This is one of the few television series that I, my wife and our teenage kids could (and did) enjoy thoroughly. Why? The same reason the X-Files succeeded as long as it did - quirkiness and straining at the envelope of what is possible in television screenplays. Lone Gunmen was a "spin-off" of the X-Files, with three of the more popular recurring characters (Mulder's informal posse of off-the-books technicians) as protagonists. And what worked as comic relief in the X-Files mostly worked as stand-alone comedy in Lone Gunmen.
And like most successful cult television shows, it may be funny when it doesn't intend to be (it's difficult to tell when they're really moralizing and when they're supposed to be funny sometimes) - but the gags generally work. There are always sneaking puns and jokes thrown in for those of us who stayed awake in college (such as calling the eeeevil Army biological lab in the X-Files "Fort Marlene", an obvious reference to the real-life Ft. Detrick, formerly the center of the Army's biological warfare program). Of course, to "get" that joke you have to either be a serious movie buff or old enough to remember that there once was a Madonna-figure named Marlene Dietrich (her last name is pronounced "Detrick").
Having to write around Jimmy Bond, though, was the equivalent of giving Lone Gunmen a frontal lobotomy. It really detracted from the show's potential humor - specifically, it replaced much of the dark comedy created by the three central characters in the "X-Files" with pratfalls and cheap laughs. Toward the end of the show, the plots began clogging up with schmaltz.
The insertion of James "Jimmy" Bond was completely unnecessary to the series and highly undesirable. Perhaps the producers and writers didn't think that the audience would appreciate a series which turned exclusively on dark comedy. The early cancellation of "Wolf Lake" on two different networks seems to confirm that judgment, but now X-Files and Lone Gunmen veteran Vince Gilligan is doing just fine working the dark comedy vein with "Breaking Bad," which is uncontaminated by Jimmy Bond-ism in any way, shape or form.
Yves Adele Harlow was also unnecessary but not as destructive to the edgy/quirky humor of the series as Bond was (besides, she's hot). One could also argue that Yves replaced Fox Mulder as the "non-goofy" grown-up foil to the original Lone Gunmen. (Later, Mulder shows up for a very short cameo in the last episode of "Lone Gunmen," but never really figures in the series.)
Is this a show with profound intellectual insights? Not hardly. Even when they appear to really try for a moral, the screenwriters get laughs.
I wish, really, really wish that
(a) the show was still on the air (the X-Files, Malcolm in the freaking Middle and the Simpsons are in re-runs - why not the Lone Gunmen? - at least they're available on DVD....) and
(b) SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING I wish that they hadn't killed the characters Langley, Frohike and Byers off in one of the last episodes of the X-Files ("Jump the Shark"). THAT was uncalled for. They could just as easily have left them alive.
(Another unanswered question - why would a grown woman would KEEP a name that is an anagram for "Lee Harvey Oswald?")
Why the severe reaction?
In college, I was a member of what was essentially the robotics club at Louisiana Tech (actually, the "robotics and drinking club" - our motto was "Imbibo Ergo Sum," a variation on a famous quote from Descartes which testified to the importance of beer to our deliberations) and we were the real-life equivalent of the Lone Gunmen, weird computer hardware, choices of apparel and everything.
Even our unofficial side projects (some of us, including yours truly, once built a linear particle accelerator from scratch - you can't get Heathkits for stuff like that - that fit inside a trash can to turn clear topaz a nice, profitable shade of blue) would have been right at home in a Lone Gunmen episode - right next to "Bessie," the Lone Gunmen's home-made MRI scanner.
Watching the Lone Gunmen was like going back to Critical Mass during its heyday, every week, without the tuition and classwork. I miss that show a lot.
And like most successful cult television shows, it may be funny when it doesn't intend to be (it's difficult to tell when they're really moralizing and when they're supposed to be funny sometimes) - but the gags generally work. There are always sneaking puns and jokes thrown in for those of us who stayed awake in college (such as calling the eeeevil Army biological lab in the X-Files "Fort Marlene", an obvious reference to the real-life Ft. Detrick, formerly the center of the Army's biological warfare program). Of course, to "get" that joke you have to either be a serious movie buff or old enough to remember that there once was a Madonna-figure named Marlene Dietrich (her last name is pronounced "Detrick").
Having to write around Jimmy Bond, though, was the equivalent of giving Lone Gunmen a frontal lobotomy. It really detracted from the show's potential humor - specifically, it replaced much of the dark comedy created by the three central characters in the "X-Files" with pratfalls and cheap laughs. Toward the end of the show, the plots began clogging up with schmaltz.
The insertion of James "Jimmy" Bond was completely unnecessary to the series and highly undesirable. Perhaps the producers and writers didn't think that the audience would appreciate a series which turned exclusively on dark comedy. The early cancellation of "Wolf Lake" on two different networks seems to confirm that judgment, but now X-Files and Lone Gunmen veteran Vince Gilligan is doing just fine working the dark comedy vein with "Breaking Bad," which is uncontaminated by Jimmy Bond-ism in any way, shape or form.
Yves Adele Harlow was also unnecessary but not as destructive to the edgy/quirky humor of the series as Bond was (besides, she's hot). One could also argue that Yves replaced Fox Mulder as the "non-goofy" grown-up foil to the original Lone Gunmen. (Later, Mulder shows up for a very short cameo in the last episode of "Lone Gunmen," but never really figures in the series.)
Is this a show with profound intellectual insights? Not hardly. Even when they appear to really try for a moral, the screenwriters get laughs.
I wish, really, really wish that
(a) the show was still on the air (the X-Files, Malcolm in the freaking Middle and the Simpsons are in re-runs - why not the Lone Gunmen? - at least they're available on DVD....) and
(b) SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING I wish that they hadn't killed the characters Langley, Frohike and Byers off in one of the last episodes of the X-Files ("Jump the Shark"). THAT was uncalled for. They could just as easily have left them alive.
(Another unanswered question - why would a grown woman would KEEP a name that is an anagram for "Lee Harvey Oswald?")
Why the severe reaction?
In college, I was a member of what was essentially the robotics club at Louisiana Tech (actually, the "robotics and drinking club" - our motto was "Imbibo Ergo Sum," a variation on a famous quote from Descartes which testified to the importance of beer to our deliberations) and we were the real-life equivalent of the Lone Gunmen, weird computer hardware, choices of apparel and everything.
Even our unofficial side projects (some of us, including yours truly, once built a linear particle accelerator from scratch - you can't get Heathkits for stuff like that - that fit inside a trash can to turn clear topaz a nice, profitable shade of blue) would have been right at home in a Lone Gunmen episode - right next to "Bessie," the Lone Gunmen's home-made MRI scanner.
Watching the Lone Gunmen was like going back to Critical Mass during its heyday, every week, without the tuition and classwork. I miss that show a lot.