News What to Watch What to Watch and Read This Weekend: Betty Gilpin vs. AI, Round Two Plus: Buffy and Beavers By Molly Templeton | Published on March 6, 2026 Screenshot: 20th Century Fox Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: 20th Century Fox In two days, we spring forward, and while I am very excited about longer days, I am less excited about dark mornings. But, like everything, those won’t last forever. I am feeling springy. I hope you have some spring fever or some spring hope, or whatever feeling it is that comes from the sight of blooming trees and crocuses and blue skies peeking out from the gray. (It feels like there should be a specific word for that feeling, no?) Things are not less dire than they have been, and are in fact more dire in many ways, but watching the seasons change reminds me that change always comes. I’m sorry, cynics; I’m feeling a little hopeful this morning. Have a good weekend, hug your friends, and call your reps! Dawn’s In Trouble. Must Be Tuesday. On March 10th, 1997, Buffy the Vampire Slayer made its debut. I am really sorry to point this out, but I must: That means Buffy turns 30 next year. Buffy just turned 25 five minutes ago, so this is categorically impossible. But who am I to argue with the calendar? The best thing about this Buffy-versary is that I get to use the “Dawn’s in trouble” joke, which is especially funny if you consider that Buffy didn’t even debut on a Tuesday. (Remember when shows used to have specific nights they aired? And sometimes the networks would move them around on you? No? It’s fine, I’ll show myself out.)  I’m not saying a ton about Buffy itself here because, like so many Buffy lovers, my relationship with the show has grown ever more complicated over the years as we’ve learned more about its creator. But some things stand apart from the person who made them—especially when it took a whole massive team to create the thing we know and love. Like slayer powers belonged to every potential at the end of the series, Buffy belongs to us. Let’s just hope the new version doesn’t suck. (You can watch Buffy—and eventually the Buffy sequel? Reboot? Mysterious spinoff?—on Hulu.) The Oscars Clock is Ticking! You have, as I write this, nine days to catch up on Oscar movies before the Oscars happen. This means it is my duty to tell you to go watch Sinners. Already watched Sinners? Go watch it again! It’s nominated for sixteen Oscars! It deserves to be watched like sixteen times! But there are, in fact, other interesting movies up for the big award. There’s One Battle After Another (I will be able to hear features editor Leah Schnelbach’s shriek when I admit that I still haven’t seen this) Frankenstein, Hamnet, Bugonia—and let’s not forget Amy Madigan earning Weapons’ single nomination. KPop Demon Hunters is nominated for animation, Train Dreams for cinematography, Sentimental Value for a lot of things, including international feature film. Despite Sinners’ record-breaking number of nominations, it feels like a wide year, the kind of year where, you know, there were a lot of great movies. (Even if it seemed hard to see some of them! I swear If I Had Legs I’d Kick You played here for maybe five minutes, if at all.) If you would like to catch up, a decent number of them are available to watch at home—enough that I can’t list them all here. It’d take up so much space. But thankfully, a lot of those lists already exist! So here’s one at USA Today, and one at Glamour, and one at TV Guide, so you can take your pick.  How Is It Possible This Disney Movie Feels Under-Hyped? Hoppers is a movie about a talking beaver. Sort of. Hoppers is an animated Disney movie that I have heard shockingly little about. Perhaps this is because I don’t have children. Perhaps this is because Hoppers is, I repeat, a movie about a talking beaver. Well, actually, it’s about a college student whose consciousness gets transferred into a lifelike (for a cartoon, anyway) animatronic beaver and then inspires an animal rebellion. Wait, why haven’t I heard much about this movie?? Now I need to see it. This movie has a voice cast that’s all over the place (Jon Hamm? Kathy Najimy? Dave Franco??!?) and—wait, wait. This movie is written by Jesse Andrews? Who wrote Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and the screenplay for the very good film that it was adapted into? (House of the Dragon fans: go watch baby Olivia Cooke!) Okay. No one told me anything important, I see. Other people than me, apparently, did not overlook this movie’s arrival; our reviewer, Reuben Baron, quite liked it. Also, here is a very good real beaver. Always Read (and Watch) Betty Gilpin You may know Betty Gilpin from GLOW. You may know her from Mrs. Davis, and frankly, if you don’t know her from Mrs. Davis, I suggest you stop looking at the internet and start watching Mrs. Davis, especially if you liked Pluribus. But the thing about Betty Gilpin is that she is multitalented. In 2017 she wrote for Glamour about confidence and body image. In 2022 she published an essay collection, All the Women in My Brain. She’s also written for the New York Times. And now, for The Hollywood Reporter, she’s tackled a terrible topic: the “AI actress” Tilly Norwood. It begins, “They tell me you are an actress and a computer. I am an actress and almost 40. Let’s talk.” It also includes these sentences: “Tilly, you never had to be 14, so I’ll tell you what Google can’t. It feels like your soul gets a broken glass enema.” It is blisteringly funny and, underneath all the love for art, love