Millennium 5C09: “Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense”
The Millennial Abyss | Episodes | Season Two
“Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense” (5C09)
Written by Darin Morgan
Directed by Darin Morgan
Edited by James Coblentz
Aired November 21, 1997
Summary
When Jose Chung becomes the target of a religious group known as Selfosophy, Frank Black teams with the flamboyant writer to investigate a string of bizarre murders.
Synopsis
As a series of still photographs pass into view, author Jose Chung describes the life of Juggernaut Onan Goopta, who went to college hoping to become a famous neuroscientist and instead was overcome by dementia and institutionalized. During his hospital stay, Goopta decided to become a writer. His first literary works were so incompetent they were mistaken for "brilliant parodies." Chung met Goopta when his stories were published in a detective magazine. When that publication folded, a desperate Goopta "changed the course of human history" when he published the first in a series of highly- successful self-help books and founded the "Institute of Selfosophy," which taught members how to shed negative thoughts. It was an enormous success. Anyone responsible for internal criticism of the organization was reprogrammed, and if that failed, dubbed a "Ratfinkovitch" and excommunicated from the church.
While performing research on "the newly arising belief systems at the end of the millennium," Chung encountered Joseph Ratfinkovitch, who was excommunicated for reading Chung's most recent fiction. Ratfinkovitch's body is discovered inside his apartment, the victim of an electrocution. Giebelhouse contacts Frank, hoping he can shed some light on the case. As the group examines the crime scene, Chung steps forward and claims that he is responsible for Ratfinkovitch's death. He explains that when Playpen magazine ran an excerpt from his short story, the Selfosophist Institute grew offended. They instructed members to buy up all existing copies. However, Ratfinkovitch read, and enjoyed, the story.
Ratfinkovitch was then approached by, Mr. Smooth, a fellow Selfosophist. Using a device called an Onan-o-Graph, Smooth attempted to recounsel Ratfinkovitch. According to Chung's version of events, the device malfunctioned and Ratfinkovitch was inadvertently electrocuted. When Chung admits he made the whole thing up, Frank and Giebelhouse meet with a Selfosophist spokeman, Robbinski, who insists his fellow members are incapable of murder. Despite this, Mr. Smooth attempts to control his homicidal rage after reading—and being offended by—Chung's story. He sends Chung a clown doll impaled with a variety of knives. Chung contacts Frank with the news. He explains that the antagonist in his story sends similar threats before committing murder. At the conclusion of the story, Chung states, the "Selfosophist Psycho" confronts and kills the author.
Chung accompanies Frank to the scene of a (seemingly unrelated) murder on a college campus. The victim is Professor Amos Randi, a Nostradamus scholar. Frank concludes that the perpetrator is targeting victims he considers to be Nostradamus' Three Anti-Christs—and will attack two more authority figures. But Chung does some profiling of his own. He determines that the killer, who was fulfilling self-interpreted prophecies, targeted his ex- girlfriend's teacher. The trail, Chung believes, leads to a Hollywood movie theater. The next victim, it turns out, is a ticket girl at a Hollywood movie theater. Frank realizes that Chung's profile predicted the murder, and later concludes that Chung is the killer's third Anti-Christ. He, Watts and Geibelhouse race to Chung's hotel. Smooth, however, arrives first. He pulls out a gun and berates Chung for ridiculing the church's beliefs.
Frank suddenly bursts through the door. Smooth takes a shot at Chung, misses, then sprints from the room. Frank follows Smooth onto the rooftop. Smooth convinces himself he can leap onto a neighboring building and escape. But all the positive thoughts in the world cannot save him, and he plummets downward to his death. Meanwhile, the "Nostradamus Nutball" surprises Chung and murders him with a pick axe. Later, Frank begins reading one of Chung's books, entitled Doomsday Defense. In it, Chung predicts the millennium will bring forth "one thousand years of the same old crap."
Starring
Lance Henriksen as Frank Black
Terry O’Quinn as Peter Watts
Stephen James Lang as Detective Giebelhouse
Guest Starring
Charles Nelson Reilly as Jose Chung
Patrick Fabian as Ratfinkovich
Richard Steinmetz as Mr. Smooth
Dan Zukovic as Robbinski
Scott Owen as the Nostradamus Nutball
Alec Willows as Det. Twohey
Murrey Rabinovitch as Juggernaut Goopta
Sandy Steier as the Anti-Porn Feminist
Production Credits
Production #5C09
Music by Mark Snow
Production Designer Mark Freeborn
Director of Photography Robert McLachlan
Associate Producer Jon-Michael Preece
Consulting Producer Chip Johannessen
Consulting Producers Darin Morgan
Co-Producer Robert Moresco
Co-Producer Paul Rabwin
Producer Thomas J. Wright
Co-Executive Producer Ken Horton
Co-Executive Producer John Peter Kousakis
Executive Producer Glen Morgan
Executive Producer James Wong
Executive Producer Chris Carter
Soundtrack
“Let’s Get Goin’“ (1980) by Johnny Legend
“Dance and Dream” (1992) by Norman Chandler
AWARDS
Emmy Award: Charles Nelson Reilly, Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series (Nominee)
Location
Book Excerpt
“Millennium only blatantly acknowledges its debts to classical or hardboiled detective formulas in its comedies, when it is freed from more solemn contemplations. Literary figures take center stage in ‘Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense’... It features an uproarious, perhaps inevitable collision between the series’ dedicated investigators and the sort of crime fiction clichés that once made for bestsellers.”
—Brian A. Dixon
Back to Frank Black
REVIEWS
“[‘Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense’ is] written with the density of a Simpsons cartoon. You'll scream till you laugh, or laugh till you scream. Be dazzled, be wildered. Four stars.”
—Matt Roush
USA Today
“This season, [Frank Black] has a wry, biting wit that comes out at surprising moments. Initially it's a strange fit — you don't immediately think of Lance Henriksen as the sort to laugh, or even smile — but it soon gets there, allowing the show two of its finest but purely comic episodes, ‘Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense’ and ‘Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me.’ The comedy never lessens the tension, though.”
—Tony Whitt
Now Playing Magazine
“After a year and a half of doom and gloom stories, one of the most astounding television writers of the nineties, Darin Morgan, is allowed his fractured take on Millennium and Frank and author Jose Chung investigate murders that lead them deeply into the world of a pseudo-religion called Selfosophy (read as Scientology). Bizarre is exactly the word for it as Millennium takes sharp aim at itself and has fun with it.”
—Michael Patrick Sullivan
Underground Online
“Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense” print ad.