The new X-Files spinoff almost seems destined to flop.
It lacks nearly everything that made the original such a hit: Scully, Mulder, shadowy aliens, menacing shapeshifters and the kind of visceral dark drama that lures millions of viewers every Sunday night.
But don't rule out Chris Carter's The Lone Gunmen, airing Sunday at 9 p.m. on Fox, just yet.
The series veers in a different direction, replacing drama with comedy, FBI agents with maladjusted computer geeks, and alien abductions with toilet humor. About the only things remaining are – of course – government conspiracies and the dorky hacker trio who made their debut on a favorite episode of the X-Files, then went on to star in several others.
In the series premiere, Byers (Bruce Harwood), Frohike (Tom Braidwood) and Langly (Dean Haglund) are journalist-hackers who publish an underground newspaper from Takoma Park, Md. While investigating a suspicious death, they uncover a plot to hack into a civilian airliner's controls.
Other TV shows have featured geeks, of course, starting with the early-80s Whiz Kids. But this is the first show that highlights the sub-species of geeks who happen to be privacy fanatics.
An example: Our doughty heroes are investigating the evident misdeeds of E-Com-Con, apparently a Washington-area defense contractor, which is about to release the Octium IV chip. Not only is the microprocessor capable of "7 billion calculations per second," it also surreptitiously sends personal information about its user across the Internet via an on-chip "modem."
That's a thinly fictionalized description of the problem Intel had over the processor serial number included in its Pentium III chips. (As descriptions go, it's also an inaccurate one. Microprocessors don't actually have on-chip modems.)
Not only does The Lone Gunmen liberally borrow from in-the-headlines debates over privacy, the opening scenes of the first two episodes pay tribute to Mission Impossible 2 and The Matrix.
But don't expect a suave Pierce Brosnan or a high-energy Tom Cruise. These Lone Gunmen are heroes who succeed despite themselves: Think Maxwell Smart or, better yet, Inspector Gadget, not John Steed.
Comedic asides – the second episode features a hilarious blind football game – are among the series' strongest points and also its weakest: For a show that wrestles with government conspiracies and cover-ups, having its central characters ritually act like clueless buffoons makes their daring hacker exploits a little less believable.
Still, hardcore X-Files fans will likely overlook the plot holes and occasional technical errors, and provide The Lone Gunmen with a small but loyal following that should keep it alive into the fall season.
The Lone Gunmen will temporarily replace the X-Files on Sunday evenings, then shift to its regular time period on March 16. The X-Files returns April 1 with new episodes featuring the return of Mulder (David Duchovny).
