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"Behind the Script of Akuma Odori" by Eric Davis
My initial thoughts on this episode were to continue events in the season three episode "Bardo Thodol". Now, keeping in mind that Thodol was not one of my favorite episodes of Millennium, I found it difficult to wrap my mind around the meaning and subtext of an episode like Bardo Thodol. I only proceeded with Odori after my initial idea Orbitas was rejected because its subject matter was religiously based. (Religion-oriented episodes were beginning to pile up at this point in the virtual season.)
You might ask, Eric, if Bardo Thodol was not one of your favorite episodes, why write a continuation? I felt I had to do it out of necessity. I thought that Thodol had one great big central idea that was designed to be expounded upon. The Millennium writers (Chip Johanessen and Virginia Stock) were never really given the opportunity to do so, therefore I felt the need to pick up the ball and run with it... or drop it trying.
I soon realized that as I prepared Odori, that it wasn't a traditional "sequel" episode. The aim here wasn't to bring back a daunting foe (like the VS4 episode "Dawn of Nothing," which focused on the return of one of Millennium's most henious killers, Avatar.), it was to continue a plot thread all the while balancing the events of the current virtual season. I picked up on several key instances in Thodol, and tried to link them to various other storyline central to the Millennium mytharc. I reasoned that there had to be a central reason why Mabius was so committed to finding Stepehen Takahashi, why Emergen's stem cell research project seemed so important to the Millennium Group's greater needs.
What the heck is Project Auonabara?
Project Auonabara (Blue Sea) was created to provide both a backstory to the events in both Bardo Thodol and Akuma Odori, but also a link to the current events in the virtual season. Auonabara was a joint U.S.-Japanese excursion into the world of redesigning human beings to be able to withstand the after effects of a nuclear holocaust. The capability to create standing armies of these humans made a nuclear war a feasible option to those who held the right mix of knowledge, technology, and medicine. The intial concept for this was presented in The X-Files' episodes "Nisei" and "731," in which Mulder tracks a Japanese scientist from the infamous Unit 731 who appears to be performing an alien autopsy. Scully discovers that the being featured is not an alien, but a human redesigned to withstand nuclear fallout.
Why carry that idea through to a Millennium episode?
It seemed to me to be a logical progression. The Millennium Group had sought to create its own apocalypse in order to prove themselves correct. A nuclear holocaust seemed to be a highly-evident means of doing this. In order to affect the balance of such an end, the Group needed insurance against the outcome. Thus, they became involved in Auonabara. The noble forces of the Group sought this information strictly as a means to averting such a disaster, while the more nefarious faction of the Group (read: Mabius) sought to use it as a bargaining chip in the structuring of the apocalypse itself.
Nakagawa's misfortune in Odori is that as a former member of Aunoabara, he was targeted by the souls of the innocent who had lost their lives in the experimentation, as was American Cale Yealy. Nakagawa thought that the project had been disbanded by the sixties.
Who was the mysterious Japanese man?
4q2 thought at one point that our mysterious Japanese man might be another incarnation of Mabius. He's simply a martyr of sorts. Shamed by the truth about his own involvement in Auonabara, he decided to infiltrate the compound being run by the present-day Millennium Group and their contacts the military and scientific communities. Unfortunately, he is not sufficiently explained in this episode, and is not developed in any further episodes.
What was Orbitas about?
It was to be about a self-proclaimed Antichrist who interpreted Jesus as being a false prophet. His goal was to prevent the second coming of a christ figure.
What other projects are you working on?
I'm currently developing a series about a psychiatrists whose near-death experience serves as a portal into his patients' psychological worlds. It's tentatively titled "Dark Corner".
I'm also working with a friend on a series that is in early development for the UK's Channel Four. Nothing's set in stone, but it's exciting to get the ball rolling.
TRIVIA:
- The title "Akuma Odori" is lopsided (or half-assed) Japanese for Dance with the Devil.
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