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Review of 'Project Blue Book' 1.7

The Star People

By Paul LevinsonPublished 5 years ago 1 min read
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A strange, not really resolved, episode 1.7 of Project Blue Book, which features Native American legends of The Star People maybe come true, and Quinn himself under investigation for a good part of the story.

Indeed, this episode pretty much consists of two stories, barely related, and hardly tied together at the end. We learn that Quinn's under suspicion for absconding with the peculiar artifact we saw Hynek take from the base last week. General Harding chooses to investigate Quinn by tasking him to interrogate, the hard way, the character played by Michael Imperioli—a Russian spy. It turns out that Rizzuto (Imperioli's character) has switched back to our side, and Quinn passes the test. Well, at least it was nice to see Imperioli again.

The Star People part is more interesting. They figure in a Choctaw legend near Bowling Green, Ohio (which, maybe or maybe not relevant, I've long admired as a center for the study of popular culture). Hynek, who has turned from a likely believer into a systematic debunker, discovers that extraterrestrials had nothing to do with the lights (caused by swamp gas—the usual terrestrial explanation) and kidnapping of a scoutmaster, who wasn't kidnapped. But there is still room enough for real aliens here, given that the Choctaw really had petroglyphs and stories about them.

All of this adds up to a story that's hard to categorize. Which makes sense, given that the series itself is hard to pin a label on. Most of the time, it's deception and military jockeying masquerading as science fiction. But enough real science fiction is thrown in—the flying saucer in the Generals' bunker, the traveler vanishing, the little edges that are not explained—that makes it worth watching.

Which I'll do when the next episode is on, next week, and be back here with a swampy report.

1st Starship to Alpha Centauri... Native Americans figure in here, too.

tv review
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About the Creator

Paul Levinson

Novels The Silk Code & The Plot To Save Socrates; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Best-known short story: The Chronology Protection Case; Prof, Fordham Univ.

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