Millennium (1996)
I was not an attentive watcher of The X-Files but I was nuts about its dark step-brother, Millennium. The network wanted another series from Chris Carter and this is what he delivered. They kept chasing that X-Files success but never replicated it.
Millennium ran for three seasons, 67 episodes. It had a number of story arcs on a shaky foundation. It meandered and shifted in tone. Partly this was due to Carter being distracted by other projects but also his seeming inability -- as with The X-Files -- to pin down and stick to a coherent mythology. Each season had different producers, all enormously talented, but each wanting to nudge the show in a different direction.
This is perhaps not as irritating as it sounds. I mostly cared about the demonology arc but sometimes you let the dog pull you along and go to interesting places. I was happy to follow the show wherever it went. You wouldn't think a series so dark would have comedy episodes, but we have them in seasons two and three.
The show is strong in many dimensions, a great confluence of talent. Writing, acting, scoring, photography, design: all top notch.
The overall tone is of sadness. In a lot of art evil is majestic or seductive, here it is just sad, an autumnal quality of the whole production, occasionally relieved by a bit of hope.
The complete series was available on DVD but looks to be out of print. Amazon and Ebay still have some stock. No sign of Blu-ray anywhere, nor streaming upgrades.
Resources:
Millennium After the Millennium (2019), a valuable retrospective with cast and crew made 20 years after the show.
Fan site: Millennium - This Is Who We Are (transcripts of the episodes, notes on music cues and much else).
[Backup at The Internet Archive Wayback Machine: Millennium - This Is Who We Are].
First season