What episode will this be?
The second episode after the pilot, called Dead letters.

The pilot for Millennium seemed rather bleak. Is there an elemnt of hope in your story?
I had a completely different take on it. Bleak was never something I had thought. I did think horrifying. I saw a lot of hope, actually, in the relationship Black hass with his family, especially his little girl. In our episode, the reason behind a lot of this is a concern for the safety of the innocent in this world. That's the take I have on it. These guys have that in common.

It was clear that the family was the counterbalance to all this evil in the pilot, but those relationships were left rather sketchy.
It ends up being rather effective storytelling in the long run to let things develop over time. If you think about the start of Space, it was rather sketchy but it had a complete, indepth payoff in exploration as the series progresses. look at McQueen's character from the beginning to the end. I think that is the design behing Millennium, particularly the whife's character. They know they have a long way to go here. Why spill all the beans in the first episode?

Have you ever worked with Lance before?
No, I'd nevermet him. He has never done a series before and you can't do much except say " I just finished 22 episodes and it gets rather intense; take your vitamins". Espceially sincce this one is not an ensemble piece. It's really him. I think they are going to have to be careful not to burn him out, and I am sure they are aware of that.

They have taken to splitting up Mulder and Scully much more on The X-Files so that David and Gillian each get some breaks.
And they are trying to do that with Lance. I carry the weight of this episode. My character is the focus. I am in a lot of scenes without him. If they do that enough he will be OK. His stamina is pretty amazing.

Getting back to SPACE, how did you feel about doing the final episode? I assume that if the show has not been cancelled, the final episode would not have come out quite the same way
Why would you assume that?

Well, it appeared that they bumped off half their cast and sent their hot-shot pilot, mening you, home for major alterations, shall we say.
That was written before we got the news. We had finished filming it beofre the announcement was mafe. I had had brief discussions with Glen and Jim about what the possibilities for next seasn were as far as McQueen was concerned. We were going to go back to Earth with McQueen and explore the rehab and the warrior without a war aspect of the character.

That sounds like they were going to pretty much change the orientation of the show.
Well, exccept there would still be the war in space, which they would also still focusing on. I would have been split apart form the unit, for, I don't know, four or five episodes, and they would have had their crises in space while I was having mine on Earth.

Who would have been left to carry on the space war at that point? There was a big debate, I am sure you are aware, among fans about who was really a gonner in the finale and who was still alive at the end.
I don't know exactly when they decided to obliterate [a major character] as they did. I think the door was left open for the possibility of survival for Vansen and Damphousse. It's conceivable that it was a last minute choice - after all, CGI is the last thing to be added. In the script that we read he [Wang] was not killed. The cargo hold was flaoting off into the void as he was firing, and their demise was not a sure thing. I think it was meant to be a cliffhanger, and, as it stands now, it is. That's my take on it.

I don't know if you are aware of the all sorts of conspiracy theories that SPACE fans have been propounding.
There is no end to the fertility of a paranoid mind if you spend a lot of time thinking about it. These fans are tenacious and dedicated - and I am grateful for that. But, frankly, I am sure the people who work at the networks are nice people but I don't know if they are smart enough to even take it as far as the fans did. I think it came down to the wire; it was a matter of inches, and we didn't make the cut.

SPACE was an expensive show to do.
MILLENNIUM is an expensive show to do. These people are ambitious artists. They will go a long way to keep Glen and Jim happy because there is a wealth of talent there to be mined yet, and they are not going to alienate them.

There is a theory that the network was determined to get Morgan & Wong back into THE X-FILES fold, where their talents were most productive for the network.
Glen and Jim are working on and developing their own stuff. I don't think their involvement with The X-Files and Millennium is going to be that extensive this season. They are back as consulting producers, and are writing some scripts. I think Jim is going to direct an X-Files. But they are not lashed to the bow of the Chris Carter ship. Fox wants them develpo their own ideas, and in fact they are. I have only met Chris Carter once, but he doesn't strike me as the ogre some fans would make him out to be. He's a hard worker with a very fertile imagination.
As far as the expense of Space is concerned, that's pretty much a rumour too. We probably had the most frugal producers working in the business today. The suits at Fox would stop before they would let something tun wildly out of control

Some of the guys from Area 51 [Space CGI house] are working on X-FILES now, aren't they?
Yes, Glenn Campbell and some others. In fact, they are doing the episode Home, that RTucker Smallwood is in. And Winrich Kolbe [of Space and Voyager] is directing the next Millennium. There are a lot of Space people, as Glen calls them, around, and they are very happy with the way that is working out. These people are very loyal. When you find you collaborate with people in a special way, what's the point of losing contact with that? That's what amkes [Morgan and Wong] a cut above, as far as I'm concerned. There is a consideration for the greater good.

Space was a true collaboration in that sense. And that hardly ever happens. They capitalise on teh strengths of the people they surround themselves with. In personal references, which will be fun for people who know Space, or who know our working relationship and certain aspects of our personal lives.

James Morrison, thank you very much.