The first show wasn't radically different. At the start, the trio -- played by Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood and Dean Haglund -- were stealing a computer chip to demonstrate that a certain megacorporation would use it to invade privacy. (They planned to publish the news in their conspiracy newsletter, the Lone Gunman.) Meanwhile, Byers' (Harwood) father died in a mysterious car wreck. The three Gunmen were quickly pulled into a government plot and had to thwart an attempt to fly a jetliner into the World Trade Center.

Some funny moments were peppered throughout this first installment: Byer's dad's ashes were launched and dispersed into the air in a model rocket; a "Mission: Impossible"-type heist scene was wrecked when a winch went haywire. Its conspiracy tone wouldn't be out of place on "The X-Files."

But in the second episode the comedy moved upfront. A major part of the show centered on a blind football team whose players follow a beeping pigskin; every time a cellphone rang someone got sacked. And two other recurring star characters, hunky Stephen Snedden and spicy Zuleikha Robinson, rounded out the cast and balanced out the Gunmen nerd factor.

The show isn't perfect -- the electric-guitar-solo music is embarrassing and some of the gags feel forced, for starters -- but its willingness to be outright zany and even a little bit dumb could pull it away from "The X-Files" and that show's many imitators. Carter says this is exactly what he and his new team have in mind. He wants slapstick and physical comedy with a little pathos, like "The Simpsons." The challenge is to make it catch on -- and fast. The series is Carter's third attempt at a new show, after "Millennium" and the disastrous "Harsh Realm," since "The X-Files" took off in 1993. "The Lone Gunmen," he figures, at least already has an "X-Files" fan base.

Two weeks ago, amid a string of media interviews to promote the new show and make sure it gets a chance to find a audience before programmers pull the plug, Carter talked with Salon in a hushed, leathery conference room at Fox's New York headquarters. Halfway through the interview, a voice on the intercom announced a potential alarm.

From what I know, you have a surfer background and what I assume is sort of a cool-guy mentality. And you've done this kind of really sober paranoia show in the past. Now you're writing about nerds.

I'm basically a geek; I'm just not in a geek package. I'm much more interested in geeks and geeks' company than cool guys' company. I think one of the most foolish things in the world is to go chasing what's cool. It's not interesting to me -- it's very self-conscious. I very much prefer the unselfconsciousness of geekdom.

The new show is so goofy. I had --

As the show goes on we really separate from "The X-Files" tonally. "The Lone Gunmen" is akin to the more humorous "X-Files" episodes. I think that's really what we were going for -- to keep that vein alive.

What's the difference in the writing?

I came out of comedy and everybody who works on the staff, I would say, has comedy skills equal to their dramatic skills. For us, it really is taking something that we do anyway and making it the focus rather than the relief.

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