| Based On: | Characters created by Glen Morgan and James Wong |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Num Seasons: | 1 |
| Num Episodes: | 13 |
| List Episodes: |
|
| Runtime: | 43 minutes |
| Network: | Fox |
The Lone Gunmen is an American conspiracy fiction thriller drama television series created by Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz. The program originally aired from, to, on Fox. It is a spin-off of Carter's science fiction television series The X-Files and as such is part of The X-Files franchise, starring several of the show's characters. Despite positive reviews, its ratings dropped,[1] and the show was canceled after thirteen episodes. The last episode ended on a cliffhanger which was partially resolved in a ninth season episode of The X-Files entitled "Jump the Shark".
The series revolves around the titular trio The Lone Gunmen: Melvin Frohike, John Fitzgerald Byers, and Richard Langly, private investigators who run a conspiracy theory magazine. They had often helped FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files.
Whereas The X-Files deals mainly with paranormal events and conspiracies to cover up extraterrestrial contact, The Lone Gunmen draws on secret activity of other kinds, such as government-sponsored terrorism, the development of a surveillance society, corporate crime, and escaped Nazis. The show has a light mood and elements of slapstick comedy. The trio are alternately aided and hindered by a mysterious thief named Yves Adele Harlow.
In the pilot episode, which aired March 4, 2001 (six months prior to the September 11 attacks[2]), rogue members of the U.S. government remotely hijack an airliner flying to Boston, planning to crash it into the World Trade Center, and let anti-American terrorist groups take credit in order to gain public support for a new, profitable, anti-terrorist war following the Cold War. The heroes ultimately override the controls, foiling the plot.
See main article: The Lone Gunmen.
The series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and in New York City, New York, United States.
See main article: Jump the Shark (The X-Files).
Fox Home Entertainment officially released the series on a three-disc Region 1 DVD set, including the ninth-season episode of The X-Files titled "Jump the Shark" (which finishes the cliffhanger that ended The Lone Gunmen) as an additional episode. It was released in the United States on March 29, 2005, and in the UK on January 31, 2006.
The Lone Gunmen received generally favorable reviews from critics. Julie Salamon of The New York Times gave it a favorable review, stating it is "well done: shrewdly filmed, edited and written".[7] Los Angeles Times writer Howard Rosenberg gave the series a moderately positive review, saying a "bit of it is pretty funny".[8] Aaron Beierle, writing for DVD Talk, awarded the show 4 stars out of 5. Beierle considered the stories "enjoyable, intelligent and well-written" and described the characters as "terrifically memorable".[9] Eric Profancik, writing for DVD Verdict, stated the material is "pretty good" and described the plots as "strong and unusual stories".[10]
About the show's reception, Vince Gilligan, the co-creator of the show, said: "I have such fondness for The Lone Gunmen. I think it ended way too soon. I was crushed when The Lone Gunmen got canceled after its first season. The Lone Gunmen to this day is a show I’m still proud of, and I will always be proud of. It sort of points to an interesting phenomenon about television – you can’t really tell in advance whether a show is going to work for an audience. I would hold The Lone Gunmen up against anything that I have done before or since. For some reason, timing I guess, being the best thing to point to, it just didn’t click with an audience. If The Lone Gunmen had come on maybe a couple of years earlier, or a couple of years later, maybe it would have clicked."[11] He also said: "my absolute belief is that we learn from failure, we don’t learn from success. And that show was in strict terms a failure. Certainly it only lasted 13 episodes and then was out. But I am still proud of that show and we had a lot of fun making it. But the 'failure' of that show–and I use semi finger quotes around the word failure because I enjoyed what we did with it—it doesn't really tell me much going forward. Because so much of television I really believe comes down to timing."[12]
Chris Carter was also very proud of the show: "I think that’s really some of the best work that all of us have done. I don’t know if it was ahead of its time but it was certainly one of the best shows that we did."[13]
| Season | Timeslot (ET) | Premiered | Ended | style= rowspan=2 | Rank | style= rowspan=2 | Viewers (in millions) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | span style="width:7%; font-size:smaller; line-height:100%;" | Premiere viewers (in millions) | Date | span style="width:7%; font-size:smaller; line-height:100%;" | Finale viewers (in millions) | ||||||
| 1 | span style="font-weight:normal; line-height:100%;" | Friday 9:00 pm Sunday 9:00 pm | March 4, 2001 | 13.23 | June 1, 2001 | 4.56 | style= |
| style= | 5.3 | |
Although the debut episode garnered 13.23 million viewers, its ratings began to steadily drop.[2]
The pilot episode earned a CSC Award by the Canadian Society of Cinematographers for Best Cinematography – TV Drama by Robert McLachlan.