by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 02, 2008

It lasted for just 12 episodes, but "The Lone Gunmen" gave fans a better look at the three geek characters from "The X-Files" - Byers, Langley, and Frohicky. The show struggled to find the right mix of action and comedy, but featured stories which were always strange and original.

The three geeks had already appeared in eight seasons of "The X-Files," offering comic relief as well as their expertise on fringe topics like UFOs and government conspiracies to the show's main character (FBI special agent Fox Mulder). But their new series introduced a sexy female hacker named Yves Harlow, the daughter of an arms dealer who would sometimes outwit the three luckless heroes (though she also occasionally offered her assistance). Another new character was also added, a young and naive idealist named Jimmy Bond, who would urge the team to help the defenseless, "like the A-Team" - no matter how unusual their cases might be.

The characters were sympathetic, since the conspiracy-obsessed geeks were always in danger of going bankrupt. (At least one mission suffered from the fact that their van was out of gas!) But they'd use their computer skills to intervene in genuinely intriguing mysteries, like the death of a famous hacker or the release of a dangerously compromised silicon chip. In one of the most mind-boggling episodes, the three geeks even discovered a government plot to crash an airplane full of passengers into the World Trade Center.
Aired in March of 2001, the actor who played Byers later said that on September 11, "I experienced an eerie terror, as if I had seen the future, and not understood it until it was too late." In the episode, the airplane is hijacked by government conspirators planning to trigger new international tensions. But as the airplane is approaching the twin towers, it suddenly veers off to the side, guided to safety by "the Lone Gunmen" who had remotely hacked into its on-board controls.
In another episode it was revealed that Yves full name was an anagram for Lee Harvey Oswald, and she was actually the daughter of a notorious arms dealer. But despite its government conspiracies, the series had a surprisingly light tone. (When the three "gunmen" meet Jimmy, he's implementing his dream of coaching a blind football team, guiding them with beeping sounds on a specially-equipped football.) Re-watching the series now lends it a new perspective, recalling a time when computer geeks were a new phenomenon.

All three characters were later killed off in the final season of "The X-Files," giving their lives to stop the release of a deadly chemical weapon. But the plucky underdogs left their fans with one last set of inspiring words.

"Fight the good fight."
"And never give up."

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