I did not like the pilot of The Lone Gunmen

In My Humble Opinion
1

(see companion thread I liked the pilot of The Lone Gunmen

OK, originally, my title for this thread was to be “The Lame Gunmen”, but after having my morning Kahlua, I have become more accepting of the show.

Let me preface by saying that The Lone Gunmen were my favorite characters on “The X Files”, and I really, really was looking forward to this show.

OK…here is my review. And if you hadn’t guessed that there were spoilers here by now, well…

It starts off OK, but they could have used a less obvious pun than “Octium IV”. Langley did a good job of hamming it up during his speach and fake peanut reaction.

The “Mission Impossible” scene was good, except for - why in the hell and how in the hell can a simple winch be hacked? This is a recurring theme in the show that disturbs me - that anything that has any electromechanical component is somehow open to being hacked, and made to do things that are possibly impossible.

The middle of the show was not too bad mostly. Decent character development, not an overly long time spent on introductions. There was a little bit of speachmaking about ideals and goals going on, but pilot episodes often have that, so I let it pass.

Hacking into the DoD computer was just silly - they can trace the PC all the way down to download a “User” file, and yet not know who they are? And why in the hell would people like The Lone Gunmen keep a single file that would have any info like that at all on their PC? Highly bizarre.

And of course, DoD documents are always in non-encrypted Word files. I mean hellfire, people. I PGP encrypt random e-mails Dopers send me on a separate PGP disk. Why can’t the DoD at least do the same?

Falling in the mud was a bit of slapstick I saw coming, and thus was not amused. But, nor was it bad either.

And of course, the end. The show was not bad until the end.

First - why not call in a bomb threat? Or a few dozen? Hell, the airlines won’t take off if the Sky Chefs are late servicing the plane, they sure as hell won’t take off if they get a million bomb threats coming in from all quarters.

Second - of course, the natural way to look for a bomb on a plane is to buy a ticket on it and let it take off - while you are on the damn thing! :rolleyes:

Third - that was not a 727, even if the passenger count was right. And once again, we see that everything can be hacked into.

Fourth - Frohike, with just a few minutes to go, runs out and somehow

  1. Gets to the secret hacker underground automatic weapons firing range,

  2. Finds Eva, who just happens to be there (damn she shoots a lot!),

  3. Convinces her to help,

  4. She happens to have the chip handy (and not in a vault in Zurich, or a fab plant in Singapore), and mounted in a custom laptop with a custom motherboard of all things, and

  5. They manage to hack into the airplane and regain control in seconds.

And finally - Lee Harvery Oswald. Need I say more?

Oh wait, Frohike stealing the chip from the dual Mac-10 sporting Uberhacker. Um…yeah.

Overall, it would not have taken much to make this an outstanding episode. As it was, I would give it a 5.0/10.0, but given that it is a pilot, and pilots are always rough, I will raise it to a “barely viewable” 7.0/10.0.

Now…talk amongst yourselves…

2

I made it 2 minutes before shutting it off. “Lame” is absolutely the right word to describe it. Futurama and Malcomb made up for it, tho.

3

I agree, i was not too excited by what I saw. I also like TLG characters on the X-Files, but I just could not get into the tongue-in-cheek nature of this show. I was very bored, it did not deliver the needed “megawatts per hour” :wink:

4

If you liked the characters too much on the X-files, you might be a little disappointed that they don’t measure up to your expectations of what the show should have been like. OTOH, if you never saw the X-files characters, you probably came into TLG with an open mind and allow the show to build its own foundation, instead of requiring the show to build on top of your foundation.

In that case I would suggest you not waste your time on Moby Dick or The Scarlett Letter or Grapes of Wrath, as the first paragraph in those volumes leaves much to be desired. :rolleyes:

5

That was but one of THREE pratfalls that Frohike took (if you count the winch).

I too, was not amused, and if “Frohike Falls” become a signature of the show, I will be even less so.

6

I got disgusted after seeing the female villain - yeah, the guys get to be geeky, but the female has to be sexy.

7

And what about the plane itself? It was far too close to the building before pulling up. No way it could have avoided it. When Frohike warrived at the firing range the building was in view. The 727? is moving at, what, 400 mph? I don’t think so. Bad editing?

Overall I thought it was okay. I also objected to the whole “Oh, my estranged father is dead. Oh, no he’s not.” in the first show. That was easily 4th or 5th show material.

And since when does a '92 Impala have completely electronic transmissions so that one only needs to implant a small radio receiver into it in order to drive it remotely?

And since when do the Lone Gunmen need to have “proof” before they publish a story?

8

The lads over at Ars Technica are having a field day with this. General consensus: the l33terati are not amused.

I didn’t watch it, but if this website is any indication of the quality of the show, well, my only reaction is, “I can’t believe it’s not poop!”

(Whatever show that line came from last night was frickin’ hilarious.)