I think he killed of the characters because Fox didn't support it or any of his other shows, except X-Files. I think frustration and anger influenced his decision about the finale of the series.
"When you get to hell, tell Satan his new assmonkey comes courtesy of Hayato Shingu"
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I disagree that killing the lads off was appropriate. It's sort of like saying "Ah, Hell, these guys are losers anyway - their finest moment would be as virus fodder. Let's waste 'em!"
I know, it's dumb to get this upset over the demise of fictional characters, but A. Conan Doyle came up against the same thing after trying to kill Holmes off at Reichenbach Falls... FAN REVOLT!! You don't mess lightly with a devoted fan base.
As goofy as Frohike, Langley and Byers may have been, they were also very sympathetic characters, and if it's true that Carter whacked them in a fit of pique at Fox, that's regrettable. He could probably have gotten SciFi Channel to pick the series up - they seem to have a nice tolerance for quirky SF plots, witness their excellent series "Eureka."
However, at least Carter had the guts to spin the LGs off in their own show at all, which I thought was a fantastic call (albeit with flawed execution - Jimmy Bond's character was an answer to a question NO ONE ASKED).
I reckon he can do whatever he wants with his own show. If the fans don't like it they can go watch something else. As for another network picking it up I'd be surprized since all of these other canceled but great shows just darn vanish (like Firefly) and Lone Gunman was kind of crappy until the last few episodes. I can understand why it was canned but it's a shame because it was getting better and probably would have got MUCH better after a time.
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I still think that the decision to kill off The Lone Gunmen was wrong, simply because other characters from the X-files weren't killed off in the final season. It would have been much better to have the three in our imaginations off somewhere trying to uncover some sort of subversive plot.
Their sacrifice in the X-files episode "Jump The Shark" still seemed somewhat out of character given reactions of Langly or Frohike facing death in their series. Although noble, and not trying to say that they showed cowardice in prior appearances, it seemed that they could have thought of something more clever with a minute and a half before the biological agent activated inside the man's body. There were three of them, couldn't they have clubbed him on the head or something, and then trigger the containment doors? Their characters were much more clever than to just simply stand there and let it happen.
There's still an out to their characters demise - although caught in a contained area which made them dead men walking, we never actually see them die. The coffins at the end suggest their death, and another post on this site said that they re-appeared(sort of) as ghosts to Moulder in the final season of X-Files.
Another thing which I thought made "Jump the Shark" worthy of it's name was the way it portrayed the three as financially and spiritually bankrupt, even ceasing publication of The Lone Gunmen newspaper, and hocking most all of their gadgetry to search for Yves. They had frequently multitasked before in publishing and investigation. I don't buy this and most other explanation in the "Jump The Shark" episode to tie up the loose ends of "All About Yves".
X-Files really did Jump The Shark in this episode. Their characters deserved a more fitting end than to be killed off.
From what I can recall, it was John Shiban who decided to kill them.
shareI was listening to the commentary by the writers/producers on the dvd, and they seemed in agreement that it was the right thing to do in killing off the characters.
My argument is that it was totally unecessary. Lots of series in the past didn't kill off their characters just because the series was drawing to a close.
That commentary couldn't have been more off the mark with most fans' sentiments.