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The Sept. 11 Parallel "Nobody Noticed" ("Lone Gunmen" Pilot Episode Video)
TV Guide ^ | 6.21.02 | Michael Ausiello

Posted on 06/21/2002 2:52:43 PM PDT by mhking

The Lone Gunmen
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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 911; 911prediction; lonegunmen; march2001; pilotepisode; video
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To: ATOMIC_PUNK; TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!; 68-69TonkinGulfYatchClub; dixie sass; Memother; ...
bumps
41 posted on 06/21/2002 7:17:00 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK
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To: mhking
I think I was one of the lone few who liked the Lone Gunmen, even though it was silly at times. I remember this episode. One of the guys was on the plane with his father. The whole episode was about what his father did in the Government and the two men not getting along. I don't remember much eles about the episode, but I do remember them almost crashing into the tower. I thought of this episode when 9/11 happened, and I did tell a few people, but no one seemed to concerned about a tv program.
42 posted on 06/21/2002 7:27:10 PM PDT by Ladybug1
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To: Senator Pardek
Thanks for posting that- of course, that is the album I was thinking of. Unfortunately, the "improvemments" to FR have made it very hard to go back and locate old posts like this (or even older "private replies")

I do recall saying at the time, though, that having served in Special Forces, training local (indigenous) resistance forces, I would have LOVED to have had a ready-made Fifth Column like the followers of Louis Farrakhan, some of our big-city drug gangs, or prison-based Muslim groups. We (well, not me) are going to be surprised when the word is given and all these people strike at our weak points (of which we have far too many...)

43 posted on 06/21/2002 7:51:35 PM PDT by RANGERAIRBORNE
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To: bootless
Go direct to the TV Guide story first and click the link in ther story... it works there

Funny once I saw it I remembered seeing the show

44 posted on 06/21/2002 7:55:44 PM PDT by tophat9000
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To: mhking
Don't forget Tom Clancy's book "Executive Orders". When it happened that morning that book came immediately to mind.
45 posted on 06/21/2002 8:50:35 PM PDT by JSteff
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To: IYAS9YAS
Say nine say I.
Bass akwards.
46 posted on 06/21/2002 9:58:11 PM PDT by philman_36
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To: mhking
Nobody noticed? Well...yeah...that's because it was a CONSPIRACY!!!

(insert kook response here)

Yeah, that's the ticket.

I have a vague recollection of that episode now that it's been brought up.

47 posted on 06/21/2002 11:49:42 PM PDT by CounterCounterCulture
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To: mhking
This link doesn't work either.
48 posted on 06/22/2002 2:32:07 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity
Try to copy/paste the link into Windows Media Player. It should work otherwise.
49 posted on 06/22/2002 2:35:21 PM PDT by mhking
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To: mhking
I got sound but no video. Maybe it requires a codec that I don't have.
50 posted on 06/22/2002 2:39:17 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity
I get sound, but no video.
51 posted on 06/22/2002 2:41:10 PM PDT by gitmo
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To: Neanderthal
...I was one of the few "Lone Gunmen" fans...

I was one that at least tried the show. Maybe they should have shopped it to SciFi (I *like* "The Chronicle", even started to record Lexx...).

I don't remember this epi, but I lasted maybe three shows.

52 posted on 06/22/2002 2:43:55 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: mhking
Hey, what about the 'Trading Places' movie scene where Dan Ackroyd is walking in front of the World Trade Center and says, "Prepare for an unbridled carnage such as you have never before witnessed . . . . "
53 posted on 06/22/2002 2:46:29 PM PDT by 537 Votes
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Comment #54 Removed by Moderator

To: philman_36
It actually stands for If you ain't Skivvy 9, you ain't s***. So, that would suffice to say that if you are Skivvy 9, you are s*** ;) Skivvy 9 is the nickname (many theories on how it was named - some better than others) of the unit I was in at Osan AB, Korea (89-91). Never thought of the anagram.
55 posted on 06/24/2002 1:22:48 PM PDT by IYAS9YAS
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To: mhking
Oh, I noticed. It was a good episode and credible in some respects, but the tin hat crowd will jump on it, no doubt, claiming the gub'ment arranged the aircraft to fly into the WTC.
56 posted on 06/24/2002 1:25:44 PM PDT by TADSLOS
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To: IYAS9YAS
Thanks for the explanation. I'm just bass akwards is all.
57 posted on 06/24/2002 11:45:45 PM PDT by philman_36
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