On October 6, 1999 The WB debuted Roswell, a television series based from the Roswell High young adult book series written by Melinda Metz who also became one of the staff writers for the television series.
The series is a creative take on years after the supposed spaceship crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
The main cast consisted of seven members with frequent appearances of friends and villains that would come and go throughout the show.
Shiri Appleby as Liz Parker
Jason Behr as Max Evans
Katherine Heigl as Isabel Evans
Brendan Fehr as Michael Guerin
Majandra Delfino as Maria DeLuca
and
Nick Wechsler as Kyle Valenti
Strong appearances by other cast members included Colin Hanks as Alex Whitman, William Sadler as Sheriff Valenti and later in the series Emilie de Raven as Tess Harding.
The series gained mainly favorable reviews with an outspoken fanbase. However, in reaction to some rating issues the first season received, The WB ordered that the show add more science fiction themes and more multi-episode plot "arcs" in the remaining seasons. This however didn't work completely in the shows favor when some fans didn't adjust well to the changes in season two which showed to The WB in the ratings the following year, causing the cancellation of the show after only two seasons. However, 20th Century Fox was able to persuade UPN to bring back the show for a third season following directly after Buffy the Vampire Slayer, hoping this would bring in more fans for the series. It however, did not, and so the show was able to continued its third season to the end where it wrapped up the storyline the best they could for not being renewed another year.
What is the storyline you may ask? Well, my friends, it is about aliens. Who couldn't guess from the title, right?
Season One
Have you ever had a secret that could very well change your life as you know it if anyone found out?
Have you ever been injured and your very life was in the hands of someone with one of these secrets?
Could you hold your tongue?
The first lines in the first episode of the season: "It's September 24th, I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. But then the really amazing thing happened. I came to life. "
Season one of Roswell begins pretty dramatically. You first meet Liz Parker as she writes in her journal about the day Max Evans saved her life. She was working with her best friend Maria at The Crashdown, a diner with an alien theme that the Parker's own. Suddenly, an argument between two customers ends with gunfire in a random direction and everyone flinging themselves to the floor. Including Liz, who lays bleeding to death from a stomach wound where the bullet went in. Max and his friend Michael were in the diner eating that day and risking everything, Max tells Maria to call 911 and places his hand over her bleeding wound, healing her. He asks her not to tell and runs off before anyone can question them.
This opens up the short but compelling story of seven teenagers and a sheriff who's lives change the day two strangers shot Liz Parker in The Crashdown Diner.
Through out the season Sheriff Valenti, who's father first discovered the original crash in Roswell and was an alien fanatic and his son Kyle, who very briefly dated Liz and fell in love with her, try to figure out just who Max Evans is and the secrets he keeps along with his sister Isabel and his best friend Michael. Liz, on the other hand, spends her time trying to hide who they are at all costs, but with the support of her crazy and, at times, paranoid friend Maria.
Throughout the season a romance of uncontrollable feelings begins to surge through Max and Liz. A Romeo and Juliet type feeling of knowing that they are not supposed to be together because of their differences but that very static of adventure and destiny end up pulling them together even harder. Watching them together on screen will make your heart beat within your chest.
Along with them-- who remain in a tender and delicate relationship, other romances begin such as the odd pairing of wild Maria and untamable Michael who engage in a wild and passionate relationship and the brief unlikely coupling of Isabel and Alex, a good friend of Liz and Maria's who is slow to find out just what is going on.
The season continues with the revealing of how Isabel, Max and Michael came to be in Roswell and gain their current adoptive families. Michael, however, who is also in the worst situation of the three, is constantly trying to figure out where they came from, who brought them to Earth, how they could crash so long ago and only recently emerge. He has questions, and he wants answers not caring just how he gets them.
Near the end of the season you meet Tess and the very alien that escorted the group to earth, Nasedo, who is a shape-shifter. Tess is revealed to be the fourth alien they have been looking for, but unlike the other three she actually has knowledge of their past life and information on their supposed destinies; one of which might just tear Liz and Max apart.
Season Two
Did you ever have to watch someone you love with all of your heart try and love someone else?
