'X-FILES' SPINOFF 'Lone Gunmen' back in business on DVD
A new three-disc set includes the eerily prescient pilot episode.
By KATE O'HARE
ZAP2IT.COM
Yes, they're dead -- or at least as dead as anyone in "X-Files" creator Chris Carter's universe -- but the conspiracy-hunting, computer-geek trio known as the Lone Gunmen are back on America's TV screens. For the price of a DVD box set, that is.
On March 29, a little more than four years after it premiered on Fox, "The Lone Gunmen," the short-lived "X-Files" spinoff, comes out in a three-disc (using double-sided discs) DVD box set from Fox Home Entertainment.
Along with all 13 original episodes -- plus "Jump the Shark," a season-nine "X-Files" episode that concludes the Gunmen's plotline -- the set features commentaries, a "Making Of" documentary and TV spots.
Created by the writing team of Glen Morgan and James Wong for a first-season "X" episode called "E.B.E," the Gunmen are Richard "Ringo" Langly (Dean Haglund), Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood) and John Fitzgerald Byers (Bruce Harwood).
According to "X" lore, they were inspired by the sort of technically savvy but socially inept conspiracy theorists that sometimes frequent UFO conventions, and were introduced as the go-to info buddies of FBI Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny).
Spinoff series
On March 4, 2001, during season eight of "The X-Files," the three spun off in a seriocomic series of their own, created by "X" producers Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan and John Shiban, and co-starring Zuleikha Robinson ("Hidalgo") and Stephen Snedden ("Coyote Ugly").
Despite the concern of some fans, the pilot of "The Lone Gunmen" is indeed part of the boxed set. This would seem like a no-brainer, until you realize that the central conspiracy in the episode involved the high-tech electronic hijacking of a commercial airliner with the intent of crashing it into the World Trade Center.
Although the episode was conceived and shot in 2000, and aired six months before the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, the eerie coincidence sent shock waves through cast and producers.
"I'll never forget that," says Spotnitz, calling in from the set of the pilot for his remake of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker." "That was such a disturbing thing. It was very upsetting. As I say in the DVD featurette, you write something like that, and you assume that if you can think of it, being a Hollywood writer, then somebody in the government has thought about it already.
"Obviously, that wasn't the case. Just the idea that a plane could fly into a building, and the building would be unprotected was just ... anyway, it was upsetting."
Although their scenario involved using sophisticated electronics to remotely control the plane and had nothing to do with suicidal terrorists, Spotnitz had some long moments on the fateful September morning.