Cast of The Lone Gunmen

By FLAtRich
[From the April 22, 2002 Edition of eXoNews.]

Hollywood April 22, 2002 (eXoNews) - Once you're canceled, you might as well be dead. That seems to be what Lone Gunmen series creators Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter were telling us in last night's X-Files episode "Jump The Shark".

Yes, it is true, kids: The Lone Gunmen die at the end.

The sad demise of our trio might even be construed as a tribute to Glen Morgan and James Wong (who created the Lone Gunmen for X-Files), known for killing off their main characters when Space: Above and Beyond (Fox) and The Others (NBC) were canceled - not to mention trying to kill off the cast of MillenniuM a bit prematurely when they left Fox at the end of Season Two. (Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz both helped Carter revive MillenniuM for a third season.)

Of course, no one ever dies for sure in The X-Files universe.

A recent Sci Fi Wire poll showed that the LG were easily the most favored choice over The Cigarette Smoking Man and other recurring characters for a return in the new X-Files movie (due in 2004), so who knows what Carter and company really have in mind?

Jimmy and Yves can’t believe it. (Fox)

We see the caskets, BTW, but not the corpses - and Jimmy and Yves survive.

According to an interview in the April issue of the X-Files Official Magazine, LG sidekicks Zuleikha Robinson (Yves) and Stephen Snedden (Jimmy) were not all that happy about the script:

"When I read the ending, I started crying," admits Robinson. "Of course, they go down heroically, but I still do feel very sad about it." 

Snedden didn't like it either, but thought it appropriate. "They're going out the way they should. So, in that case, it makes me proud that they kept their integrity." 

The Lone Gunmen actually did pretty well, considering they began as a sort of gag after Glen Morgan saw three guys who looked like Byers (Bruce Harwood), Langley (Dean Haglund), and Frohicke (Tom Braidwood) manning a booth at a UFO convention in 1993.

Morgan and Wong wrote them into the 1994 Season One episode "E.B.E", where Mulder first introduces them to Scully.

After that, the trio became legend on the Internet and returned to The X-Files often. They eventually graduated to their own series last year with co-stars Snedden and Robinson. Fox aborted the series, of course, after 14 episodes, and the trio returned to The X-Files. The Lone Gunmen series also inspired a Dark Horse comic, which is probably a collectors' item considering last night's final appearance.

The Official Lone Gunman site has been up but inactive since the series cancellation.

R.I.P., boys! Gone, but not forgotten!