Vince Gilligan Reflects on His Accidental 9/11 Prediction 25 Years Later

While The Simpsons is frequently celebrated for its uncanny ability to “predict” everything from political shifts to corporate acquisitions, another Fox production once broadcast a premonition far more unsettling. Twenty-five years ago, a short-lived spin-off of The X-Files featured a narrative that mirrored one of the most defining tragedies in modern history—airing just six months before the events of September 11th unfolded.

That series was The Lone Gunmen, a show dedicated to the misadventures of Byers (Bruce Harwood), Langly (Dean Haglund), and Frohike (Tom Braidwood), the trio behind a conspiracy-focused tabloid. In the pilot episode, which debuted on March 4, 2001, the group uncovers a rogue government faction planning to hijack a passenger jet via remote control to strike the World Trade Center. The script contained a line that remains haunting to this day: “They’re going to crash the plane into the World Trade Center.”

“Except in our version, the good guys won,” showrunner Vince Gilligan recalls.

By the time the autumn of 2001 arrived, The Lone Gunmen had already faded from the airwaves. Cancelled after only 13 episodes due to lackluster ratings, the show’s unresolved narrative was eventually tied up in a 2002 episode of The X-Files that saw the beloved characters meet their end. Despite its brief run, the series remains a cult favorite for fans and its creators—including Gilligan, who would go on to reshape television with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

To mark the 25th anniversary of this chillingly prophetic pilot, Vince Gilligan reflects on the episode’s legacy, his memories from the set, and his lingering dissatisfaction with how the characters were written out of the franchise.

To begin, how did the idea for a Lone Gunmen spin-off actually materialize?

Vince Gilligan: Honestly, the exact timeline escapes me. I always relished writing for those characters. They were originally the brainchild of Glen Morgan and Jim Wong; I was a fan of theirs long before I joined the writing staff of The X-Files. I wish I could remember who specifically suggested they lead their own show, but I can’t quite pin it down.

Once the project gained momentum, the excitement was palpable. Writing for those three was inherently fun. I must admit, I knew nothing about computers back then—which is painfully obvious if you watch the show today. My concept of “hacking” was just having actors tap keys furiously until they suddenly breached the Pentagon. I didn’t even bother to research it properly, which is something I’d certainly change now. But more than anything, I just wanted to be a fly on the wall in that chaotic editorial office.

Regarding the lead actors—Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood, and Dean Haglund—how closely did their real personalities align with their on-screen personas?

I regret that I didn’t get to spend as much time with them as I’d have liked. I was usually sequestered in a writing room in West Los Angeles while they were filming. However, I did get to observe them closely during the X-Files episodes I penned.

Bruce Harwood is a gentle, soft-spoken man—very thoughtful and composed. He embodied his character’s serious nature perfectly. You couldn’t help but take him seriously because he was a man of deep, earnest thought.

“We need to hire somebody really sleazy, like Braidwood.”

Tom Braidwood was actually our first assistant director on The X-Files. He ran a very disciplined set and never really considered himself an actor. The story goes that Glen and Jim were looking to cast Melvin Frohike, and as Tom walked past their office to deliver a message, they joked, “We need someone sleazy, like Braidwood.” It began as a prank, but Tom ended up pulling double duty as both an AD and a series regular. He was a tough, no-nonsense professional with a great sense of humor.

Dean Haglund was the comedian of the group, with a background in stand-up. He was far more introspective than Langly, lacking that overt, cocky bravado. Essentially, you had three mature adults playing “arrested adolescents,” but their saving grace was their relentless desire to save the world.

What do you recall about the development of the pilot’s plot? It’s hard to ignore the parallels to reality.

It truly is the strangest coincidence. John Shiban, Frank Spotnitz, and I worked incredibly hard on that script. We had the difficult task of reintroducing these characters to a broader audience while maintaining a high-stakes plot. We landed on a story about shadow elements within the U.S. government attempting to crash hijacked planes into the Twin Towers. Six months later, the world changed.

I’ll never forget that morning. I had overslept and was supposed to meet my trainer, Fred. When the phone rang, I assumed it was him calling to scold me. Instead, he told me to turn on the news. I flipped the channel just in time to see the second tower hit. In that state of shock and brain fog, one of my very first thoughts was: We wrote this.

The difference was that in our fiction, the disaster was averted. I don’t believe for a second that our show inspired those real-world acts, but the similarity was profoundly sobering.

Looking back, why do you think the show failed to find a long-term audience?

If The Lone Gunmen aired today with the same viewership numbers, it would be the highest-rated show on television. Our pilot actually pulled in more viewers than Breaking Bad ever did. The industry has shifted so dramatically since then. At the time, Fox saw the declining weekly numbers and decided to pull the plug. While I was devastated, I’m not sure how we would have sustained both this and The X-Files simultaneously. We were already exhausted.

I do have one particularly vivid, unpleasant memory regarding our audience testing. It was the last time I ever participated in that process. Fox hired a firm to evaluate the pilot, and the woman in charge was incredibly condescending. She spent the session telling us everything that was wrong with our creative vision based on the reactions of a few random people recruited off the street.

They used these old “dial” controllers—similar to a Pong console. If the audience liked a scene, they turned it right; if they hated it, they turned it left. We had a scene where Langly gets sick in a golf bag, and the dials plummeted. The consultant smugly told us, “People don’t like vomiting.” I just remember thinking how miserable it was to have someone so smarmy trying to dictate our storytelling.

The characters eventually met their demise in Season 9 of The X-Files. Was that a creative decision you supported?

To be perfectly honest, that was absolutely not my idea. I detested the plan to kill them off and fought against it quite vocally, but I was ultimately outvoted. I don’t want to disparage anyone, but I don’t consider that a highlight of the series.

I’ve always preferred to imagine them still out there somewhere, operating in the shadows. It might sound sentimental, but I don’t think of them as dead. Much like Mulder and Scully, I like to believe the Lone Gunmen are still navigating the world today, chasing the next big conspiracy.

Source: Polygon