The Lone Gunmen (TV series)

The Lone Gunmen
The Lone Gunmen title screen
Format	Science fiction, Drama, Satire
Created by	Chris Carter
Starring	Tom Braidwood, Bruce Harwood, Dean Haglund
Country of origin	Canada United States
No. of episodes	13 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	approx. 45 min (per episode)
Broadcast
Original channel	FOX
Original run	March 4 – June 1, 2001 (2001-06-01)
Chronology
Related shows	The X-Files Millennium

The Lone Gunmen is a television show created by Chris Carter and broadcast on FOX. It was a spin-off of Carter's popular long-running television series The X-Files and a part of The X-Files franchise, starring several of the show's characters. The Lone Gunmen was first broadcast in March 2001 and, despite positive reviews, its ratings dropped. The program was cancelled after thirteen episodes. The last episode was broadcast in June 2001 and ended on a cliffhanger which was partially resolved in a ninth-season episode of The X-Files entitled "Jump the Shark".

The series revolved around the three characters of The Lone Gunmen: Melvin Frohike, John Fitzgerald Byers and Richard Langly, a group of "geeky" investigators who ran a conspiracy theory magazine. They had often helped FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files.

Typical plots

Unlike The X-Files, whose storylines dealt mainly with supernatural creatures and government alien conspiracies, episodes of The Lone Gunmen generally featured more "plausible" plots, such as government sponsored terrorism, the creeping government-induced police state surveillance society, cheating husbands, corporate crime, arms-dealers, and escaped Nazis. The show had a light atmosphere and focused heavily on physical comedy. The trio were often aided (and sometimes hindered) by a mysterious thief named Yves Adele Harlow (Zuleikha Robinson).

The plot of the first episode, which aired March 4, 2001, involves a US government conspiracy to hijack an airliner, fly it into the World Trade Center and blame it on terrorists, thereby gaining support for a new profit-making war.

Parallels of this plotted scenario of government conspiracy to revitalize its war industry, to the events of 9/11 in this episode are noteworthy, if not uncanny, since the episode was aired six months prior to 9/11.

The series was filmed in Vancouver, Canada.

Characters and cast

• Tom Braidwood - Melvin Frohike
• Dean Haglund - Richard "Ringo" Langly
• Bruce Harwood - John Fitzgerald Byers
• Stephen Snedden - Jimmy Bond
• Yves Adele Harlow is the alias for a fictional character who sometimes works with the Lone Gunmen (though she's sometimes at odds with them, as her goals are rarely as selfless as theirs) and often employs various disguises. Her actual name is Lois Runtz, and she is the daughter of an arms dealer. Jimmy Bond is emotionally attached to her, although his feelings are for the most part unrequited. The alias is an anagram for Lee Harvey Oswald. She is played by British actress Zuleikha Robinson.

David Duchovny (Fox Mulder), Mitch Pileggi (Walter Skinner) and Michael McKean (Morris Fletcher) from The X-Files made guest appearances on the show.

Crew

• Executive Producers – Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, Frank Spotnitz
• Creators – Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, Frank Spotnitz
• Frohike, Langly and Byers characters originally created by Glen Morgan and James Wong

Episodes

Main article: List of The Lone Gunmen episodes

1. "Pilot"
2. "Bond, Jimmy Bond"
3. "Eine Kleine Frohike"
4. "Like Water For Octane"
5. "Three Men And A Smoking Diaper"
6. "Madam, I'm Adam"
7. "Planet of the Frohikes: A Short History of My Demeaning Captivity"
8. "Maximum Byers"
9. "Diagnosis Jimmy"
10. "Tango De Los Pistoleros"
11. "The Lying Game"
12. "The Cap'n Toby Show"
13. "All About Yves"

DVD release

Fox Home Entertainment officially released the series (along with the episode of The X-Files titled "Jump the Shark" which finishes the cliffhanger that ended The Lone Gunmen as an additional episode) on a three-disc Region 1 DVD set on Tuesday March 29, 2005. In the UK, it was released on January 31, 2006.

External links

• The Lone Gunmen at the Internet Movie Database