Directed and written by Darin Morgan. 

EPISODE RATING: (1 to 4) ****

A man his somehow electrocuted to death while sitting upright at a table, and Giebelhouse brings Frank in to consult. Also showing up on the scene is the successful, eccentric writer Jose Chung (Charles Nelson Reilly), who reveals he was talking with the deceased, Joseph Ratfinkovitch, shortly before his death. Ratfinkovitch was a member of the wildly popular empowerment organization  Selfosophy, founded by the late Onan Goopta, before being excommunicated for reading one of Chung's stories. Deciding to investigate the Selfosophy, Frank and Giebelhouse come across several possible answers for the death, but Peter Watts urges Frank to pay more attention to a second ongoing investigation: an axe-wielding lunatic wandering around murdering people he believes to be the trio of Anti-Christs predicted by Nostradamus.

Okay, forget that banal plot summary above, because this is a show that simply cannot be not summed up simply and quickly. This show, plain and simple, is the best episode ever Millennium episode produced, and one of the best shows of ANY series you'll see. Scoff if you will, but there's no denying 'Jose Chungs Doomsday Defense' is an incredible piece of work. It's also Morgan's directing debut, after turning out a hand full of classic X-Files entries ( which you can read about over in my X-Files section) that showed what brilliant writer he is. Well, he ain't a bad director either. Morgan injects a huge dose of humor into Millennium here, some of it broad comedy, some of satire, some of it irony. And it all clicks. Every piece of it.

His script takes primary shots at new age cults and the likes, most obviously Scientology, which caused a few grumbles from members of that group. The character of Onan Goopta (seen in a dazzling pre-credits documentary-ish segment narrated by Reilly) and his creation are both hilarious and strangely believable. As he showed with Mulder on X-Files, Morgan enjoys mocking GQ-types. He does it here with several characters. The members of Selfosophy are handsome, well-dressed yuppie types, and therefore prime targets for broad comedy...at least, perhaps, in Morgan's opinion.  

There's an endless stream of blink-and-you'll-miss-it jokes, set piece gags and injokes. X-Files fans will find a number of these particularly amusing, such as the name of the Selfosophy facility very early on. Just like he did with The X-Files, Morgan has fun at David Duchovny's expensive. Duchovny makes a semi-appearance as actor Bobby Wingood, who used to beat up journalists who WOULDN'T take his photo and staring in B-grade dreck like Mr. Ne'er-Do-Well, before joining Selfosophy, turning his life around and scoring the lead in high profile pics like Operation Box Office. This stuff is pure genius.  

Casting is fantastic. Naturally, the most acclaim for this show went to Reilly, for reprising his role of Jung from the unforgettable X-Files episode 'Jose Chungs From Outer Space'. Whereas he was used to pretty get the story going on that show, here he is the entire core of the story. Reilly, who was generally thought to be hack comedian in real life, turns in a performance of remarkable skill and depth. Sure, Chung is a bizarre, wisecracking goofball, but Reilly (and, of course, Morgan's script) go beneath the surface to find out what makes him tick. He really is a fascinating character, and no one knows it more than Morgan or Reilly. Reilly received a well deserved Emmy nomination for this show, which goes a little way to making up for the lack of nominations for Morgan himself.

Richard Steinmetz plays a Selfosophy member (dubbed Mr. Smooth in listings), and he does a wonderful job on making his character a laughable boob with many pieces of hilarious dialogue and sight gags, but also manages to inject a sympathetic, almost moving quality that comes out in his final scene with Chung. Given no such dimensions but as much of comic abandon is the one scene role of Robbinski, a representative of Selfosophy branch who meets with Frank and Giebelhouse. He's played by Dan Zukovic, the somewhat odd looking actor who would later appear on Darin Morgan's next episode, 'Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me', with an even more broadly comedic part. He's incredibly funny in his brief screen time, and has one the episodes best exchanges with Giebelhouse. Zukovic tells Giebelhouse that he uses a lot of negatives when he talks, to which the latter replies "Nah, no I don't not neither". Classic.

Even Henriksen himself finally gets to let his hair down and go over the top (hard to picture Frank Black doing that, huh?). There's a dream-ish sequence in which Frank imagines himself as a hip, smart mouth cop on a crime scene who makes an entrance by declaring "This is a crime scene, not a funeral", to liven the place up before hitting a detective in the nuts and hitting on a sexy female officer. Morgan may have given us our first taste of a Henriksen's untapped comic potential, but will we ever see it again? I sure hope so.   

Sure, this show is comic in nature and style, yet Morgan provides us with a few enthralling theories and observations about the world and those who dwell on it, much like his Emmy-winning X-File 'Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose'. And like that episode, 'Doomsday Defense' has a bittersweet final few moments. It's heartbreaking yet not depressing. There is a weird kind of satisfaction in how things are wrapped.

Is there anything about this episode I didn't like? Yeah. It wasn't a two part story.