History is a lie.
Sci-Fi aficionados amongst you will remember “Dark Skies”. If you don’t, then you’re in for a treat. Dark Skies was NBC’s mid 1990s answer to The X Files, and was set in the 1960s, telling the story of a young congressional aide (Without A Trace’s Eric Close) discovering a huge government conspiracy, Majestic 12, (led by the late and excellent JT Walsh) set up by Harry Truman to fight (and cover up) an alien invasion. The lovely Jeri Ryan (Seven from Voyager) becomes a cast regular late in the series.
Cancelled after a single season (A war crime by TV standards), what made Dark Skies so appealing was its use of real historical characters, from Truman to JFK to Ronald Reagan to Colin Powell and Charles Manson, and events, from the assassination of JFK (Shot because he was about to reveal the secret to the public) to the beginning of Vietnam, all in the context of the invasion.
The one disappointment is that it ended on a cliffhanger, never to be resolved, although rumour has it that there is a writer’s bible out there somewhere that has the whole plot-line….
Saw the new Bruce Willis actioner, RED, last night. Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Karl Urban and Mary Louise Parker star. About a group of former CIA agents being hunted down because they all know a secret. Great fun, ridiculously silly action scenes, and Malkovich hams it up as the resident nut with his heart in the right place. Was also suprised at how good Mary Louise Parker was, given that I could not stand her character in The West Wing, and was never sure whther it was her or the character I just did not like. Turns out it was the character. Brian Cox and Richard Dreyfus also onboard to lob extra chunks of ham at the camera when needed.