The Lone Gunmen aired on March 4, 2001 and ended on June 1, 2001 on the FOX network. Of course you all know this is a spin-off from The X-Files, were the 3 men were introduced in season 1 episode 17, E.B.E. where Fox Mulder brings them in to help him. The Lone Gunmen is not the only X-Files spin-off, the other one is of course Millennium with Lance Henriksen.

Although The Lone Gunmen in itself not really much SCI-FI, it is considered as SCI-FI because of it's connection to The X-files. It really is a wonderful series but as it is most of the time with cancellations, the viewers dropped considerably, from 13 Million viewers with the pilot, to 5.3 million viewers with the last episode. Luckily by then The X-files still ran and could The Lone Gunmen's storylines be wrapped up for the most part with the episode "Jump the Shark" in season 9. 

The Lone Gunmen generally received favorable reviews, co- creator Vince Gilligan had the following to say about the show's reception: "I have such fondness for The Lone Gunmen. I think it ended way too soon. I was crushed when The Lone Gunmen got canceled after its first season. The Lone Gunmen to this day is a show I’m still proud of, and I will always be proud of. It sort of points to an interesting phenomenon about television – you can’t really tell in advance whether a show is going to work for an audience. I would hold The Lone Gunmen up against anything that I have done before or since. For some reason, timing I guess, being the best thing to point to, it just didn’t click with an audience. If The Lone Gunmen had come on maybe a couple of years earlier, or a couple of years later, maybe it would have clicked." He also said: "my absolute belief is that we learn from failure, we don’t learn from success. And that show was in strict terms a failure. Certainly it only lasted 13 episodes and then was out. But I am still proud of that show and we had a lot of fun making it. But the 'failure' of that show–and I use semi finger quotes around the word failure because I enjoyed what we did with it—it doesn't really tell me much going forward. Because so much of television I really believe comes down to timing." (WIKI)

It's one of my favorite shows, the characters make the show, I love those 3 guys, these characters are in my heart for always I guess. There is a moment in the pilot, which by the way, had a lot of similarities with 9/11 when aired in March 2001, where Frohike and Byers are on a demolition site when they both run towards evidence what they think is about the be destroyed. Frohike falls in the mudd and I really believe this was not intended but it looks so good they kept it in, it is hilarious! See video, starts at 16:30 minutes and watch far about half a minute.  Frohike falls in the Mudd, hilarious!

What could also be very interesting for folks who don't own this on DVD and want to (re)watch this, all episodes currently are on YouTube to watch for free! Don't know of course how long this lasts. One thing I know for sure, this year I am going to take my Lone Gunmen DVD out again for a rewatch.

Jimmy Bond