for acting, love for people who make things, blisteringly angry. It’s not just a rebuttal of everything “Tilly Norwood” is. It’s a reminder that art is a human creation. Reading About Reading It’s awards-nominating season for book folk: the Locus Poll is open, Hugo Award nominators are doing their thing, and Le Guin Prize nominations are open (full disclosure, I also work on the Le Guin Prize). If you are interested in any of those things, you might be, I dunno, thinking about books, and thinking about the way people read and write about books. I think about these things a lot! And two of my favorite resources for finding out about what other people are thinking are the newsletter Interplanetary Mixtape and the Ancillary Review of Books’ Wow! Signal column. The weekly Interplanetary Mixtape spotlights essays about SFF and related topics, but also rounds up each week’s reviews; you can read work by several people about the same book. There are also art recs and videos! ARB’s Wow! Signal is more about criticism: this week’s includes Charlie Jane Anders’ newsletter about the state of the media after losing her review column at the Washington Post; and a Caroline Shea essay I can’t wait to read called “A Candle Burning: Nation and the Agency of Nature in Fantasy.” And there’s a lot more, too. Both include Jenny Hamilton’s excellent review of Into the Midnight Wood, because it really is just that good. It’s impossible to keep up with every cool bit of writing out there (and even in here, in Reactor-land!). It’s nice to have smart guides pointing out what you might have missed.[end-mark] The post What to Watch and Read This Weekend: Betty Gilpin vs. AI, Round Two appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie Is a Brilliant Sci-Fi Comedy in Disguise Like Galaxy Quest and Young Frankenstein, Nirvanna is a lover letter as good as its inspiration By Matthew Byrd | Published on March 6, 2026 Image: Elevation Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Elevation Pictures The hardest part of convincing someone to watch Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is, admittedly, the name. When I first heard about it, I, like many, assumed it was somehow a documentary about… well, the ‘90s grunge band Nirvana. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (fun fact: great band), but do we really need another one? The truth is more complicated and far nerdier. The film is actually a continuation of Nirvanna the Band the Show: a comedy web series that director Matt Johnson (BlackBerry) and composer Jay McCarrol started in 2007. Granted, that information probably does little to enhance your enthusiasm. The idea of watching the full-length continuation of a web series you probably never heard of before reading this paragraph isn’t exactly enough to make you drop everything and find one of the few theaters currently showing this movie. But none of that matters. Not really. What you need to know is that Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is actually an all-time great sci-fi comedy disguised as everything but that. Nirvanna the Band the Show was a mockumentary web series that followed the misadventures of two aspiring musicians (Johnson and McCarrol playing versions of themselves) who desperately try to play a show at a Toronto bar called the Rivoli. The Rivoli is actually a small venue that they could probably easily book a gig at if they just called and asked. Instead, the two concoct increasingly elaborate plans that they hope will result in a gig. Johnson has compared the show to a live-action Pinky and the Brain that stars two slackers, and this author struggles to find a more apt comparison. The movie opens with their latest plan: skydiving into the Toronto Skydome to generate the notoriety they believe will finally earn them a Rivoli gig. Thanks to a retractable roof, it fails spectacularly. Though Jay is becoming increasingly depressed by this cycle of failure the two have learned to call home, Matt is undeterred. After watching Back to the Future yet again, he decides to make their RV look like a time machine and film a video designed to convince the Rivoli’s owners that they are time travelers. Things take a turn when a spilled vintage bottle of Orbitz transforms their fake time machine into a real one that sends the two back to 2008 Toronto. Yes, the feature-length adaptation of a mockumentary web series suddenly becomes a time travel movie. The year Matt and Jay travel to gets at the heart of the film’s brilliance as a sci-fi comedy. 2008 is probably longer ago than you’d like to remember (18 years, according to math), but it’s not the distant past or far-flung future that we typically see in time travel stories. You are almost certainly underestimating just how different you and the world were not quite so long ago. But for Matt and Jay, who have been stuck in a cycle for so long, 2008 and 2025 don’t initially feel all that different to them. In fact, Matt only realizes he’s in 2008 when he goes to a movie theater and watches a crowd howl in laughter at a slur in The Hangover. Anyone who has tried to revisit a formerly beloved comedy only to run into “that scene” can relate. That’s to say nothing of the bus blasting the “original” version of the Black Eyed Peas “Let’s Get it Started” or that the billboard and magazine models they see include Jared from Subway, Jian Ghomeshi, and Bill Cosby. When Gen Z professes its love for the 2000s, we’re reminded that it wasn’t all bucket hats and bedazzled jeans. But Matt and Jay are