{"id":2649,"date":"2023-10-04T21:07:57","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T21:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/?p=2649"},"modified":"2023-10-04T23:56:57","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T23:56:57","slug":"aliens-among-us-probing-hillbillies-and-freaking-shut-ins-how-netflixs-encounters-and-hulus-no-one-will-save-you-prep-us-for-the-coming-alien-ap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/10\/04\/aliens-among-us-probing-hillbillies-and-freaking-shut-ins-how-netflixs-encounters-and-hulus-no-one-will-save-you-prep-us-for-the-coming-alien-ap\/","title":{"rendered":"Aliens Among Us: Probing Hillbillies and Freaking Shut-ins, How Netflix\u2019s \u201cEncounters\u201d and Hulu\u2019s \u201cNo One Will Save You\u201d Prep Us for the Coming Alien Apocalypse, Kind of"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So with the Congressional hearings on the little-green-somethings formerly known as UFOs (now called UAPs) and crazyass whatnot we should all be aware the Alien Apocalypse is soon upon us\u2014imagine old geezer croaking \u201cThe end is nigh\u201d\u2014and there are two new streaming shows to offer a glimpse of what these intergalactic ne\u2019er-do-wells have up their spacesuit sleeves: Hulu\u2019s fictional No One Will Save You<\/em> and Netflix\u2019s documentary (semi-fictional?) Encounters<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I watched No One<\/em> with no expectations and was pleasantly surprised: I\u2019ll rate it a Minor Gem. The gal who plays Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) is certainly an up-and-coming It-Girl actress and does a terrific job of getting under the skin of this character and convincing you to keep watching. (She\u2019s been in numerous hit films\/series, including Dopesick<\/em> and Unbelievable<\/em>.) I expected a typically cheesy alien-abduction movie. It\u2019s not that. Kind of Action Adventure\/SciFi with a spritz of Psycho Thriller. I\u2019ve seen other pretty-good films (Underwater, The Babysitter, Divergent<\/em>) by this director (Brian Duffield) and they tend to be Action-Adventure (I guess) flicks, more eye candy than anything else. No One<\/em>reaches a higher level, I\u2019d say: It\u2019s good action\/drama, while also being cleverly thoughtful. Yes, there are aliens who get considerable screentime. It\u2019s like a cozier Spielberg\u2019s War of the Worlds<\/em>\u2014and without Tom Cruise shouting \u201cRachel! Rachel! Rachel!\u201d for two hours plus. Kind of a slow burn to a twisty ending that echoes Don\u2019t Worry Darling<\/em>, only with aliens engineering human happiness (we wish). A largely positive review in the New York Times<\/em> can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And then there\u2019s Netflix\u2019s\u00a0Encounters<\/em>. It\u2019s a series and I\u2019ve watched all four eps. I can\u2019t say any of the footage or alien-encountered \u201csurvivors\u201d are particularly convincing, but it is good for a few laughs\u2014the Texans are particularly amusing. You gotta love those hillbillies. (Confession: It\u2019s my former home state.)\u00a0For my money, the production\/direction mostly undercuts the believability of the various stories and the people telling them. Too much New Age hooey. While I’m certainly a UFO skeptic I do find the subject fascinating and there are some amazing\/bizarre stories out there (don’t know about the truth, though), particularly the infamous Travis Walton abduction tale and the various U.S. military encounters that have been in the news for years now. But too much of Encounters<\/em> is rather . . . squishy. People see strange lights in the sky, yes. When the people seeing these strange lights get telepathic messages\u2014or feelings, as this show is big on feelings\u2014from unknown\/unseen aliens, you lose me. But hey, maybe I’m wrong. I laughed when Encounters<\/em> played the great Carpenters song from the early 1970s, “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft.” Or when the Texan claimed that aliens always look kind of gray and pasty\u2014and his town (Stephenville, Texas) is known as the Milk Capital of the state\u2014which prompts him to say, “They’re comin’ for our milk.” You gotta love that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So with the Congressional hearings on the little-green-somethings formerly known as UFOs (now called UAPs) and crazyass whatnot we should all be aware the Alien Apocalypse is soon upon us\u2014imagine old geezer croaking \u201cThe end is nigh\u201d\u2014and there are two … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[209,211,210,178],"class_list":["post-2649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alien-abductions","tag-hulus-no-one-will-save-you","tag-netflixs-encounters","tag-the-west"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2649"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2654,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions\/2654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}