In March 2001, FOX began broadcasting "The Lone Gunmen," a series spun off from "The X-Files." Featuring as its main characters the three conspiracy-busters from the mother series, it was supposed to be a move in a more comic direction. Unfortunately, the show soon introduced an annoying buffoon character as a foil to the "gunmen," and the series tanked not long after that. The pilot, however, became rather interesting in hindsight. A crucial plot element, leading to the episode's climax, was this interesting element: the realization of a terrorist plot to hijack an airliner and to fly it into the World Trade Center.
I'm not implying that anybody knew that somebody was actually going to commit essentially that same act later, but it's interesting to realize how, as a plot on a conspiracy-inspired comedy series, nobody would have considered it a serious threat even if they had seen this episode before 9/11 happened.
The clip is just the juicy bits of the plot. If you want to see the whole episode, go
here,
here,
here,
here or
here, in that order if sequentiality is important to you.
12 Comments
lurgeesays...Interesting!
thx
rossprudensays...Wow, that's creepy. What few don't realize is that if terrorists REALLY wanted to do some damage to New York, they could fly a plane into the Citicorp building (the one with the diagonal rooftop)... its foundation corners were moved to its center points as a snazzy architectural feat from protecting a landmark Church on the block's corner. Using a series of chevrons spreading across multiple floors WITHOUT welding the chevrons to each floors, the shifting of foundation weakened the building and made it terrifyingly susceptible to falling over during hurricane winds. At one point, Citicorp employees masquaraded as first aid employees to do a census of the surrounding buildings -- if the Citicorp building fell, its sheer weight could cause a domino effect that could topple tens of skyscrapers and kill tens of thousands, not to mention the economic ripple effect for years afterward...
antsays...I remember this episode. 9/11 didn't remind me of this until someone mentioned it.
I miss this TV series. It was fun.
farcraftersays...I think the terrorists are killing all our bees.
harrysays...Well, they allready flew a much smaller plane into the WTC before 9/11. So I guess it wasn't completely out of the blue for a script writer trying to thing 'big'.
jonnysays...*dead
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