not Bill and Ted. Though Matt teases the idea of going back to September 11, 2001, to prove that their time machine works, they’re not really interested in using this incredible opportunity for heroics or even substantial personal gain. Matt initially suggests that the biggest benefit of time travel would be the chance to not abandon their Skydome skydiving plan but leave a little earlier to avoid the roof closing. This pair has been through some of the most outlandish scenarios imaginable and always end up back where they started. Time traveling is just another chance to showcase their gifts. The unbelievably hilarious comedy of errors that follows is rooted in the idea that time travel is as potentially dangerous as it is socially awkward. Despite their earnest attempts to not alter the past, Matt and Jay alter the future in a way that makes Jay a solo act rock star. But when a seemingly softball interview question (“Who is your best friend? Who do you share your good news with?”) sends Jay into an existential spiral, he decides to find Matt. Well, first he becomes a fugitive after accidentally shooting one of his band members with what he believes is a toy gun, but we don’t always ask questions when our friends need help. Though it probably seems absurd to incorporate time traveling into the story of two guys who film their failed attempts to achieve a modest goal, that’s exactly what they need. They are, in their own ways, becoming obsessed with time. The time they’ve spent, the time they wasted, the time that remains, and, ultimately, what to do about it all. And if that sounds familiar, it’s because this movie is, at its heart, an unabashed Back to the Future parody. The story even follows the structure of the first two Back to the Future movies with surprising accuracy, right down to the pair’s attempts to use lightning to send them back to the past when their Orbitz runs out. Doc and Marty didn’t use the world’s most impossibly long extension cord as part of their plan, but maybe they just didn’t want it as badly as Jay and Matt do. But outside of Young Frankenstein and Galaxy Quest, we’ve rarely seen a parody like this that works just as well as a companion or addition to its inspirations. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie feels remarkably close to the best version of Back to the Future 4 we will (hopefully) ever get. It too is the story of two friends who help each other navigate an impossible scenario that offers them new perspective on the trajectory of their lives. In all the absurdity, there is so much genuineness. It’s that genuineness that makes this movie a special sci-fi comedy. The hilariously downplayed remarkability of time travel makes sense when you realize this is really the story of two guys with the already incredible ability to endure the most outlandish scenarios and end up right back where they started. Time travel is just another chance to showcase their Sisyphean gifts. Matt and Jay could have played the Rivoli at any time. They certainly could have played the Rivoli after going back in time and using all the knowledge they brought with them to book a show at a glorified open mic night. They don’t. Some of that can be chalked up to incompetence (ok, most of it), but they ultimately always seem to be more concerned about each other than anything else. Several times throughout the movie, we even see each character remember something they regretted saying to the other only to recall an even more hurtful version of that conversation. It’s not accurate, but how often are our memories of the past? What we see is true to how they feel. Time travel stories often deal with the things we can change, either accidentally or intentionally. How can we make our lives better or how can we avoid making them worse? Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is the rare sci-fi time travel story more concerned with the things we wouldn’t change. Matt and Jay will never be famous. But having seen the alternatives, they will never again fail to appreciate their time with each other. As modern day Matt tells 2008 Jay when Jay admits that he’s worried about growing old, “If you’ve got a best friend you won’t even notice getting older.” [end-mark] The post <i>Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie</i> Is a Brilliant Sci-Fi Comedy in Disguise appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Hoppers Hoppers Is a Brilliantly Silly Ecological Adventure The latest from Pixar brings environmentalism to the fore with nuance. By Emmet Asher-Perrin, Reuben Baron | Published on March 6, 2026 Credit: Pixar/Disney Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Pixar/Disney Ten minutes before my Hoppers press screening started, the news was announced that Netflix had dropped out of the running for buying Warner Bros., all but guaranteeing that the Ellison family will make a mess of the company (and especially of its news and politics programming) the way they’ve done with Paramount. Perhaps the best compliment I can give the new Pixar movie, directed by We Bare Bears creator Daniel Chong, is that for the next hour and 45 minutes, I didn’t think at all about the news that was upsetting me beforehand. We all went back to panicking about the death of Hollywood a little bit after it ended, but for as long as you’re watching it, Hoppers defeats cynicism. That’s all the more impressive given there’s plenty of reasons to be cynical about the Walt Disney Corporation in general and Pixar in particular. Of Pixar’s 2020s