Season two is filled with Liz's insecurities about her feelings for someone who is "destined" to be with someone else even though Max assures her that his heart only truly beats for her.
Tess, who looked forward to finally meeting the group of aliens she had known in a past life, finds it difficult to be included in the tightly knit gang of people especially when her one true passion was to finally be re-united with someone who doesn't feel the same for her. Not to mention, this season really dips into the sci-fi side when just as we think Liz and Max will be together even though destiny said it wouldn't be so, a Max from the future arrives to tell Liz that if her and Max are together, it will destroy the lives of everyone they know and care about and so she must find a way to get Max to fall out of love for her. This eventually leads to the beginning of a relationship for Max and Tess with Liz on the sidelines keeping faith that they will still be together one day.
This season also introduces a new enemy for the group, the Skins. These creatures are also aliens and were affected by the civilization Max, Michael, Isabel and Tess came from. Not to mention, with the end of Nasedo near the beginning of the season, Tess-- with no where to go, moves in with Sheriff Valenti and Kyle.
This season also brings much doubt and a deeper storyline to Isabel who finds out who she was in her past life; a secret that causes her to doubt who she is and the good heart she has within her.
You also find out, again in typical sci-fi fashion, that the quartet are not the only clones of alien's from their past list but that there is another group of clones out there that look identical to the four known as the "dupes" who live in New York City and grew up differently. These four, however, have always had knowledge of their past lives and who they were meant to be. They arrive in Roswell, having knowledge of their clones, after killing their copy of Max, or Zan as he is known as, trying to get him to come with them in a way of getting home by representing them in a summit meeting with other aliens. It is around this time that Tess's twin "Ava" tells Liz that because Max healed her, she is different and will soon find that out.
This season, however, is not just filled with love and confusion but also sadness. For part of the season Alex is in Sweden on a trip, and after he returns to finally get Isabel to see him as more then a friend, he dies tragically. You find out later though that there might have been more behind his death then meets the eye.
Because of Max's anger towards Liz and everything having gone on, Max and Tess grow closer, Max finally sleeping with Tess resulting in her pregnancy that she informs Max about and the information that alien gestation periods are only about a month where they come from. After Tess becomes ill, it is revealed that the baby can not survive on Earth and so they make a collective decision to leave the planet.
With only 24 hours to say goodbye, and every one's way of coping with the departure of their friends and lovers, important information is found out about Alex and the way he died and how exactly it connects back to one of their own.
How does it end you ask? Well you will have to watch and see, but the theme for next season? Max wants to save his son.
Season Three; The Final Season
Love. The true love of a parent for their child and the revealing of secrets to those who had no idea all along.
Season three, and the final season of the series, is still filled with plenty of new action.
It involves Max and Liz's arrest in Utah after holding up a convenience store. They both get out of jail, but the consequences for what they did affect the entire season.
Liz is sent to boarding school because of her father's continuous disapproval of Liz's relationship with Max and he fears the only way to be a good parent is to keep them as far apart as possible.
During the hold up of the store, Max finds a space ship-- the original from the 1947 Roswell crash, but it isn't there when he goes back later. Michael and Max are told not to continue their search by a man who is later killed mysteriously by a fifth alien who is also a shape-shifter who is disguised as a film-producer. It is revealed that he is actually Max's protector who, against his wishes, is forced by Max to help them get the space ship from a military base. Because the ship is to damaged to fly, Max leaves L.A. thinking he let down his son.
Isabel, who is still grieving over Alex's death in her own subconscious sort of way, soon begins a relationship with a man named Jesse Ramirez, an attorney several years her senior and who works with Isabel and Max's adoptive father. Throughout the season, their father begin to dive deeper into the past of his children.
Midway through the season Isabel and Jesse get married against the wishes of Max, Michael and her parents. While on their honeymoon, Isabel comes in contact with Kivar, a very dangerous enemy from their past lives, but someone who used to be very close to Isabel's past life Vilandra, a woman who was a traitor and responsible for all of their deaths the first time around. He awakens her past life within her and tries to compel her to travel through a portal back to their home world with him. The ending results are quite surprising.
