By Lori Acken
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I’m still not completely recovered from last week’s watermelon trebuchet and drinking pee on Mars … but, happily, it’s time for two new episodes of NatGeo’s laugh-and-learn hit Rocket City Rednecks to teach me something new.
And this time, we don’t want to go in search of life on other planets — we just want to talk.
On “Close Encounters of the Redneck Kind” — the first of the back-to-back episodes — Travis, Pete and the gang decide to eavesdrop on aliens, hillbilly style. Commandeering an obsolete satellite dish from one of Daddy’s fishing buddies (which Rog briefly uses as a carnival ride), the boys set out to replicate the world’s most sensitive single radio telescope … using a back hoe, a few ropes and pulleys, and a computer.
Does ET reach out across the universe and connect with the Rocket City Rednecks or do the skies stay silent?
On the next episode, “Backwoods Spy Satellite,” the crew continues its “listening in on unsuspecting others” agenda. Travis decides they should try their collective hand at building a version of a Army Space and Missile Defense Command spy plane that’ll fit in the back of his pickup. Sounds reasonable.
Working with a borrowed weather balloon, some fishing equipment, Michael’s iPhone and a remote-controlled toy helicopter, the gang comes up with a workable spy satellite. And what better way to test it than to send Rog out to roam the fields to see if their creation can track him down?
Watch back-to-back episodes of Rocket City Rednecks tonight at 9 and 9:30 pm on NatGeo.