It is typical for a popular series to be made into a spinoff. Yet as horrifically bad as most spinoffs were, at least they were based on core characters of the series. That is to say: you can't say that a character is worthy of a spinoff, until they've been in almost every single episode of the series as it is, and someone says, "Okay; they're taking over the whole show, so we need to throw them into a separate series." Take, by stark contrast, The Lone Gunmen. Out of over 200 episodes of The X-Files, The Lone Gunmen were seen in -----get ready for it--- 38 episodes. That's impressive, perhaps, though it's hardly sign that these guys deserved their own series. Three characters, seen less than 19 percent of the time, deserved their own spinoff series?

The Lone Gunmen, one must imagine, were supposed to uncover conspiracies that Sculley and Mulder did not. Only problem with that was: by 2001 X-Files had covered every conspiracy theory imaginable. They investigated UFOs, Aliens, Abductions, ESP, Clairvoyance, Vampires, Ghouls, Mummies, Wizards, and the theory of Atlantis. When a movie had John Travolta play a man with healing powers, X-Files had an episode about a guy who could heal with just a touch. When The Matrix showed us a world of people trapped in a virtual world, an episode of The X-Files covered that too(!). The series had saluted, parodied, or outright ripped off every sci-fi story concept imaginable. What could the Lone Gunmen uncover that X-Files never did? Not much. So basically you had a spinoff starring characters seen 19 percent of the time, in sci-fi plots seen many, many times before.

It's perhaps the most poignant finale to this story when I say that The Lone Gunmen would return to the original series...to be killed. In the episode called "Jump the Shark" (no; seriously), The Lone Gunmen would kick the proverbial bucket, in a manner which is either very brave to some fanboys, or very stupid to others. Suffice to say that by its final season, X-Files wanted to end every story with a bang. When one bang would kill The Lone Gunmen, what more can I say?

Worst Series #8: Another Garbage Scow?