Tom Braidwood
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Tom Braidwood as Melvin Frohike |
Tom Braidwood (born
September 27,
1948) is a
Canadian actor best known for the role of
Melvin Frohike, one of the conspiracy theorists known as the Lone Gunmen on the
American television series The X-Files. Braidwood also served as an
assistant director on the show from seasons one through five; was a
second unit director on
Millennium, another show from
Chris Carter, the creator of
The X-Files; and a producer of the second season of the Canadian TV series
Da Vinci's Inquest, on which he also directed some episodes.
In addition to
The X-Files, Braidwood also appeared as Frohike in the
spin-off series
The Lone Gunmen, which aired 13 episodes in 2001.
Braidwood is married and has two daughters, Jessica and Kate.
The Lone Gunmen and September 11
On March 4, 2001, the "Pilot" episode of The Lone Gunmen aired. In which, the three Gunmen foil a plot by the US Government to fly a remote-controlled plane into the Trade Towers in order to start a war with a Middle-East country in order to increase the sales of military arms.
Parallel Conspiracy Theories
FOX inexplicably decided to cancel The Lone Gunmen after only 13 episodes, even though the first season of The Lone Gunmen actually had better ratings than the first season of The X-Files. The cancellation of the well-rated Lone Gunmen has thus led to conspiracy theories that the Bush administration pulled strings with the Republican-friendly owner of FOX, Rupert Murdoch, to have The Lone Gunmen cancelled in order to have full control of the nation's emotions with no questions asked, because the Administration was actually aware of the plots to attack The Towers and Pentagon before September 11 yet had wanted them to happen, just as people have long argued that FDR willingly let the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor because he wanted it to happen in order to get into the War.
Conversely, others blame the cancellation on the changing landscape of network TV. Where once networks gave shows time to build a following, now shows are often axed immediately unless they're big hits. (In the case of the 2006 ABC show
Emily's Reasons Why Not, the show was famously cancelled after just one episode aired.)
All in the Family,
Cheers and
Seinfeld are all shows that started small and built their audiences, and all of them would probably be cancelled if they were new shows today. It should also be pointed out that
The Lone Gunmen aired on Fox on Friday nights, the slot where one genre series after another, including several from
Lone Gunmen and
X-Files creator
Chris Carter, have all had brief runs. What's more, Carter's relationship with Fox had soured by this point, and the network clearly had little affection for this show or Carter's other series
Millennium or
Harsh Realm (the latter was axed before its first season was completed, with several episodes still unaired.) Some have seen the abrupt and tragic deaths of the Gunmen on
The X-Files as Carter's statement about Fox's treatment of
The Lone Gunmen.
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