authentic-27771 Reviews

Project Blue Book (2019–2020)

NOT based on reality, but that's OK if you accept it

[7/10 · 21 April 2019]

If you're like me and have had any interest in true UFO history, you will probably enjoy this show more if you ignore the blurb at the beginning of each episode that says this is based on real events. It is based on real events in the sense that many fictional stories are inspired by and/or incorporate some real events into its narrative (i.e. they might mention or use real historical figures and real events). They might have more accurately said that is is *loosely* based on real events but I suppose that doesn't sound good from a marketing perspective.

It is actually rather unfortunate and a negative for me that they decided to use the real names of a real persons as the protagonist and other supporting characters (and, to a lesser extent, the name of a real UFO investigation project) as that - as well as being created by the History channel - lead me to a false expectation as to the type and content of the show. Unless they were going for historical accuracy, I think it would have been better to use fictional names, which could have been homages to the real names. Those in the know would have got it. As it was, the cognitive dissonance between what I know of the historical government UFO investigations (what has been told, anyway) and the very fictional nature of this programme led me initially to not enjoy it.

However, when I realised that the show was not really attempting to be historically accurate, and I accepted it as a fictional mystery/suspense drama about UFOs set in the 1950/60s, I started enjoying it more. It likely won't become my favourite TV show, but I will continue watching it, for now.

So, if you just accept it as a kind of X-Files type show it stands up quite well. But see it as a dramatisation of history, if you know the history and expect to see that depicted accurately, it will definitely irk you.

Curfew (2019)

Didn't live up to expectations

[5/10 · 8 April 2019]

The trailer looked promising but the series never really lived up to my expectations. Visually, it was pretty good, but poor dialogue combined with unimpressive, sometimes poor, acting let's it down a lot (though the actors were never given much to work with by way of script there were still opportunities to make the best of it and shine but these were never taken). The story and background was poorly fleshed out and never seemed to me to be real. It was never terrible, but I was always conscious that I was watching a fictional drama in which actors were acting and so I could never get lost in the events and never really felt any emotional connection to them or the characters. I was just left feeling nothing, which is not good for an action-horror series. It could have been a lot more. Perhaps it can be with better writers.

I thought towards the end things were improving. One episode I quite enjoyed above the others and thought maybe it just needed some time to get up to speed (pardon the driving pun). Some said give it a chance. I did. Perhaps it did improve a little in that one episode but the ending/final episode itself was the worst of them all. It was a very anticlimactic finish. The script, acting and dialogue became so unrealistic to the point of ridiculous. The writers had a good, but poorly fleshed out, idea for a show (perhaps after watching an episode of Top Gear) but had no idea how to finish it and lacked the skill to write a good ending.