run, only Turning Red and a few of their Disney+-exclusive short films rank for me among the studio’s all-time classics. Beyond that, they’ve had ambitious half-successes (Soul), unambitious trifles (Luca), interesting ideas underdeveloped (Onward), boring ideas cobbled together (Elemental), good-enough sequels (Inside Out 2), baffling spinoffs (“the origin story of the human Buzz Lightyear that the toy is based on”), and, heartbreakingly, two projects hobbled by anti-queer censorship: Elio (which fired its original gay director while removing autobiographical elements) and the streaming series Win or Lose (which got delayed two years to cut out all acknowledgement of a trans character’s identity). While Hoppers doesn’t make up for Pixar’s recent failures in LGBTQ+ erasure, it thankfully offers strong assurance that the studio isn’t backing away from other “woke” themes. Despite rumors that Hoppers was facing pressure to tone down its environmentalist message, the finished film shows no signs of such tampering. It’s not only a “save the forest” story—something that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in the ‘90s but is now somehow a partisan issue—but one concerned with the process of activism and the frustrations of trying to do good within a system where it feels like everything’s against you. Whether or not Hoppers is Pixar’s most “political” film (the similarly eco-themed WALL-E, the all-over-the-spectrum reads on The Incredibles, and the socialist bent of A Bug’s Life could also contend for that title), it’s the one most directly focused on the process of doing politics. Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda) has been trying to help animals—and getting in trouble for her attempts—since she was a child. In Hoppers’ opening sequence, young Mabel tries to sneak all her school’s classroom pets into her backpack, planning to release them into the wild. Her response to getting caught indicates an angry streak she has trouble dealing with. Turns out her grandmother (Karen Huie) shares the same anger, and shows Mabel how she relieves it by meditating in the local glade, listening to and observing the wildlife around her and reminding herself that however alone she feels, she’s part of something much bigger than herself. The ensuing montage of Mabel growing up spending time with grandma doesn’t approach opening-of-Up waterworks—grandma’s death is notably not shown—but it serves a similar grounding purpose ahead of the comic chaos to come. At 19 years old, Mabel frequently gets into screaming matches with her nemesis Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm), a politician who is handsome, popular, and a dirty liar (of our real world political rogues gallery, he feels closest to Gavin Newsom). Jerry’s latest plan for the construction of a freeway is going to cut right through the Tanaka family’s beloved glade. It’s fine for him to build on this land, he argues, because no animals are living there —a claim that weirdly appears true at the moment but Mabel knows wasn’t the case just a few days ago. Mabel struggles to get others to care about her cause with a petition, so she takes it upon herself to investigate why the glade’s beavers have gone missing. This investigation leads to Mabel discovering the film’s big high concept hook: her biology professor Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimy) has invented a means for humans to “hop” their consciousness into animal-shaped robots that also allow them to communicate with animals. It’s like James Cameron’s Avatar, except Dr. Sam tells Mabel it’s nothing like Avatar. Mabel’s not part of the official Hoppers program, but of course she steals a beaver body for herself to find out why a whole ecosystem’s gone missing. A fun detail: while the animals and Hopper robots have big cartoon eyes and expressive faces from the perspective of anyone in a Hopper body, to all other humans, they’re beady-eyed and incomprehensible. The early scenes of beaver-Mabel learning the ropes of the animal kingdom and figuring out how to help the beaver King George (Bobby Moynihan) reclaim his old land bring to mind parts of the recent DreamWorks film The Wild Robot. Pixar and DreamWorks have often landed on similar subject matter around the same time. What’s funny in the comparison of these two robots-among-animals movies is that in some ways, the DreamWorks one feels closer to what 20 years ago we would have called “Pixar-esque” (reflections on parenting precision-engineered to make grown-ups cry) while the Pixar one appears more “DreamWorks style” (wacky-looking animals who have dance parties to recognizable pop hits). This might sound like a negative criticism of Hoppers, but I don’t mean it that way—it’s good at what it’s doing, being genuinely funny and moving at a fast pace while still having a heart and solid character development. The wackiness kicks it up a notch halfway through the movie, as the battle for the forest grows ever more aggressive and King George brings Mabel along to meet with more animal royalty. Suddenly we’re thrust into a conflict over the ethics of political assassinations. Characters actually die in this movie—and at least one of those deaths is HILARIOUS. The new big antagonist that rises up is just a genuinely insane idea; you’d think he’d be just a joke at first, but by the end of the movie, he’ll be haunting young viewers’ nightmares akin to Christopher Lloyd’s Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. As everything escalates, Hoppers becomes funnier and