Kevin’s Favorite Science Fiction Shows: #17 — Dark Skies

Dark Skies

IMDB link

General idea:  history is one big conspiracy.

Interesting because:  What if history was one big conspiracy theory?  The concept of Dark Skies is that history as we know it happened the way it did, but there’s a sinister, underlying reason:  in 1947, aliens landed at Roswell.  These aliens threatened war against humanity, and the American general on the scene took the best option:  kill them and disable their craft.  From that point on, every government action was taken in response to (or because of) alien activity.  The Cold War was never really between the US and USSR—both sides made it up so that they could justify building technologies to stop the aliens.  Aliens assassinated Kennedy because he was going to reveal the truth.  Had this gone to later seasons, we would have learned that the moon landing was faked (to try to intimidate the aliens; their primary base was a spacecraft behind the moon), that SDI was designed to prevent their invasion, and that microchips were originally an alien control device.  The original series pitch gives us an idea of how the show would have gone, leading into the year 2000.

Annoying because:  You can’t tell the players even with a scorecard.  “Those Majestic agents are the good guys.  No, wait, they’re the bad guys now.  No, wait, they’re good guys again.  Except for those guys, who remain bad guys.”  This was a core part of why the show never made it past one season:  when it was on the air, it was almost impossible to follow.  I really only understood the series when I was able to watch an episode a day.  Also, this series helped cast Jerri Ryan was the angel of death for sci-fi.  That’s not her fault—this was the second struggling show that brought her on mid-season to try to boost ratings and it didn’t quite work out the way the network wanted.

Best season(s):  1

Worst season(s):  N/A — only lasted one season

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