During this season, Maria breaks off from the group after having troubles dealing with the whole "alien" thing and tries to have a normal life without all of the drama the group possesses. Michael gets a job as a security officer for a pharmaceutical company that is secretly after him as they are trying to find the "healer" of the group (Max). Max ends up saving Valenti from a bullet wound that could have killed him, but is taken by the owner of the company's wife and is coerced into healing the dying millionaire. While doing so, Max inadvertently transfers his youth and the millionaires body transforms into Max's body, killing Max in the process.
Yes.. you read that right. Take a moment to "Oh my god" and cry.
Meanwhile, as Michael and Isabel try to come to grips with Max's death, Isabel gets shot and Michael is forced to fill Jesse in on their secret.
Max, well-- the millionaire, has memory flashes of Liz and can't stop thinking about her because of Max's soul inside of him.
Take a moment and rejoice.
So, the millionaire decides that he must kill Liz to fully control the body and mind he has now for himself. He travels to find Liz with is reluctant wife. Her reluctance eventually ending her. When Liz is about to be killed, Max's soul takes control of the body and uses his powers to save her life, then hitting the ground. The millionaire dies, leaving Max's soul to control the body that looks like his own.
Meanwhile, the FBI group that has been watching them for many months is getting closer to what they need. Liz begins to see what Ava meant by not being normal and begins to experience supernatural powers such as premonitions.
With the sudden arrival of Tess and Max's son Zan, everyone decides that it is time to leave Roswell. Tess decides to sacrifice herself for every one's escape because of all the bad that came from her, not to mention the forgiveness that Liz bestows on her. She turns herself in to the FBI and blows the military base. Zan is revealed to be fully human, not alien, and with Max knowing that his son can have a chance at a normal life, gives him up for adoption.
The season closes up with Liz getting a premonition of the deaths of her, Michael, Isabel and Max so they decide to leave Roswell after their high school graduation. Michael, knowing they will probably never return to Roswell, professes his never ending love for Maria who than decides to be with Michael forever, leaving with them. Kyle, who knows everything and Max having saved his father's life, decides he can not live normally in Roswell and leaves with them, escaping after graduation, where the FBI setup is.
There are several emotional goodbyes, especially between Kyle and his father. Isabel leaves Jesse behind, knowing it will save his life and loving him to much to be selfish enough to ask him to come with her.
The final scenes show Max and Liz getting married and Liz's father reading her journal that she had been writing in throughout the whole series of every happening that went on.
The final words of the series are;
"I'm Liz Parker and I am happy."
I tried to keep some interesting and important details out of the mix for you so that way you can be surprised when certain things happen. But now you know that there was a show called Roswell, and it didn't get the fanbase it deserved.
Now for the review.
First, I love the twist on aliens in the history of Roswell, New Mexico. I think it was a very creative way to go and not something usually done. It was a bold move and I think it worked really well, despite the ratings it got causing the shows cancelation.
Second, the characters and their history are beautiful. These are aliens meant to be rulers on a different planet but had to make difficult choices. It eventually caused their death and their rebirth on another planet for protection to one day return. While here though, they don't know what their destiny was supposed to be or how to act. They create their own destiny and become their own people.
Third, I love the relationship between Max and Liz. It's a different take on the whole "forbidden relationship" thing and in the end you honestly don't know if they are going to be together or not, especially when you find out that Max is a king destined to be with another of his kind. They both actually begin to give up on each other and I think that can be so true and real in a relationship. But hey, as Liz grandmother says in an episode in season one, "if the relationship isn't complicated then maybe he's not your soul mate." er.. well, something like that.
I also love the twist on alien powers, quirks (tabasco sauce), and don't forget about the mysterious white handprints!
There are also other relationships that bloom as well, and of course what show would be good without a little heartache, hm? Trust me, there is plenty of that especially in the later seasons.
Not to mention, if you like Dido, you will love the opening theme song.
So, if you have Netflix or an urge to look up an old television show from the 90's, Roswell is available to you in many places. I really think that if you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or other shows from the 90's like Dawson's Creek with a sci-fi twist on it, Roswell is a good show for you. I have found myself watching the short series over and over again for some comfort that it's okay not to want to be normal and to risk everything for something more. Not to mention, I was pretty happy with how the series ended. A lot of the time, it's hard for me to admit that about shows.
