Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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102 of 102 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Anything but "Lone", December 16, 2004
The Lone Gunmen finally got their own show -- even if it was sadly short-lived. They were introduced as UFO-chasing supergeeks early in "The X-Files," and soon garnered a cult following -- and eventually a spinoff, complete with tango-dancing kingpins, genius chimps and parallel universes.
The increasingly broke Lone Gunmen are in the middle of stealing a computer chip when a mysterious bearded man -- who turns out to be a beautiful woman, Yves Adele Harlow (Zuleikha Robinson)-- intervenes and gets them caught. After they foil an attempt to ram a plane into a skyscraper, they investigate a geeky golfer's kidnapping, and make a new friend: Jimmy Bond (Stephen Sneddon), a naive young man who gives them financial backing.
With Jimmy as a sort of apprentice Lone Gunman, the boys set out to deal with the conspiracies and strange occurrances: a superintelligent chimp that wants a life of his own, a man who claims to have been abducted by aliens, investigate a Nazi war criminal (who happens to be a little old lady), and search for a car that runs on water instead of gas.
It was a TV tragedy that this funny conspiracy series only lasted half a season. Then again, that's what cult TV is made of. While it lacked the audience and longevity of its parent series "The X-Files," "The Lone Gummen" made up for that in humor and creativity.
Not every episode was so good -- "Three Men and a Smoking Diaper" is just embarrassing, with a none-too-thinly-veiled Senator William Jefferson (Clinton?), a genial Southern womanizer who is just below the angels. Come on, at least TRY to be subtle. However, "Lone Gunmen" hit the mark more often than it missed, with ingeniously offbeat stories that allowed the characters to be goofy as well as serious. ("Prepare to get mooned!")
Certainly the stories tend to be imaginative -- superbrained chimps, trips into prison to save innocent men, and tangoing in competitions. And the humor that cropped up is what makes these stories priceless -- in one episode, poor Langly ends up with his arm up a cow's backside. In others, Jimmy does a spot-on Elvis impersonation, all four guys try to dance (with absurd results), and Frohike toughs it up as a martial arts master (with the help of some wire).
Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund, and Bruce Harwood all appeared to be having plenty of fun in this series as the geek, the uptight bureaucrat, and the "man of action." (We even get to see all three as kids, talking about what they want to do when they grow up) Sneddon is a great addition as the eager-puppy Jimmy Bond, who seems a lot dumber than he is. And Robinson rounds off the cast as a mystery woman with a ruthless streak and a few vulnerable spots.
Take the funniest episodes of "X-Files," and center them on the Lone Gunmen. "The Lone Gunmen" didn't last long, but it was fun while it lasted -- humorous, goofy, and has Frohike in a bottle-bra.
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67 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Conspiracy Geeks at Their Best, January 20, 2005
The Lone Gunman (2001), a trio of computer-hacking conspiracy geeks, was a spin-off from the X-Files. They appeared numerous times during the run of the X-files and for one season they had their own series.
If you like the Lone Gunmen on the X-Files, you should enjoy their 13 episodes.
Episodes:
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1) Pilot - A Mission-Impossible style episode as Frohike and Byers attempt to steal the Octium IV chip from E-Com-Con.
2) Bond, Jimmy Bond - The Gunmen encounter Jimmy Bond, a hapless pawn in a breakaway republic's attempt to fund a nerve gas operation.
3) Eine Kleine Frohike - Frohike disguises himself as the long-lost son of a woman who is believed to be a Nazi war criminal that the Gunmen are trying to smoke out.
4) Like Water for Octane - Jimmy narrates the history of heroes as he talks about his admiration for the Gunmen.
5) Three Men and a Smoking Diaper - Byers and Jimmy are in the crowd at a campaign speech, when a reporter begins asking questions of the candidate.
6) Madam, I'm Adam - The Gunmen meet a strange man who "may or may not" have been transported by aliens from a parallel universe.
7) Planet of the Frohikes: A Short History of My Demeaning Captivity - The Gunmen match wits with an intelligent chimpanzee after it escapes from a government lab.
8) Maximum Byers - On a cruise ship in the Pacific, the boy's chase a man they think is Elvis, still live and kicking.
9) Diagnosis: Jimmy - The trio stalks a grizzly-bear poacher in a snowy forest, and Jimmy believes his doctor is a killer profiled on America's Most Wanted.
10) Tango de los Pistoleros - The Gunmen turning the table on Yves for once, and bugging her to follow her on a case.
11) The Lying Game - The Gunmen investigate the murder of a blackmailer and the evidence points to Skinner.
12) All About Yves - The Gunman learn of Romeo 61 which maybe a government agency that may harbor the most sensitive secrets in America.
13) The Cap'n Toby Show - Langly's childhood hero, Cap'n Toby, is accused of being an international spy.
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful TV series that should never have been cancelled., February 7, 2005
All I really have to say about this release is "Finally." But since this is a review, I'll offer a little more.
Ever since The Lone Gunmen appeared in episode "E.B.E." in the first season of "The X-Files" TV series, the characters of Byers, Frohike and Langly became three of the most coolest characters ever conceived for television. And ever since the episode "The Unusual Suspects" in the fifth season of The X-Files, the creators of the show realized the potential for The Lone Gunmen to carry their own spin-off TV series. By the time The X-Files reached its 8th season, The Lone Gunmen TV series finally became a reality - for a while anyway.
This show was more comedic than The X-Files was. And that was to be expected since the Lone Gunmen were the funniest characters on The X-Files. "The Lone Gunmen" TV series was witty, humorous, it contained good story-telling - and it should never have been cancelled.
The cancelling of this show really showed just how low FOX can get. It was one of the best shows on TV and they just took it away without giving it the chance that The X-Files was given (remember, The X-Files started out small and earned a bigger following as the years went by). Not only that, but the show ended with a cliffhanger. Since it was cancelled, the only way the cliffhanger was resolved was to conclude it in an episode of The X-files called "Jump the Shark" in its 9th season. I didn't mind this so much except that they ended up killing off the Lone Gunmen in that episode! If their spin-off series didn't get cancelled, the Lone Gunmen would never have died.
One cool thing about having this series on DVD will be that fans of the X-files can have a sense of continuity to the series, because occasionally episodes of this series would cross over into the 8th and 9th seasons of The X-Files.
Perhaps the real reason this show got cancelled was because the pilot episode was about someone trying to crash an airplane into the World Trade Center (this show was cancelled four months prior to 9/11/01). Conspiracy, anyone? But I'm glad they're still releasing it on DVD. This is the best news I've heard in a while.
I'll say it again - "Finally."
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