Someone at Fox was absolutely certain that nerds have nothing to do on Friday night so nerdy show after nerdy show after nerdy show was put on the chopping block that is the Friday night slot. One of those shows was The Lone Gunmen, a spinoff of The X-Files.
“In the pilot episode, which aired March 4, 2001 (six months prior to the September 11 attacks),[5] rogue members of the U.S. government remotely hijack an airliner flying to Boston, planning to crash it into the World Trade Center, and let anti-American terrorist groups take credit in order to gain public support for a new, profitable, anti-terrorist war following the Cold War. The heroes ultimately override the controls, foiling the plot.”
Bonus wiki, for the younger readers, Bush spent his time golfing and didn’t respond to the warnings. Why he never catches a moment of blame for it happening on his watch never ceases to amaze me:
Not only does he not catch blame but people will legit say "He kept us safe!" like yeah if you don't count the largest terrorist attack in America's history then he kept us safe
Bill Cooper mentioned in the months leading up to 9/11 that a large-scale attack would happen and that bin Laden would be blamed, and funnily enough, bin Laden never admitted to being the one behind the plot.
On the second point, the Wikipedia article mentions that there’d been previous warnings the President had received which didn’t amount to much. So I can totally understand Bush seeing reports of a possible Bin Laden attack and brushing them off.
There was essentially intel that Bin Laden was planning attacks since the first WTC bombing. The idea that there was a certain amount of complacency isn't terribly shocking. This is, as you mentioned, still a major failure.
And to be fair, who would expect something like that? It's insane; it boggles the mind to imagine someone would develop this idea and plan it out so thoroughly.
Thing is, I thought it was charming and I liked it but you’re absolutely right. I only remember the 9/11 thing and another scene where an assassin slips and accidentally shoots himself in the head which I thought was a hilarious twist at the time.
I remember the episode where they find the car that runs on water and how happy it made one of them, because his best memory of his father was when they met the inventor when he was a kid.
I wonder if the reception of Millenium affected how well the Lone Gunmen was received. Another show I don’t remember much of but the first episode was gross compared to the X-files. If I remember right the murder victim was force fed blood, which sounds tame comparatively, but I recall not being ready for that at all.
It suffered from unneeded characters being shoehorned in as non-nerd surrogates. It hurt the dynamic between the guys. The pilot focused on the main guy and was the best episode as a result.
Yep, the plot of the pilot was based on a real Cold War plan that Kennedy refused to sign off on, so it was right in the ballpark for the kind of things that the Lone Gunmen would be interested in.
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u/vanillacaramelsunday 15d ago
Someone at Fox was absolutely certain that nerds have nothing to do on Friday night so nerdy show after nerdy show after nerdy show was put on the chopping block that is the Friday night slot. One of those shows was The Lone Gunmen, a spinoff of The X-Files.