Enjoy! And remember, the truth is out there!!
Roswell that ends well!!
The series is a creative take on years after the supposed spaceship crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
The main cast consisted of seven members with frequent appearances of friends and villains that would come and go throughout the show.
Shiri Appleby as Liz Parker
Jason Behr as Max Evans
Katherine Heigl as Isabel Evans
Brendan Fehr as Michael Guerin
Majandra Delfino as Maria DeLuca
and
Nick Wechsler as Kyle Valenti
Strong appearances by other cast members included Colin Hanks as Alex Whitman, William Sadler as Sheriff Valenti and later in the series Emilie de Raven as Tess Harding.
The series gained mainly favorable reviews with an outspoken fanbase. However, in reaction to some rating issues the first season received, The WB ordered that the show add more science fiction themes and more multi-episode plot "arcs" in the remaining seasons. This however didn't work completely in the shows favor when some fans didn't adjust well to the changes in season two which showed to The WB in the ratings the following year, causing the cancellation of the show after only two seasons. However, 20th Century Fox was able to persuade UPN to bring back the show for a third season following directly after Buffy the Vampire Slayer, hoping this would bring in more fans for the series. It however, did not, and so the show was able to continued its third season to the end where it wrapped up the storyline the best they could for not being renewed another year.
What is the storyline you may ask? Well, my friends, it is about aliens. Who couldn't guess from the title, right?
Season One
Have you ever been injured and your very life was in the hands of someone with one of these secrets?
Could you hold your tongue?
The first lines in the first episode of the season: "It's September 24th, I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. But then the really amazing thing happened. I came to life. "
Season one of Roswell begins pretty dramatically. You first meet Liz Parker as she writes in her journal about the day Max Evans saved her life. She was working with her best friend Maria at The Crashdown, a diner with an alien theme that the Parker's own. Suddenly, an argument between two customers ends with gunfire in a random direction and everyone flinging themselves to the floor. Including Liz, who lays bleeding to death from a stomach wound where the bullet went in. Max and his friend Michael were in the diner eating that day and risking everything, Max tells Maria to call 911 and places his hand over her bleeding wound, healing her. He asks her not to tell and runs off before anyone can question them.
This opens up the short but compelling story of seven teenagers and a sheriff who's lives change the day two strangers shot Liz Parker in The Crashdown Diner.
Through out the season Sheriff Valenti, who's father first discovered the original crash in Roswell and was an alien fanatic and his son Kyle, who very briefly dated Liz and fell in love with her, try to figure out just who Max Evans is and the secrets he keeps along with his sister Isabel and his best friend Michael. Liz, on the other hand, spends her time trying to hide who they are at all costs, but with the support of her crazy and, at times, paranoid friend Maria.
Throughout the season a romance of uncontrollable feelings begins to surge through Max and Liz. A Romeo and Juliet type feeling of knowing that they are not supposed to be together because of their differences but that very static of adventure and destiny end up pulling them together even harder. Watching them together on screen will make your heart beat within your chest.
Along with them-- who remain in a tender and delicate relationship, other romances begin such as the odd pairing of wild Maria and untamable Michael who engage in a wild and passionate relationship and the brief unlikely coupling of Isabel and Alex, a good friend of Liz and Maria's who is slow to find out just what is going on.
The season continues with the revealing of how Isabel, Max and Michael came to be in Roswell and gain their current adoptive families. Michael, however, who is also in the worst situation of the three, is constantly trying to figure out where they came from, who brought them to Earth, how they could crash so long ago and only recently emerge. He has questions, and he wants answers not caring just how he gets them.
Near the end of the season you meet Tess and the very alien that escorted the group to earth, Nasedo, who is a shape-shifter. Tess is revealed to be the fourth alien they have been looking for, but unlike the other three she actually has knowledge of their past life and information on their supposed destinies; one of which might just tear Liz and Max apart.
Season Two
Season two is filled with Liz's insecurities about her feelings for someone who is "destined" to be with someone else even though Max assures her that his heart only truly beats for her.
