The Lone Gunmen - The Complete Series
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Movie Reviews of The Lone Gunmen - The Complete Series
Movie Review: I Liked it more the second time around.
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading the reviews of The Lone Gunmen, I started thinking about buying it. After hearing about the 9/11 connection in the pilot, I bought it.
Although the Pilot did foretell of the tragic day, it did have, like the rest of the series, some laugh-out-loud moments. It was a show that didn't take itself seriously. It was just fun.
The chemistry between Tom Braidwood (Frohike), Bruce Harwood (Byers) and Dean Haglund (Langly) comes through in the series. You could tell they were having a good time.
I would recommend it on the strength of the chilling Pilot alone. If you're looking for the depth of The X-Files, or, my personal favorite: Millennium, you won't find it here. But, if you're just looking for fun, without the excessive violence and gore, check this set out.
Movie Review: Good, worthy of TV.
Summary: 4 Stars
As with Firefly, Fox dropped the ball in cancelling this. I thought it was a great show. But it would have been better if they would have stayed serious, like the pilot, and not try to be funny. Still, episodes did take on serious issues, which I enjoyed. Movie Review: Byers, Frohike, and Langley get their time in the spotlight
Summary: 4 Stars
I have to preface my review by pointing out how utterly bizarre it was in watching this show to see the episode in which Byers and his father get on a plane to foil a devious plot, only to find themselves on a plane that hijackers are intending to use as a bomb to ram . . . one of the towers of the World Trade Center. The episode was originally broadcast in the spring of 2001, which lends the episode an air of eeriness that is almost overwhelming. One simply can't watch this episode and respond to it as one would to a normal television episode. It just touches on too many raw nerves and seems to be prophesying the horrors that were to follow only a few months later. Even as the pilot regains control of the plane and manages to barely miss the tower, one almost has the feeling that there wasn't much of a point; others in the near future would succeed where these television villains failed. The two or three minutes in which it appears the WTC is going to be rammed is without question one of the strangest moments--if not the strangest--in television history.
That bizarre episode apart, this is a highly enjoyable series that will primarily be of interest to fans of THE X-FILES. Byers, Langley, and Frohike were all, of course, regular guests on that show, almost always in comic relief, sometimes as more. They were what novelist E. M. Forster in his ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL called "flat" characters, rather one-dimensional characters incapable of any actual development or change. It isn't impossible for "flat" characters to alter and become "round" characters. Cordelia in BUFFY starts off as the flattest of flat characters, but by the end of her time on that series and definitely by her reemergence on ANGEL, she was a marvelously round character. Ditto Wesley in his transition from BUFFY to ANGEL. The question in looking at THE LONE GUNMEN was going to be: will the guys cease being flat and become round characters? The answer is that they did not. Moreover, it seems unlikely that had the show stayed on that they would have become "rounder." The fundamental problem is that the Lone Gunmen, as delightful as they always were to see on THE X-FILES, were essentially comic relief, and the spin off series never managed to find a plausible means for them to become much more. Mind you, I love the guys, and whenever I saw them on the parent show I was delighted to see them. It didn't help that they had their own comic relief in the person of Jimmy Bond, whose naïve yet upbeat devotion to their cause made him seem a large yet well trained puppy. A foil in the person of the beautiful free lance secret agent Yves Adele Harlow didn't help too much. So, in the end the show was not terribly successfully because the central conception underlying the characters on the show didn't work.
Despite a flawed central concept, this was despite all this a frequently entertaining show. After all, much of the talent behind THE X-FILES was behind this show. The writing is always at least competent, and if there isn't a single episode that stands out like a host of episodes on THE X-FILES. I had a good time watching ever episode, though never did I experience the kind of excitement that I did watching THE X-FILES. The connection with THE X-FILES is interesting. The guys mention to characters on the show connections they have with the FBI and sometimes mention a character by name, but there is less crossover than one might expect. Assistant Director Skinner appears as a character in one episode and Michael McKean's Morris Fletcher, who was in a pair of memorable episodes at the beginning of Season Six of THE X-FILES, appears in a single episode of THE LONE GUNMEN. But one would have expected a few more guest appearances, in particular by Gillian Anderson and perhaps Robert Patrick or even David Duchovny.
Most interesting of all, THE LONE GUNMEN doesn't share much of the worldview of THE X-FILES. Government conspiracy plays virtually no role in THE LONE GUNMEN, which is striking given its preeminence. Personally, I think this is a good thing. As someone who trusts the government vastly more than I do the good intentions of corporate America, I always thought the distrust of government that was a theme of THE X-FILES probably did its share to encourage the goals of the far right (ironic, because most of the people involved in THE X-FILES are left-leaning). Even more surprising, THE LONE GUNMEN's universe is a decidedly nonsupernatural one, with neither paranormal activity nor alien presences.
In summary, this is not a bad show, but it is going to appeal almost exclusively to fans of THE X-FILES for whom it will primarily function as a means to get a few more episodes with a few of the supporting characters who made that show one of the finest the medium has ever experienced.
Movie Review: I can see why it was cancelled
Summary: 2 Stars
I got this after reading the glowing reviews and seeings I owned all 9 seasons of xfiles i thought it would be a nice addition. Boy was I wrong. The tone is all wrong, its just way too goofy. The pilot is ok, but then tehy introduce a young dumb hunk to try and give the show some youth appeal and it just gets rediculous. This show could've been great as a more serious spin off with comedic elements. Instead we are fed up kindergarten slop.Movie Review: 911 disaster foretold in Pilot episode
Summary: 4 Stars
I watched these shows while lving in San Francisco in the late Spring of 2001. The Pilot show has a 747 jet having its computer system being hijacked- supposedly by a covert government operation. Why? To help increase support for arms sales to defend against terrorists. The kicker is the jet is on a collision coure to crash into...the Twin Towers in New York!! This is 5 months before 9-11-2001!! The only difference is there are no terrorists on board and it is at night.I loved all these shows but it was not until I watched this one later on a tape I recorded that I realized the prophetic tale involved. All the shows are great (especially if you are an X-Files fan) but the Pilot show has to be seen.I do not know why the other reviewers did not notice this- or is it being covered up?