Techtite's TV Reviews!

The Lone Gunmen

A Review by Techtite

How do you follow up on a phenomenon like X-Files? Well, that's a good question; one that series creator Chris Carter seems to have been dealing with for the past half-decade. It had been mentioned for some time now that Agent Mulder's underdog friends, "The Lone Gunmen," would be the stars of the intended spin-off. However, how good could it be? After all, the show had to be re-tooled so much, the series premiere was bumped as a mid-season replacement. As it so turns out, though, the result isn't that bad at all, and Carter may indeed have another hit on his hands.

The series involves the three anti-social conspiracy theorists that helped Agent Mulder on several "X-file" occasions. They include Byers (Bruce Harwood), whose overdressed business-suit-look makes him seem the most "grounded" of the three. Then there's Langly (Dean Haglund), who resembles a modern-hippie, and seems to be the best computer user. Third, there's Frohike (Tom Braidwood), whose male pattern baldness and glasses seems to make him receive the brunt of most of the series' jokes. Together, they help write an underdog rag that attempts to tell the American People "the truth," be it who shot JFK to whether Elvis is still alive. X-File fans who insist "The Truth is out there" should really like the overall plot of this show.

In the series opener, we also meet recurring character Yves Harlow (Zuleikha Robinson), a female mercenary of sorts who is also into infiltrating government agencies and discovering secrets, though not always for the same reasons. In the pilot, she is the one to successfully retrieve a prototype "Octium IV" chip whose circuitry could be used to get anyone's personal information over the internet (a conspiracy theory that is based loosely on fact; similar informative circuitry, behind Intel's Pentium 3 chip, caused a controversy of its own). She also helps them in a mini-mystery of sorts, involving Byers' father's possible murder, and (of course) a possible government conspiracy his dad knew about. In the end, the trio of Lone Gunmen save the day, in classic "Revenge of the Nerds" style.

There are intriguing aspects of the series, though the scripts still could use a little work. Frohike, for example, is made into the "George Costanza from Seinfeld" member of the group, yet is playing it too far. In one scene, he is running with Byers to get to a car before it is crushed in the junkyard. For no apparent reason other than sheer clumsiness, Frohike falls into the mud below, only to be covered in mud for the rest of the scene. See, it's supposed to be funny, because his big glasses are covered in mud, so he can't see through them, get it? Let's just say this is the worst scene of the pilot episode, and its slapstick humor has no place in the otherwise amusing plotline.

The series needs a bit of a clean-up elsewhere, too. With her introductory scene showing her in a shooting range with (of all things) a machine gun in each hand, Yves is apparently supposed to appeal to the Tomb Raider, Lara-Croft lover in teen boys everywhere. However, when the most recent games in the series (particularly Tomb Raider Chronicles) were pretty bad, do you really want to use this comparison? Let's just say that, as cute as she is, Robinson is no Angelina Jolie! Her character leaves room for expansion of her character, however, and with the right scripts, she could be a welcome addition to the show.

The show has a few other hurdles to jump over, in relation to being an X-Files spin-off. For one thing, the Lone Gunmen were linked to X-Files, via their FBI friend, Fox Mulder (David Duchovney). With Duchovney now out of X-Files for good, it's less likely that the spin-off can have any believable link with X-Files. This means no "crossover" episodes that could otherwise give the show a potential jolt in the Nielsen-Ratings arm. Adding to this hurdle is the insistence by Chris Carter, to not expect a sci-fi element in this intended comedy-thriller series. When sci-fi plots have been the best stories on X-Files, how will Gunmen succeed without them? Only time will tell. However, so many hurdles drop the show to a marginal-thumbs-up at best; in Techtite.com terms, a "Small Crater." The series has potential, though, and if Carter allows the series to overcome its minor stumbling blocks, it could win enough X-Files fans, to last for many seasons to come.

	Final Rating : Small Crater. There's any number of things that could have gone wrong with a X-files spin-off. In essence, it's surprising the pilot is as appealing as it is.
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