Tess, who looked forward to finally meeting the group of aliens she had known in a past life, finds it difficult to be included in the tightly knit gang of people especially when her one true passion was to finally be re-united with someone who doesn't feel the same for her. Not to mention, this season really dips into the sci-fi side when just as we think Liz and Max will be together even though destiny said it wouldn't be so, a Max from the future arrives to tell Liz that if her and Max are together, it will destroy the lives of everyone they know and care about and so she must find a way to get Max to fall out of love for her. This eventually leads to the beginning of a relationship for Max and Tess with Liz on the sidelines keeping faith that they will still be together one day.
This season also introduces a new enemy for the group, the Skins. These creatures are also aliens and were affected by the civilization Max, Michael, Isabel and Tess came from. Not to mention, with the end of Nasedo near the beginning of the season, Tess-- with no where to go, moves in with Sheriff Valenti and Kyle.
This season also brings much doubt and a deeper storyline to Isabel who finds out who she was in her past life; a secret that causes her to doubt who she is and the good heart she has within her.
You also find out, again in typical sci-fi fashion, that the quartet are not the only clones of alien's from their past list but that there is another group of clones out there that look identical to the four known as the "dupes" who live in New York City and grew up differently. These four, however, have always had knowledge of their past lives and who they were meant to be. They arrive in Roswell, having knowledge of their clones, after killing their copy of Max, or Zan as he is known as, trying to get him to come with them in a way of getting home by representing them in a summit meeting with other aliens. It is around this time that Tess's twin "Ava" tells Liz that because Max healed her, she is different and will soon find that out.
This season, however, is not just filled with love and confusion but also sadness. For part of the season Alex is in Sweden on a trip, and after he returns to finally get Isabel to see him as more then a friend, he dies tragically. You find out later though that there might have been more behind his death then meets the eye.
Because of Max's anger towards Liz and everything having gone on, Max and Tess grow closer, Max finally sleeping with Tess resulting in her pregnancy that she informs Max about and the information that alien gestation periods are only about a month where they come from. After Tess becomes ill, it is revealed that the baby can not survive on Earth and so they make a collective decision to leave the planet.
With only 24 hours to say goodbye, and every one's way of coping with the departure of their friends and lovers, important information is found out about Alex and the way he died and how exactly it connects back to one of their own.
How does it end you ask? Well you will have to watch and see, but the theme for next season? Max wants to save his son.
Season Three; The Final Season
Love. The true love of a parent for their child and the revealing of secrets to those who had no idea all along.
Season three, and the final season of the series, is still filled with plenty of new action.
It involves Max and Liz's arrest in Utah after holding up a convenience store. They both get out of jail, but the consequences for what they did affect the entire season.
Liz is sent to boarding school because of her father's continuous disapproval of Liz's relationship with Max and he fears the only way to be a good parent is to keep them as far apart as possible.
During the hold up of the store, Max finds a space ship-- the original from the 1947 Roswell crash, but it isn't there when he goes back later. Michael and Max are told not to continue their search by a man who is later killed mysteriously by a fifth alien who is also a shape-shifter who is disguised as a film-producer. It is revealed that he is actually Max's protector who, against his wishes, is forced by Max to help them get the space ship from a military base. Because the ship is to damaged to fly, Max leaves L.A. thinking he let down his son.
Isabel, who is still grieving over Alex's death in her own subconscious sort of way, soon begins a relationship with a man named Jesse Ramirez, an attorney several years her senior and who works with Isabel and Max's adoptive father. Throughout the season, their father begin to dive deeper into the past of his children.
Midway through the season Isabel and Jesse get married against the wishes of Max, Michael and her parents. While on their honeymoon, Isabel comes in contact with Kivar, a very dangerous enemy from their past lives, but someone who used to be very close to Isabel's past life Vilandra, a woman who was a traitor and responsible for all of their deaths the first time around. He awakens her past life within her and tries to compel her to travel through a portal back to their home world with him. The ending results are quite surprising.
