What Happened In Piedmont? Debunked

I was walking to work in the East Village of Manhattan this morning when I noticed a billboard similar to the one on the right. The "ad" - with white lettering on a black background - included a single question: "What Happened In Piedmont?"


My curiosity piqued, I did a google search and found http://www.whathappenedinpiedmont.com/,

which appears to be a blog written by a resident of Piedmont, Utah. Apparently something strange happened in Piedmont: all the townspeople disappeared.


Ok, so if this is all sounding a little too "Blair Witch redux" for you, then you're on the right track. Apparently A&E Network has taken a page out of the Cloverfield playbook (remember those "What is it?" ads?). And like in Cloverfield, the danger that A&E hopes to expose is extraterrestrial in nature...

The Andromeda Strain


...an alien virus carried to earth (Piedmont, to be specific) in a meteor. This should all sound familiar if you're a fan of Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park, Sphere), the author who started his fiction career with a novel entitled "The Andromeda Strain" (1969). Crichton also wrote the screenplay for the 1971 feature film adaptation (which currently has a 7.3 rating on imdb).

Having read the novel and seen the film about 10-15 years ago, I can tell you that the story is decent - definitely worthy of a 2008 TV miniseries retelling. I'm intrigued by the fact that Ridley and Tony Scott are producing. A&E has definitely assembled an intriguing cast, including Benjamin Bratt ("Law & Order"), Eric McCormack (Will from "Will & Grace"), Daniel Dae Kim (Jin from "Lost"), and Andre Braugher ("Homicide: Life on the Streets"). We'll see whether the 4-hour Memorial Day weekend event will attract enough critical acclaim and ratings success to justify their viral yet not-so-original advertising campaign.

For more on the mini-series that premieres in 3 weeks, check out http://www.aetv.com/the-andromeda-strain/