Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		2.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Project Blue Book: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 17, 2020

It’s pretty glaringly obvious that the creative types behind Project Blue Book perhaps desperately wanted to offer a “new, improved” The X-Files, with part of that perceived “improvement” being the implied imprimatur of a name that, while probably not known to the general public at large, has become something of a legend to those interested in whatever “truth” may be “out there”: J. Allen Hynek, a real life professor and astronomer who became an analyst for decades working with the Air Force to (supposedly) investigate paranormal phenomena, albeit phenomena typically linked to the ever popular unidentified flying object. Part of the problem with Project Blue Book is that it purports to be based on "real events" (as evidenced by a bold text card at the beginning of each episode), but it does in fact (sorry) wallow in so-called “dramatizations” (as evidenced by a somewhat less bold disclaimer at the end of every episode mentioning that very aspect). There absolutely is some fascinating history to be explored with regard to the “official” United States government response to the spate of sightings of UFOs that started to crop up in the wake of the end of World War II, but as seems to be its wont, History (the channel, not the concept) doesn’t feel compelled to simply provide a documentarian approach, instead stuffing this frankly kind of odd series with all sorts of bogus sidebars that may tend to deflate whatever its central thesis is supposed to be (more about that in a moment).

As most folks who are interested in this general subject will probably already know, while this series bears the title Project Blue Book, there were actually other “projects” initiated by the Air Force prior to Project Blue Book, and in fact the real life Hynek’s association with the military’s investigations into sightings of UFOs evidently started with one of them, Project Sign. Project Blue Book simply ignores that and many other salient data points from the actual historical record, as it begins telling a very X-Files-esque tale of governmental intrigue (and, perhaps, subterfuge) that not so coincidentally ultimately ends up featuring so-called Men in Black. The series actually offers someone other than Hynek as its introductory character, an Air Force Brigadier General named James Harding (Neal McDonough), a supposed leading force behind Project Blue Book (supposedly based on a real life general named Garland). Harding is depicted as having perhaps duplicitous motives at several junctures during the first season, but the opening at least shows him tasking Air Force Captain Michael Quinn (Michael Malarkey, whose surname perhaps is ironically the most relevant piece of information in this entire review) with in turn attempting to recruit a noted scientist named Allen Hynek (Aiden Gillen) to aid in the Air Force’s attempts to debunk the growing perception that aliens were increasingly populating otherwise friendly skies.

Hynek and Quinn quickly become this series’ version of Mulder and Scully, but in a kind of weird disconnect (and one that departs at least somewhat from the historical record), Hynek is shown to be the “believer” (relatively speaking), while Quinn is the skeptic, although it’s never as clear cut as it was in the long running Chris Carter series, something that kind of muddies the general waters of the entire series (the real life Hynek was on record — repeatedly — as stating he was hired to be a skeptic, and in fact was for many years, before at least somewhat altering his position later in life). The series’ kind of pretty loose connection to the truth (out there or otherwise) can be summed up by its depiction of its first case, one that is very tangentially related to a real case in Fargo, North Dakota, where an Air Force pilot engaged in an ostensible dogfight with a UFO. The fact that the pilot’s name has been changed, several salient aspects vary from the actual historical record, and the fact that the pilot soon becomes part of a whole conspiracy subtext may be as clear an indication as anything that Project Blue Book is not really interested in “the facts, and nothing but”.

If the whole UFO side of Project Blue Book is considerably fanciful a lot of the time, some of the other subplots in this first season verge on the outlandish. I wonder how the real life Hynek family (which rather incredibly includes Academy Award winning special effects master Joel Hynek, Allen’s son) feels about seeing Allen’s (second) wife Mimi (Laura Mennell) depicted as a kind of naive suburban wife duped into a friendship with an undercover KGB agent (and maybe - gasp - closeted lesbian!) named Susie Miller (Ksenia Solo). In just one of several sequences that some jaded viewers may find laugh out loud hilarious, Susie takes Mimi to a little watering hole where there is copious gay activity, something that shocks — shocks — the unprepared Mimi.

While perhaps more closely linked to the actual UFO focus of the series, another subplot involving Allen’s mysterious interactions with Men in Black involves all sorts of just downright silly aspects, with supposed tantalizing “clues” being regularly proffered, including repeated use of a mysterious symbol Hynek first sees at (I'm not kidding) an abandoned amusement park where he wanders into an underground bunker where what looks like some kind of mind control movie is playing. Many of these clues end up being doled out to him by a series of supporting performers, at least one of whom meets a spectacular death after sharing the information. There's also a completely peculiar subplot which suggests Hynek has telepathic qualities which allow him to "experience" whatever phenomenon they're investigating that episode. It's all therefore obviously completely over the top at times.

As such, Project Blue Book is kind of both ridiculous and derivative in about equal measure. The series does benefit from a rather nice production design, one that features lots of cool, vintage cars and an only slightly out place mid-century modernism (I personally associate some of the design choices in the film with the later fifties and early sixties). Performances are sincere, which may or may not add to some unintentional humor considering the overheated ambience of much of the general proceedings.

Project Blue Book: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Project Blue Book: Season 1 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and History with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.00:1. There isn't one whit of technical data online that I've been able to ferret out, but this is a rather nice looking series from both a production design standpoint but also courtesy of some nicely evocative framings. Fine detail can typically be very good in close-ups, and the palette offers nice bursts of color, especially with regard to some of Susie's outfits. Perhaps because Lionsgate chose to cram all ten episodes on one BD-50, there are some prevalent occurrences of banding, ironically often noticeable during scenes featuring UFOs, since those sequences often feature burts of light somewhere in the frame. In that regard, some of the CGI, including but not necessarily limited to UFOs or even "normal" flying objects like American planes, can look pretty soft at times.

Project Blue Book: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Lionsgate continues to baffle me with their audio codec choices of late. Not only doesn't this release have a lossless track, even its Dolby Digital track is only stereo, and this would seem to be one series designed with artful surround effects in mind. What I guess would be LFE in a more forceful track does waft through several of the flying object moments, and even with regard to some sinister sounding effects. A lot of sequences almost cry out for a lossless surround track, as in one episode where a flying object comes crashing into a forest and explodes. All of this (complaining) aside, the Dolby Digital 2.0 track on this disc at least has decent fidelity, with dialogue rendered cleanly and clearly throughout, but I continue to be disappointed in Lionsgate's recent trend toward only lossy audio on its Blu-ray releases.

Project Blue Book: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

With ten episodes stuffed onto a single BD-50, it's perhaps unsurprising that this release offers no supplementary content.

Project Blue Book: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One of the first labels assigned to me when I joined the writing staff here was A&E, and so I saw a lot of History Channel offerings drift across my review queue. In that regard, it was positively quaint (in more ways than one) to see the helpful "History HD" banner among the production company mastheads on this disc. Unfortunately, this series shows some of the rebranded History's worst tendencies, including taking a perfectly reasonable and even potentially exciting nook and cranny of America's history and then twisting it almost unrecognizably at times for no really good purpose, other than to recall other shows with shadowy conspiracies and the occasional unidentified flying object. Further exacerbating things here are some compression issues, lossy audio and no supplements.