During this season, Maria breaks off from the group after having troubles dealing with the whole "alien" thing and tries to have a normal life without all of the drama the group possesses. Michael gets a job as a security officer for a pharmaceutical company that is secretly after him as they are trying to find the "healer" of the group (Max). Max ends up saving Valenti from a bullet wound that could have killed him, but is taken by the owner of the company's wife and is coerced into healing the dying millionaire. While doing so, Max inadvertently transfers his youth and the millionaires body transforms into Max's body, killing Max in the process.
Yes.. you read that right. Take a moment to "Oh my god" and cry.
Meanwhile, as Michael and Isabel try to come to grips with Max's death, Isabel gets shot and Michael is forced to fill Jesse in on their secret.
Max, well-- the millionaire, has memory flashes of Liz and can't stop thinking about her because of Max's soul inside of him.
Take a moment and rejoice.
So, the millionaire decides that he must kill Liz to fully control the body and mind he has now for himself. He travels to find Liz with is reluctant wife. Her reluctance eventually ending her. When Liz is about to be killed, Max's soul takes control of the body and uses his powers to save her life, then hitting the ground. The millionaire dies, leaving Max's soul to control the body that looks like his own.
Meanwhile, the FBI group that has been watching them for many months is getting closer to what they need. Liz begins to see what Ava meant by not being normal and begins to experience supernatural powers such as premonitions.
With the sudden arrival of Tess and Max's son Zan, everyone decides that it is time to leave Roswell. Tess decides to sacrifice herself for every one's escape because of all the bad that came from her, not to mention the forgiveness that Liz bestows on her. She turns herself in to the FBI and blows the military base. Zan is revealed to be fully human, not alien, and with Max knowing that his son can have a chance at a normal life, gives him up for adoption.
The season closes up with Liz getting a premonition of the deaths of her, Michael, Isabel and Max so they decide to leave Roswell after their high school graduation. Michael, knowing they will probably never return to Roswell, professes his never ending love for Maria who than decides to be with Michael forever, leaving with them. Kyle, who knows everything and Max having saved his father's life, decides he can not live normally in Roswell and leaves with them, escaping after graduation, where the FBI setup is.
There are several emotional goodbyes, especially between Kyle and his father. Isabel leaves Jesse behind, knowing it will save his life and loving him to much to be selfish enough to ask him to come with her.
The final scenes show Max and Liz getting married and Liz's father reading her journal that she had been writing in throughout the whole series of every happening that went on.
The final words of the series are;
"I'm Liz Parker and I am happy."
I tried to keep some interesting and important details out of the mix for you so that way you can be surprised when certain things happen. But now you know that there was a show called Roswell, and it didn't get the fanbase it deserved.
Now for the review.
First, I love the twist on aliens in the history of Roswell, New Mexico. I think it was a very creative way to go and not something usually done. It was a bold move and I think it worked really well, despite the ratings it got causing the shows cancelation.
Second, the characters and their history are beautiful. These are aliens meant to be rulers on a different planet but had to make difficult choices. It eventually caused their death and their rebirth on another planet for protection to one day return. While here though, they don't know what their destiny was supposed to be or how to act. They create their own destiny and become their own people.
Third, I love the relationship between Max and Liz. It's a different take on the whole "forbidden relationship" thing and in the end you honestly don't know if they are going to be together or not, especially when you find out that Max is a king destined to be with another of his kind. They both actually begin to give up on each other and I think that can be so true and real in a relationship. But hey, as Liz grandmother says in an episode in season one, "if the relationship isn't complicated then maybe he's not your soul mate." er.. well, something like that.
I also love the twist on alien powers, quirks (tabasco sauce), and don't forget about the mysterious white handprints!
There are also other relationships that bloom as well, and of course what show would be good without a little heartache, hm? Trust me, there is plenty of that especially in the later seasons.
Not to mention, if you like Dido, you will love the opening theme song.
So, if you have Netflix or an urge to look up an old television show from the 90's, Roswell is available to you in many places. I really think that if you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or other shows from the 90's like Dawson's Creek with a sci-fi twist on it, Roswell is a good show for you. I have found myself watching the short series over and over again for some comfort that it's okay not to want to be normal and to risk everything for something more. Not to mention, I was pretty happy with how the series ended. A lot of the time, it's hard for me to admit that about shows.
Enjoy! And remember, the truth is out there!!
Roswell that ends well!!
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