The truth is right there, in front of Aidan Gillen’s face, but his History series doesn’t go out of its way to help anyone believe.
Early in the “Project Blue Book” pilot, astrophysicist Dr. J. Allen Hynek (Aidan Gillen) is telling his wife Mimi (Laura Mennell) why he’s accepted a job debunking UFO sightings for the government. Sure, it’s an extra paycheck for their family of three, and no, he doesn’t have to give up his professorship at the Ohio State University. But the real reason he’s going to travel all over America, explaining away a different alien sighting every week, is because he wants to be recognized for disproving the existence of flying saucers.
Viewers know he failed. “Project Blue Book” is set in the 1950s and inspired by true events, and people are still prattling on about UFO sightings, so… well, you do the math. People may know Dr. Hynek’s name (though not on the level of his heroes, Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler), but it’s clear he never achieved his goal and this show isn’t worth studying to understand why. It’s too dull and, ultimately, too unconvincing.
Based on Hynek’s investigations into the existence of UFOs, the new History series bounces to a new case each week, while building a government cover-up plot to boot. The premiere opens with two fighter pilots cruising through a routine evening in the sky when one is accosted by a blurry, quickly moving green light. The pilot makes chase, even opening fire on the unidentified flying object, before his aircraft is sucked upward into a beam of light and then sent spinning out of control to Earth. Captured in foggy blue and green lighting with great sound mixing and admirable energy, this is the high point of the pilot episode and the series thus far: a rush of excitement that piques curiosity, yet one that cannot really be replicated or satisfied.

Michael Malarkey in “Project Blue Book”
Ed Araquel / History
Enter Neil McDonough as General James Harding, the man in charge of Project Blue Book: a clandestine operation meant to provide reasonable explanations for seemingly inexplicable phenomena. He recruits an up-and-coming Air Force officer, Captain Michael Quinn (Michael Malarkey), to shepherd a non-governmental expert around the country to various problem sites as a means to stem national “mass hysteria” over UFOs. The two are meant to quickly close cases and quell concerns that some things are out of our government’s control.