I don’t know if television audiences of the 20th century couldn’t handle more than one show about alien conspiracies at a time, but Dark Skies came along three years after The X-Files had gone away, and although it garnered a passionate audience and solid reviews, it just couldn’t make it out from under Mulder and Scully’s shadow.

But now is the perfect time to revisit it.

The pilot film, titles The Awakening, was written by Bryce Zabel and Brent V. Friedman, the series creators, and it debuted on 21 September, 1996. I watched it then, and I loved it, and the idea. Set in the 60s, it looks at historical events, starting with Powers’ U2 through, in the first episode, to Kennedy’s assassination, with a different lens when John Loengard (Eric Close) and Kimberly (Megan Ward) come to D.C. in the 60s to help in the Kennedy Administration.

Loengard is assigned to find a program to cut and comes across the infamous Project Bluebook. As he digs into the project, he makes a horrific discovery and encounters a group known as Majestic overseen by Frank Bach (J.T. Walsh).

The series explores classic UFO sightings and the historical events around the same time, including the Barney and Betty Hill abduction case, the Roswell crash, it all gets touched on, as the series sets itself up to explore our recent history in a fun, and occasionally frightening way.

The story is played completely straight, weaving history, politics, and aliens in a tapestry that puts everything in a different perspective and makes for a great ride.

Bach introduces Loengard to the secret history of the world, inducting him into Majestic, forcing him to keep the secret. As Loengard investigates at Bach’s behest, he finds that the invasion has already begun, that they are already here, and there is a war going on behind the scenes. How long can he keep it from Kimberly and keep her safe? And how much will she start to figure out for herself? Or to help both of them along, and give the episode a scary moment, maybe have her abducted and infected by a species, Bach calls the Ganglion, that uses other species as hosts, including humans and greys.

The war is engaged, and Loengard wants to take on the Ganglion, and is determined to get the truth out to the public even if it means going against Bach. The truth is out there, and John and Kim are the ones who will fight the good fight to get it out there and stop the alien menace. So John gets all the info and evidence he can and has Kim deliver it to the White House… and guess who ends up dead a few days later?

The pair are going to have to go on the run, not only from the aliens, but from Bach and Majestic, and now the series has been set up and is ready to go, buckle up!

Sure, it was very nineties, sure, some of the effects aren’t great, and sometimes you can see the boom and the edges of the set and it’s got ‘television’ acting, but damn, it’s fun.