousand points of darkness. The series ended abruptly in 1999, but the darkness remains. Fans yearning for Frank Black’s heroic return can revisit past nightmares and see glimpses of a hopeful future in the new feature-length documentary, Millennium After The Millennium.

Before their HorrorHound Weekend screening and Son of Monsterpalooza panel, Foreman opens up about his love for the Millennium series, reuniting the cast and crew, and the early beginnings of the documentary. If you love behind-the-scenes trivia about your favorite TV show, then you’re absolutely going to enjoy our in-depth conversation!

Villain Media: I thought the pilot for Millennium was the best writing ever by Chris Carter, led by a memorable performance by Lance Henriksen. What impression did Millennium leave you to start the documentary?

Troy L. Foreman: I remember that day like it was yesterday! I was watching the pilot by myself and I remember after the episode was over, I sat there for like 5 minutes, and I was like, “Wow! What did I just watch?” It was the most amazing thing I’ve seen in a long, long time!

I’m into dark shows. Millennium was really one of the first dark shows of that time. It made want to tell everyone I knew about the show! From that moment on, I was watching it every week.

After the show ended in ‘99, I really didn’t do anything at the time. But then around 2006-2007, I started rewatching the series again. And that’s when I started getting back into the show and at the same time, I came across the Back to Frank Black campaign.

VM: I’m glad you mentioned the Back to Frank Black campaign. The book has an extensive collection of interviews from the cast and crew. How did this lead to the documentary?

TLF: Around 2007, I went to revisit the series again. I was doing my own podcast at the time called Tha Darkside Vibe. I went on the internet and I was trying to find out about Millennium. I reached out to James McLean, who was part of the Back to Frank Black campaign and asked him if he wanted to do a podcast with me, and talk about the show.

We did a podcast and ended up getting along really well. We talked for another hour after the podcast was over. I asked if he wouldn’t mind if I joined the campaign. He said yes and one of the first things I did for the campaign was create a podcast called The Millennium Group Sessions. From there, we started interviewing the cast and crew, doing contests and raising money for charities.That led to us releasing a book we called, Back to Frank Black: A Return To Chris Carter’s Millennium.

Once we released the book, I realized there’s only so much you can do as a fan campaign to get the network to notice you. I knew things were going to start winding down, so I wanted to end the fan campaign with a big bang and that’s how I came up with the idea for a documentary.

VM: Tell me about rounding up Brittany Tiplady, who’s now all grown up, and Megan Gallagher for the documentary.

TLF: One of the best things about working on the campaign all those years is that I got to get to know the cast. I would be be the one reaching out to their agents and managers. When I initially had the idea of doing the documentary, I reached out to everyone that I could from the series and pretty much everyone agreed to be a part of the documentary..

One of the more interesting ones was Brittany, who’s 25 now. While talking to her, she didn’t remember a lot, but she remembered enough! It was great talking to everyone. The thing is, everyone really wanted to talk about the show, their time working on the series and how much it meant to them. It was really great to hear them talk about their love for the show! I was geeking out as they say!

VM: In the documentary, actress Klea Scott discusses the backlash she received for her character, Emma Hollis. Her words resonate especially now with Anna Diop (Titans) and Kelly Marie Tan (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) receiving so much hate from trolls on social media.

TLF: First off, when I approached Klea Scott for the podcast, The Millennium Group Sessions, she didn’t want to do it. She received a lot of negativity when she was on the show. People didn’t like her character. They were saying mean and cruel stuff on the internet about her and the character Emma Hollis. Initially, she didn’t want to do it. I reached out to her. I wrote to her, telling her there were fans who appreciated what she did on the show, me included. After some back and forth, she decided to do the podcast. When she saw the positive reaction from the fans, she was overwhelmed and happy. That was a cool thing to see how people loved what she did on the show.

In today’s television landscape, it’s all about diversity, but back then, there wasn’t a lot of diversity on television.

VM: I noticed Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz spoke about a creative path not taken with the third season of Millennium. Did you feel the second season cliffhanger, with the end of the world, left them in a bind?

TLF: Many people didn’t think they were going to come back for a Season 3, including most of the cast and crew and that’s why Glen Morgan and James Wong came up with the ending that they wrote. The interesting thing, we found out was that Morgan and Wong had been dropping hints throughout the season. They had a way to get out of that “end of the world” scenarios, but no one came to them and no one asked them how to get out of that storyline.

