FC: X-Files spinoff features The Lone Gunmen and lowbrow humor

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,42057,00.html

   From X-Files to Geek Files
   by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)
   2:00 a.m. Mar. 3, 2001 PST
   
   The new X-Files spinoff almost seems destined to flop.
   
   It lacks nearly everything that made the original such a hit: Scully,
   Mulder, shadowy aliens, menacing shapeshifters and the kind of
   visceral dark drama that lures millions of viewers every Sunday night.
   
   But don't rule out Chris Carter's The Lone Gunmen, airing Sunday at 9
   p.m. on Fox, just yet.
   
   The series veers in a different direction, replacing drama with
   comedy, FBI agents with maladjusted computer geeks, and alien
   abductions with toilet humor. About the only things remaining are --
   of course -- government conspiracies and the dorky hacker trio who
   made their debut on a favorite episode of the X-Files, then went on to
   star in several others.

   [...]
   
   Other TV shows have featured geeks, of course, starting with the
   early-80s Whiz Kids. But this is the first show that highlights the
   sub-species of geeks who happen to be privacy fanatics.
   
   An example: Our doughty heroes are investigating the evident misdeeds
   of E-Com-Con, apparently a Washington-area defense contractor, which
   is about to release the Octium IV chip. Not only is the microprocessor
   capable of "7 billion calculations per second," it also
   surreptitiously sends personal information about its user across the
   Internet via an on-chip "modem."
   
   That's a thinly fictionalized description of the problem Intel had
   over the processor serial number included in its Pentium III chips.
   (As descriptions go, it's also an inaccurate one. Microprocessors
   don't actually have on-chip modems.)
   
   [...]



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