Sci-fi spin-offs can be a mixed bag. “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Stargate SG-1” were so successful that they spawned numerous follow-ups of their own, but efforts to expand the respective universes of “Babylon 5” (“Crusade”) and “Battlestar Galactica” (“Caprica”) proved rather less successful. Both were cancelled after a single run of episodes.
“The X-Files” spin-off “The Lone Gunmen” — whose final instalment debuted 25 years ago — belongs in that same one-season wonder category, but was rather better than its premature axing might suggest…
Like “Cheers”‘ spawn “Frasier”, “The Lone Gunmen” shifted the tone of the source material; it was lighter and more overtly played for laughs than “The X-Files”, and it focused on characters who’d started out as supporting players.
Conspiracy theorists/investigators John Fitzgerald Byers (Bruce Harwood), Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood, who also worked as an assistant director on the sci-fi smash’s early seasons), and Richard “Ringo” Langly billed themselves, oxymoronically, as the Lone Gunmen.
The brainchildren of X-Files legends Glen Morgan and James Wong (who’d later go on to make “Space: Above and Beyond“), the fan-favorite trio had been helping out Fox Mulder’s investigations into the unexplained since season 1 episode “E.B.E.”. Their presence had subsequently grown throughout the original show’s run, and they’d even been granted an origin story in season 5 episode “Unusual Suspects”.
But this spin-off was never designed to be a casual, more off-the-books version of “The X Files”. Instead, it was a comedic spy thriller fronted by three guys who’d never usually get close to the espionage front lines. Co-creator Frank Spotnitz has said that “the whole series was designed to be sort of a ‘Mission: Impossible’ with geeks,” and the opening of the pilot episode proves the point by dangling Frohike from a ceiling like he’s (almost) Tom Cruise. To accentuate those spy-fi credentials, the show even featured — in a lawsuit waiting to happen — a character called James (okay, Jimmy) Bond.
Byers was a former government employee whose cynicism about the official explanation for President Kennedy’s assassination led him to go freelance; Frohike was a former tango dancer with a major crush on Dana Scully, and a lesser interest in electronics; and Langly was a computer-hacking tech genius in an era when most people were still using dial-up internet. They were united by paranoia, and their quest to protect the American dream by exposing conspiracies and secrets that the powers-that-be would rather stayed hidden.
Watching the show back now, it’s very much a product of the early ’00s. This was story-of-the-week network television, with minimal serialization, that unmistakable “Vancouver masquerading for [insert name of US city]” vibe, and MASSIVE computer monitors. It also featured a guest star role from former “Neighbours” regular Alan Dale, who also popped up in “The West Wing”, “ER”, “NCIS”, “Lost” and seemingly every other major TV franchise of the era. (He would go on to appear in “The X-Files” itself a year later, playing an entirely different role.)
Perhaps most retro of all, the Gunmen’s day job is running a periodical magazine, printed on actual paper. Despite seemingly disastrous sales, the trio persisted with publishing “The Lone Gunman” to expose wrongdoing and cover-ups at all levels of the US government. Just a few years later, they’d surely have found a more natural — and potentially more lucrative — home for their musings online.
Indeed, this was a more innocent time when conspiracy theories could still be fun and eccentric, and were less likely to be exploited by extremist actors. Weirdly, however, the show is now most remembered for a story point in the pilot episode. Aired six months before the tragic events of 9/11 unfolded in New York, it featured a plot to fly a passenger jet into the World Trade Center.
“My very first thought [on seeing the news of 9/11] was ‘The Lone Gunmen’,” Spotniz recalled in a 2025 interview with the US Television Academy. “I thought, ‘Oh, my God, did they watch our show? Did they get this idea from us?’ A year or so after, I read something that relieved me of that fear — but, wow.”
The show’s cast of regulars was rounded out by the aforementioned Jimmy Bond (Stephen Snedden playing an optimistic, naïve rich kid who stepped in to bankroll the magazine), and the enigmatic Yves Adele Harlow (Zuleikha Robinson), a femme fatale who drove a different sports car every week, and was both friend and foe to the Gunmen. Her name (a pseudonym) was an anagram of Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK’s assassin), which was indicative of the show’s penchant for gags, silliness, and in-jokery. “The X-Files” had its fair share of comedy episodes, but never quite like “The Lone Gunmen”.
Characters wore masks/voice changers as if they were Ethan Hunt on an impossible mission, Frohike got his very own “Matrix”-style bullet-time moment, and Bond (not that one) got to live his best Tom Cruise life running around in shirt, underwear and socks à la “Risky Business”.
Area 51 anti-PR man Morris Fletcher (Spinal Tap’s Michael McKean, reprising his role from “The X-Files”) claimed to be the inspiration for Tommy Lee Jones’ character in “Men in Black”, before getting interrogated by a very fake-looking recreation of pop culture’s ubiquitous gray aliens. FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) and Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) also showed up for crossover cameos.
The series debuted to an impressive 13 million viewers on Sunday, March 4, 2001, but things started to go wrong when it moved to Friday nights a few weeks later. The ratings dropped off, never recovered and the FOX network declined to pick up “The Lone Gunmen” for a second season.
“I think looking back on it, [‘The Lone Gunmen’ coincided with] season 8 of ‘The X-Files,'” Spotnitz told the Television Academy. “We had already hit our peak, and we were already on the way down in terms of the mania for ‘The X-Files’. It was probably two or three seasons too late to do that spin-off. If we had done it in season four or five [during ‘The X-Files” run], we might have had a different reception.”
But the Gunmen did live (briefly) to fight another day. Although FOX was sceptical about bringing the characters back, “The X-Files” writers’ room gave them a heroic send-off in “Jump the Shark”, an episode in the show’s ninth and (then-) final season. Byers, Frohike, and Langly saved the world by locking themselves in a room with a fatal virus. They were buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery, with Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), Skinner, Bond, and Harlow among the mourners. They later made posthumous appearances in both of “The X-Files”‘s comeback seasons.
These days, you won’t find the Gunmen’s solo exploits on any streaming services*, as — away from Mulder and Scully — their existence appears to have been conveniently redacted. Maybe that’s how those anti-establishment investigators would have preferred it, though they deserve to be more than a footnote in that list of one-season sci-fi wonders.
*It is, in fact, so forgotten by the networks that you can find the show in its entirety for free on YouTube. The truth is always out there, if you know where to look. You can also try to find one of the increasingly rare DVD copies still on the market via third-party resellers.