News The X-Files The Lone Gunmen Creators Explain the Show’s Cancellation and the Characters’ Controversial Deaths Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz talk about regrets, bad timing, and The Lone Gunmen’s bizarre 9/11 connections By Matthew Byrd | Published on March 5, 2026 Photo: 20th Century Fox Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: 20th Century Fox In an extensive interview with the Television Academy, The Lone Gunmen co-creators Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz discussed the short-lived X-Files spin-off that is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. And while many fans know that the show’s low ratings ultimately contributed to its demise, the pair explain that the situation was dire even before the final numbers came in. “We knew we were in trouble fairly early on,” Spotnitz recalls. “We were really trying to persuade the studio to spend money to support the show. We did get them to spend money on newspaper ads for the last few episodes to try and help the ratings, but to no avail. They were as supportive of the show as they could be, actually.” Unfortunately, those efforts weren’t enough to combat a series of factors that hastened the series’ downfall. “I also think, looking back on it, it was season eight of The X-Files — we had already hit our peak, and we were already on the way down in terms of the mania for The X-Files,” Spotnitz suggests. “If we had done it in season four or five [during The X-Files‘ run], we might have had a different reception. 9/11, in my view, really killed The X-Files. The mood of the country was no longer government conspiracy and all that.” Partially attributing the show’s downfall to 9/11 may seem dramatic, but The Lone Gunmen always had a bizarre relationship to that event. Its pilot episode (released in March 2001) involved a conspiracy to fly a commercial plane into the World Trade Center. That is a hell of a coincidence, to say the least, and the frightening timing of that plotline was not lost on The Lone Gunmen team. “It was my very first thought when I saw what happened that morning,” Spotnitz explains. “I thought, ‘Oh, my God, did they watch our show? Did they get this idea from us?’” Of course, the details behind the planning of the attack eventually showed that The Lone Gunmen series had nothing to do with it. And while Gilligan agrees that the cultural shakeups caused by 9/11 contributed to the show’s downfall in some ways, he attributes its sudden downfall more to bad timing in general. “Another big part of it was Friday night versus Sunday. That used to mean something,” Gilligan explains. “Timing is another word for luck, as far as I’m concerned. I always say if Breaking Bad had been six months earlier, or six months later, it wouldn’t have lasted more than a season. And if Lone Gunmen had been a year earlier, it could have been a big hit.” As Gilligan alludes to, The Lone Gunmen debuted on a Sunday night to huge ratings before being moved to a Friday night timeslot. Along with the confusion that shift caused, the pair soon realized that Friday night was going to be a death spot for almost any series. But The Lone Gunmen themselves weren’t quite done yet. They were actually brought back in a season nine X-Files episode called “Jump the Shark.” The Lone Gunmen were killed off in that episode, which some attributed to Fox’s hatred of the characters and their desire to be rid of them. However, Spotnitz says there was more to that animosity than people realize. “There’s a story I’ve never told, but I feel like I can tell it now that it’s been 25 years and Fox has been sold to Disney,” Spotnitz says regarding the death of The Lone Gunmen. “The deal that [The Lone Gunmen actors] Tom and Dean and Bruce made — Fox screwed up. They paid them way more money than they meant to pay them… Fox did not want to bring them back. They really tried to stop us; they were so mad. In their mind, they’d overpaid them for The Lone Gunmen. They were absolutely against it. And we just said, ‘We’re doing it, so you’ll have nothing to broadcast if we force their hand.'” And while the pair got to say goodbye to The Lone Gunmen (minus some hallucinogen-fuelled appearances in the X-Files revival), the nature of the character’s deaths (they sacrifice themselves to contain a virus) was certainly a more shocking conclusion than some had anticipated given their usually lighter and more comedic nature. Even Gilligan has wrestled with whether they made the right decision. “For years, that was not my favorite moment,” Gilligan says. “But, it was a very dramatic ending, for sure. They got to be heroes.” Spotnitz, meanwhile, believes that they made a specific mistake that he wishes they could take back. “I do regret that that episode didn’t end with a laugh — it just ends with sadness,” Spotnitz reveals. “That was a mistake. If you’re going to do that, then you’ve got to bring back the joy that the characters represented, and we didn’t.” Still, Gilligan hopes that if the time wasn’t right for The Lone Gunmen back then that people will still find a way to watch the show now. “We were lucky to get 13 [episodes]. Nowadays, it’d be six,” Gilligan says. “I just couldn’t be more proud of it. It’s just timely 25 years later… I’d love for people to [read] this and say, ‘What show are they talking about?’ And then look it up online and buy it. We put out DVDs.” [end-mark] ” The post <i>The Lone Gunmen</i> Creators Explain the Show’s Cancellation and the Characters’ Controversial Deaths appeared first on Reactor.