So when Chris Carter came back in Season 3 and saw where the show was, they brought in another showrunner for the first couple of episodes. Unfortunately, that person didn’t work out, so Chip Johannessen and Ken Horton became the showrunners for Season 3. A lot of Millennium fans weren’t too thrilled that the writers didn’t tackle the issue of the Season 2 finale until episode 7 or 8 of the third season.Once the writers started addressing the Season 2 finale and what happened, Season 3 began to find its footing and for me, became a really solid season of television.

VM: The documentary ends on a hopeful tone, with Brittany Tiplady coming up with ideas for a fourth season. Tell me about ending the documentary like this.

TLF:The fans of Millennium would love to see the show come back. Obviously, the cast and crew are interested in revisiting the series.In several recent interviews, Chris Carter has said that he has an idea of how he would bring the series back, but has kept that information to himself.

We wanted to end the documentary on something positive. When I initially thought about doing this documentary, I wanted to celebrate the how. That was the main goal, to let the cast and crew know that there were fans who appreciated the series and the hard work they all put into it. Millennium has always played second fiddle to The X-Files. I think Millennium is just as good and sometimes even better than The X-Files and this documentary was a testament to its greatness and the influence the series had on television today.

At the same time, this may spark a fire and FOX may want to take another look at Millennium, who knows. We ended it on a note of hope for a continuation. For me, I don’t need 4 more seasons; I would just love closure. That would be great! The Millennium/X-Files crossover episode wasn’t closure for the series and I think fans and the cast and crew would love a proper closure for Millennium.



VM: Tell me how this project changed you as an artist.

TLF: Wow! When I came up with the idea, I jotted down what I wanted the documentary to be and who I wanted to be in it, but I knew I couldn’t do it on my own. The great thing about being a part of the Back to Frank Black campaign is that I got to meet some extremely talented people.I was able to find people pretty fast, like our director Jason D. Morris. He created a web series called Millennium Apocalypse, which follows Jordan as a young adult and dealing with her “gift.” We both shared a love for Millennium and after talking off and on for a couple of years, I asked would he be interested in doing a documentary about Millennium and he immediately jumped on board. Jason is a very talented producer and director and immediately had amazing ideas for the documentary.

The front cover that you see on the Back to Frank Black book was randomly sent to us by an artist named Matthew Ingles.He was the only person I reached out to as far as the artwork was concerned for the documentary and as you can see, his work is amazing. Our graphics designer and basically jack of all trades is Andrew Shelton. He was someone I remember during the fan campaign that always supported what we did. He came on board and created the amazing opening credits, designed the DVD and Blu-ray covers and just did a lot of stuff for the documentary..

When Jason and I has all of the interviews in the can, it was time to find a narrative for the documentary and that’s where the super-talented Joe Maddrey came in. He wrote a documentary about horror called Nightmares in Red, White And Blue. I totally suggest you check it out! He is also the co-author of the Lance Henriksen autobiography, Not Bad For A Human. He came in, looked at what we shot, and turned it into what it is today. He’s a major reason why I am talking with you today. He gave the documentary a vision and we are grateful.

Of course, you can’t have Millennium without the music! The music was composed by Matthew Gatsos. He was someone that Jason had worked with on several of his prior projects. Matthew came in and knocked it out of the park! We wanted a Millennium-istic feel to the music! He went off on his own and did just that! It has been a lot of fun working with this team and bringing this documentary to life.

VM: What are you working on now?

TLF: Right now we’re promoting the heck out of this documentary! We’ve been accepted into several film festivals already and won Best Documentary at the Out of the Can Film Festival. We have a couple of convention appearances coming up. We’re going to be at Horrorhound Weekend at the end of August and a big event at Son of Monsterpalooza. Myself, Jason, and Joe Maddrey are going to be there. And we’re going to bring 5 or 6 members of the cast and crew for the panel, signing and Q&A.

Jason and I are also putting an idea together for another documentary in the future, so be on the lookout for more information on that soon. Jason and I have also joined forces with Carly Street, Steve Merlo and Mark Francisco and created Resurrections Films, LLC. We have several project in different stages right now including Dark Winter, Collapse and Room Nineteen. So, we are staying busy and trying to carve out our own path in this crazy world of filmmaking!

Upcoming Events:

August 24th through the 26th – HorrorHound Weekend (screening of movie)

September 16th – Son of Monsterpalooza Panel, Q&A and signing event

October 20th – Dark Delicacies signing event

[Writer’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity. Links are highlighted in bold.]

By Jorge Solis

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