more unpredictable, though I also know some people will have criticisms of how the political side of the story evolves in tandem. For me, the sheer silliness of the big third-act twists cancel out any attempt to read those particular bits too seriously in the context of real world politics, which in turn cancels out any interpretations that might be too cringey. Amidst this, I appreciate the nuance of where the film comes down on questions of idealism vs. cynicism: Mabel chooses to try and see the good in people, even while acknowledging some people just aren’t good. And who knows, maybe some of those no-good people can still learn a lesson after multiple near-death experiences! Daniel Chong has cited Isao Takahata’s Pom Poko as a big influence on Hoppers, which is both very clear in watching it and also makes this perhaps the first Pixar movie I prefer to its Studio Ghibli inspiration. Takahata’s tanuki-against-civilization film is pointed in its environmental message but lacking in memorable characters and went to jarring extremes of absurd comedy (much of it involving testicles) side-by-side with tragedy (the death scenes were no joke, even if they sometimes took place within seconds of the testacle slapstick). Hoppers gets almost as extreme in the absurdity as one could in an American family film (there are no testicle transformations here), but the sad stuff isn’t anywhere near as sad and the serious themes are presented more hopefully, so any tonal whiplash is much more manageable. “Less sad” doesn’t equal “not sad,” however, and because Mabel is such a sympathetic heroine, the ending of Hoppers does, in fact, manage the thing everyone expects a great Pixar movie to do at its climax: make us cry! Strangely enough, it’s not even the grandma stuff that got me, but the animal communication story. Somehow a single gesture from the beaver with the little crown can activate tears. As usual with Pixar, stick around through the credits: while not significant to the plot, the final scene further exemplifies how beautifully this film combines silliness with sweetness.[end-mark] The post <i>Hoppers</i> Is a Brilliantly Silly Ecological Adventure appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Outlander Outlander Stars Reveal Why Brianna and Roger Didn’t Return to the 1980s In an interview with Reactor, the actors explain how the decision to go to the 1770s came to pass By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on March 6, 2026 Credit: Starz Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Starz This post contains mild spoilers for the first episode of Outlander’s eighth season; if you’ve seen a trailer, you won’t receive additional spoilers below. The premiere of Outlander’s eighth season was a homecoming. Not only do we see James and Claire Fraser (Sam Heughan and Caitríona Balfe) back at Fraser’s Ridge, we also see the two reunited with Brianna (Sophie Skelton), Roger (Richard Rankin), and their two children. For most of last season, Brianna and Roger lived in the 1980s after they left their life in the 1770s to go forward in time to get crucial medical care for their daughter. In season seven, however, a man kidnapped their son and saw Roger go back to 1739 in an attempt to find him. It turns out that their son never left the 1980s, and once Brianna found him, she and her two children went to 1739 to reunite with Roger. In the first episode of season eight, we see Brianna, Roger, and the children back at Fraser’s Ridge with James and Claire. What we don’t see on screen, however, was Brianna and Roger’s decision to head to the 1770s rather than back to the 1980s. In an interview in the lead-up to the show’s season eight premiere, I asked Skelton and Rankin how they thought that off-screen conversation went for Brianna and Roger. Credit: Starz “After that reunion in 1739, at the end of season seven, they thought, ‘Listen, is there any point, really, to go back to the ‘80s now? I mean, we’re here, we may as well just stop off at the Ridge on the way back.’” Rankin speculated. And that decision, it seems, was likely made by Brianna before she and the children met up with Roger in 1739. “Brianna must have bought everything to [Roger], knowing that she was going to go to Jamie and Claire, right?” Skelton asked Rankin. “Because I brought Frank’s book [the book Claire’s first husband wrote about the history they are all living through in the 1770s] and everything, so I must have planned it.” She added, “I mean, I think once your kid’s been kidnapped in the ‘80s, you may as well just be like no time is safe—we may as well just go and be with family.” Both actors acknowledged that their characters might have underestimated the danger of living in the 1770s. “I wonder if they got back there and then thought, ‘Ohhh yeah… there’s a war.’ That seems like that could be bad too,” said Rankin. Skelton also hinted that the first few episodes will be “a harsh welcome back” for Brianna and Roger. “I’m sure there’s times where they question their decision making,” she said, “but I do think the fact that [their son] Jemmy was kidnapped in season seven, and that world [the 1980s] proved just as dangerous, will be in the back of their minds to back up their decision each time. But yeah, I don’t think it ever gets easier.” New episodes of Outlander season eight premiere on Starz on Fridays. [end-mark] The post <i>Outlander</i> Stars Reveal Why Brianna and Roger Didn’t Return to the 1980s appeared first on Reactor.

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.