The Sept. 11 Parallel "Nobody Noticed" ("Lone Gunmen" Pilot Episode Video)

TV Guide ^ | 6.21.02 | Michael Ausiello

[mhking]

The Sept. 11 Parallel "Nobody Noticed"
Friday, June 21, 2002

We know the ratings for Fox's short-lived X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen were bad, but this is ridiculous. Six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — March 4, 2001, to be exact — Gunmen premiered with an episode featuring a terrorist plot to fly a commercial airliner into the World Trade Center. The climactic sequence actually shows the plane heading into one of the Twin Towers, but at the last minute, it's pulled upward and just misses the building.

Shockingly, this horrifying bit of foreshadowing was never widely reported until Thursday, when industry newsletter The Myers Report (PDF) broke the story. How is it that virtually no one remembered this post 9/11? "I know! That's what I've been wondering," marvels Frank Spotnitz, who along with Vince Gilligan and John Shiban wrote the episode. "I thought, 'Nobody noticed!' I guess so few people saw the show. But it's strange too because that was the pilot and the ratings were actually quite good for [that episode], and yet, we didn't hear anything."

Myers Report columnist Ed Martin — who was tipped off about the horrific parallel by a friend — wrote that "this seems to be collective amnesia of the highest order. The final act of the Gunmen pilot, which seemingly made no impact last year, now contains some of the most deeply disturbing images ever created for an entertainment program." (To see the clip for yourself, click here.)

"I woke up on September 11 and saw it on TV and the first thing I thought of was The Lone Gunmen," recalls Spotnitz. "But then in the weeks and months that followed, almost no one noticed the connection.

"What's disturbing about it to me is, you think as a fiction writer that if you can imagine this scenario, then the people in power in the government who are there to imagine disaster scenarios can imagine it, too."

Unlike the actual attacks, there was no suicide hijacker in the Gunmen climax; the terrorists attempted to remotely steer the plane into the skyscraper. "Now, ironically, one of the things [the government is] talking about to prevent [another 9/11] is the ability of terrorists to remotely pilot planes," Spotnitz says, "which was another element of our story. It's weird." — Michael Ausiello

[Chewbacca]

I loved that spin-off series.
So sad they killed off the Lone Gunmen in the final episode.

[proust]

The funny(?) thing is, those TV producers now have better track records prediction-wise than all the "psychics" out there.

Proust

[WarSlut]

Here you go.

[Senator Pardek]

[Bobby777]

the burning tail seems a bit Flight 587-ish doesn't it? ... oops I've gone and done it ... anytime now, there will be calls for tin foil alerts ... after all, the engines just shake off of a passenger plane everyday ... not ...

[Bobby777]

p.s. like your handle ... LOL ... wasn't that Judith Krantz of the New York Post who gave that moniker to Christine Ammanpour?

[WarSlut]

Here's a bigger one.

[IYAS9YAS]

Actually, the aircraft was remotely piloted by someone in the "government" to create a war, if I remember correctly. It was not terrorists from outside the U.S. They were from within and the tall skinny suit's (can't remember his name on the show) dad knew of the plot and the government tried to kill him, but he faked his own death and was able to warn his son and his son's buddies about the crash. It involved some sort of superchip, too.

[WarSlut]

Finally, someone gets it!

Actually, it was Andrea Peyser, from the NY Post. But close enough... :)

[IYAS9YAS]

Actually, I made the connection within hours at work with some friends. It was kind of eerie.

[alnick]

I clicked on the link to the story and followed the link to the video from there, and it worked fine.

[swarthyguy]

Thanks.

[Vladiator]

This topic was posted a month ago on this site:

http://www.freerepublic.com/fo cus/news/695246/posts

[Rome2000]

Kind of makes Condoleeza Rices statement that "nobody had any idead this could happen" sound ridiculous

[swarthyguy]

Found IT!!!

http://www.newsmax.com/archive s/articles/2002/5/29/71547.sht ml

[swarthyguy]

Ping to my post above on story of US Businessman in Egypt.

[Bobby777]

hehe ... good one ... I'm almost jealous ... but since I'm a guy I guess it wouldn't work for me anyway ... LOL

[TheLurkerX]

I liked it a lot. I didn't remember the scene until I actually watched the clip again, and then it came back to me. Kind of spooky.

[Behind Liberal Lines]

"What's disturbing about it to me is, you think as a fiction writer that if you can imagine this scenario, then the people in power in the government who are there to imagine disaster scenarios can imagine it, too."

Of course, not even the TV show imagined suicide hijackers.

And in real life we weren't going to get "remote controlled planes."

If we start expecting our government to anticipate and prepare for every act of terrorism imagined by fiction, we might as well have our soldier on alert for everything that ever happened in a James Bond movie or "X-men" comic book.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

(Bill Naylor): Sept. 11, 2001 was UN's International Day of Peace - "On this International Day of Peace, let us dare to imagine a world free of conflict and violence." (Kofi Annan, earlier in the day, Sept. 11, 2001; UN Press Release.)