Wednesday, January 09, 2019

Project Blue Book

So, I watched the first episode of Project Blue Book on the History Channel, a program that claims to be based on real events in the life of J. Allen Hynek. I'm a moderately big fan of UFO stories and theories and love reading about sightings, so a show about Hynek's decades-long journey from total skeptic to someone who felt there is more to investigate sounded just up my alley.

Well.

I know they have to jazz up the story a bit in order to make it more interesting. But this is so far from reality that you could have put anyone's name on the main character and had just the same story. Attaching Hynek's name was just a way to draw in people who actually have some real interest in actual facts.

It wasn't a horrible show. The acting was fine, there's a great bit of set-up for future run-ins with mysterious entities... but claiming it's based on facts is stretching the truth beyond the point of breaking. I have a lot of interest in the real story, but apparently reality isn't interesting enough for a television show. Instead, this one starts from the premise that UFOs are intelligent alien lifeforms and works from there. In real life, Hynek genuinely thought UFOs were mistakes and misperceptions, and took many years working with first-hand reports before he began to believe there was something beyond our current understanding involved.

There was one very familiar face. General James Harding is played by Neal McDonough (who played Damien Darhk in the CW superhero shows and Wyatt Cain in Tin Man). He feels villainous in this show, as well.

Overall, I think I'll give this one a miss, since I don't need another drama - even one based very very loosely on one of my interests.

0 comments: