My Summer Lair Chapter #141: What Is Project Blue Book?

Close Encounters of the X-Files kind! Project Blue Book is a TV show inspired by real-life ufologist Dr. J. Allen Hynek who famously created the six-tiered Close Encounter scale while working for the U.S. Air Force. (Later, Spielberg would name his movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind which apparently is the kind where aliens come to earth to play Casio keyboards.)

This is real-life X-Files and how much you want to believe is up to you. This show easily fills the X-Files hole in my heart: government conspiracies; government cover-ups; a skeptical scientific approach to determine UFO encounters and what is oh let’s just a…weather balloon. (It so helps the show is set in the 1950s an era where men often wore hats so that instantly gives it a noir feel.) Bonus? It’s shot in Vancouver oh X-Files why did you ever leave my life? The first two episodes dive into The Roswell Incident. Yup.

The third episode is Area 51. Oh snap!

This is why this show is one of my Must See TV Picks for 2020!

As for actress Laura Mennell, she’s so charming and if you don’t recognize her name you’ll recognize her face. In Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, she played Janey Slater Doctor Manhattan’s first girlfriend, in The Man In The High Castle Thelma Harris and now for Project Blue Book, she is Mimi Hynek. She has a subtle presence on screen and it can be easy to overlook her and her contributions. Yet in this interview, I call her a ninja-linchpin because of that subtly and because so much happens around her. You’d think is a show about UFO exploration Mimi Hynek would be a boring 1950s housewife yet so much action hinges around her.

Don’t believe me? See for yourself: Tuesdays, 10pm on History Channel. Or listen for yourself when I call her a ninja-linchpin to hear how she responds.

Project Blue Book @ W • T • F

Host & Photography by Sammy Younan

Recorded: Tuesday January 21, 2020 at 3pm (EST) at Corus

Welcome back to a new #SetTheVCR and a new streaming service. The latest New Kid on the Block is Peacock from NBCUniversal (a subsidiary of Comcast. So clearly they got lots of “content” to offer.). The service will launch on July 15, 2020. Is TV getting stressful? Aren’t you glad you have the following TV recommendations to make your life easier? You’re welcome!

Is this good?
Will this be good?
Every movie trailer answers or challenges those 2 questions. The ham-fisted rebuttal comes swiftly, however: no you don’t need to always see a movie to know it’s tank.

Do you really need to sit through a Michael Bay Transformers movie to know for sure? Tank is Tank. And Fresh…well Fresh is always Fresh. I’m down like I’m Brown for that.

Watching Project Blue Book (it’s like a light-beer X-Files you know?) and it’s got all the good stuff…aliens and unexplained phenomena and government conspiracies and men in trench coats and fedoras “cleaning up messes” like patriotic janitors except reality keeps intruding…Trump’s so bad you know nothing’s getting covered up.

X-Files debuted just as we were wrapping up our time with George H. W. Bush who was proceed by Regan…those dudes were sinister they clearly operated and orchestrated agendas in the shadows.

People vanished during their administrations and lives and lies were credibly discredited. X-Files was masterfully unsettling not just because of the good writing but because Americans freely elected Presidents who called black ops…just: ops.

I dunno who is gonna win in 2020 but hopefully it’s some menacing dude otherwise everything’s gonna be set in creepy China where people still slip in the shower, get their brakes mysterious cut, vanish like Hoffa and there’s nothing to see here move along.

-28-

Yo…I’m digging Project Blue Book. The writing could be tighter and the atmosphere creepier (the characters never feel like they’re in danger and even Batman gets licks you know?) but here’s something I’ve been thinking about.

Yo…on History Channel have you started watching Project Blue Book? I watched the first episode last night…I really dug it. Fills the X-Files hole in my heart.