Time Flies Watching CNN's 'Millennium'.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)

Multichannel News, October, 1999 by FORKAN, JIM

Cable News Network's latest documentary megaseries, the 10-hour Millennium, moves along surprisingly quickly with a deft blend of fact-filled narration, computer graphics and dramatic re-enactments. CNN'S Cold War, roughly twice as long, seems leisurely by comparison, since Millennium must condense highlights from each century into an hour.

Each hour, in tum, is divided magazine-like into five vignettes which focus on key moments or people affecting a culture's development -- patterned after Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's book Millennium: A History of Our Last Thousand Years. Cold War was more gripping, since it dealt with dramatic Easy/West conflicts, whereas Millennium tries for a broader perspective, as seen in each hour's title; the 15th...

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