From TV Guide online... -------------------------------------- Millennium Fri, Oct 16 9:00pm TEOTWAWKI A deadly shooting spree at a high school takes Black back to Seattle, where a powerful, close-knit group of citizens is setting its own agenda for the year 2000. Black: Lance Henriksen. Emma Hollis: Klea Scott. McLaren: Stephen E. Miller. Baldwin: Peter Outerbridge. Jordan: Brittany Tiplady.

-- anon (anon@anon.com), October 16, 1998

Answers

Taped it and watched it when I got home. Actually (IMHO), Chris Carter did an excellent job with this episode. Even a moral to the story. For people who have no desire to do the research, it raises a bit of awareness and it cuts right to the chase and basically asks "If a worst case scenario were to occur, how should each of us respond". Not a bad thing to get people thinking about even if they are not ready to prepare for Y2K themselves and assist their community. It sure beat a lot of the 'news' coverage I've seen thus far and there are people who would never watch a news program who will have seen this.

All in all, I'd say it helps rather than hurts. Where do the rest of you weigh in on this?

Arnie

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), October 17, 1998.

Well in my satellite TV guide the episode was named "TAOTWAWKI". I somehow suspected they meant "TEOTWAWKI";)

As with most Chris Carter stories, he neither said it is a bunch of bunk or the absolute truth. The detective and FBI agent's "awakening" was a nice touch I thought though.

My only question, did anyone else take it that the emergancy power kicked in or did they just turn the old system back on? They kind of lost me on that one small part

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), October 17, 1998.

Great show! Excellent illustration of how fear and ignorance can lead to violence, especially when combined with insecurity and negative attitudes about the world. The fear is that other people will have the same fears and resort to violence. This fear makes a certain type of person want to get the jump in a kill-or-be-killed dog-eat-dog tactical maneuver. This type of person assumes that others are similarly lacking in respect for human life and have the same kind of desperate response. The cycle of violence-begets-violence escalates into mass panic and mob hysteria. Live by the sword, die by the sword. It's not much different from the global arms race.

I believe that most people 90% or so (is this too generous?) do not wish to engage in gunplay over scarce resources, and would be able to see the advantage of cooperation over competition. As shown in this film, the value of the family unit can restrain the animal tendency. There is also a lot of opportunity for a solid spiritual foundation to prevent the destruction of human life. On the other hand, this level of spiritual awareness did not protect the pacifist Tibetan Buddhists (who sincerely wish for all beings to be happy, as shown in Seven Years in Tibet, where they were ready to stop the movie house construction in order to avoid killing any earthworms) from being massacred by the Chinese.

I have thought about the approach of some people to go off to a remote cabin and bury guns and food and hole themselves up, living in desperation, fear, and isolation. I do not think this is a healthy or intelligent approach. This type of set up is just what roving armed desperados would be looking for, nice and isolated where their dirty deeds will go unnoticed. Instead the better approach is based on community, communication, and cooperation. For an excellent movie that illustrates this, see "The Postman" (with Kevin Costner and Tom Petty), which depicts a post-apocalyptic reconstruction of civilization facilitated by a new pony express. There is strength in numbers and it helps to have good communication links and a division of labor since no one can be good at everything.

Previously I had given up on Chris Carter as he sometimes goes off into voodoo and cult mumbo-jumbo in both the Millennium and X-Files series, but tonight's show had a lot of depth. Also it looks like he is using the same "conspiracy uncovered by a male-female partner" formula in Millennium that worked for X-Files.

-- Jon (jon@milesresearch.com), October 17, 1998.