Reel Nerd Review: Project Blue Book (TV series)
By Nelson Nantanapibul
Starring: Aiden Gillen, Michael Malarkey, Laura Mennell, Ksenia Solo, Neal McDonough, Michael Harney
Project Blue Book is from executive producer Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump) and is a series based on the real life investigative body that looked into UFO sightings in the 1950's. With The X-Files no more it is nice to have a show like this on the air especially since in part it inspired the show created by Chris Carter.
The episode begins with a US Air Force pilot encountering a light in the sky causing his plane to crash. Enter Capt. Michael Quinn (Malarkey) who is tasked by his superior Gen. Harding (McDonough) to look into the case with the assistance a college professor Dr. Allen Hynek. Hynek very early on is painted as the "believer" with the Capt. being the hardened skeptic which is a common trope in this type of show.
I really liked the pilot episode even though it did heavily rely on the cliches of a possible gov't. conspiracy to cover up the truth, shady men in black and partners at odds in their search for the truth. Even though it does contain a lot of familiar tropes I still found the episode very entertaining and to be fair this is not a show looking to reinvent the wheel but to retell the "based on true case files" of Project Blue Book which is an entity I have been long familiar with as I have had a long time interest in the paranormal and in the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
The end of the program actually provided some of the real life details of the case that the episode was based on. There was a subplot in the episode involving Dr. Hynek's wife that I didn't feel was truly necessary but I know that they are trying to fluff up the series with interpersonal dramas and entanglements to make the show more interesting to a broad audience.
I definitely plan on checking out episode two of the show as I want to learn more about the cases investigated by the government entity. These kind of shows are my jam like the aforementioned X-Files and as far as I know they won't be making any more episodes of that series anytime soon. If the rest of the episodes in the series are at least as good and intriguing as the pilot I will continue to check it out every week.
Review of Project Blue Book
