141 | Laura Mennell (Project Blue Book)

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!

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.

This is why Project Blue Book is one of my Must See TV Picks for 2020!

Project Blue Book @ W • T • F

Host Sammy Younan

Recorded: Tuesday January 21, 2020 at 3:00 pm

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