Roswell (TV series)

Roswell
Developed by	Jason Katims
Starring	see below
Narrated by	Shiri Appleby
Opening theme	"Here with Me" by Dido
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	61 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Kevin Kelly Brown Jonathan Frakes Jason Katims David Nutter Lisa J. Olin
Running time	approx. 42 minutes
Original release
Network	The WB (1999-2001) UPN (2001-2002)
Release	October 6 1999 – May 14 2002

Roswell is a sci-fi series created by Jason Katims. The series ran between October 1999 and May 2002. Described by one reviewer as "a star-crossed teen-age love story with an otherworldly twist" (Roberts, Associated Press, September 29, 1999), the series focused on teenaged aliens hiding in plain sight as humans in Roswell, New Mexico. The aliens are survivors of the 1947 UFO crash popularly known as The Roswell Incident. The love story comes into play when Max Evans (an alien), played by Jason Behr, and Liz Parker (a human), played by Shiri Appleby, fall in love.

The series pilot was based on the Roswell High young adult book series, written by Laura J. Burns , Melinda Metz and published by Pocket Books. In some countries, the TV series aired under the Roswell High title.

Cast

Main

• Shiri Appleby - Liz Parker
• Jason Behr - Max Evans
• Katherine Heigl - Isabel Evans Ramirez
• Brendan Fehr - Michael Guerin
• Majandra Delfino - Maria DeLuca
• Colin Hanks - Alex Whitman (1999-2001)
• William Sadler - Sheriff Jim Valenti
• Nick Wechsler - Kyle Valenti
• Emilie de Ravin - Tess Harding (1999-2001)
• Adam Rodriguez - Jesse Ramirez (2001-2002)

Recurring

• Julie Benz - Kathleen Topolsky
• Jim Ortlieb - Nasedo
• John Doe - Jeff Parker
• Jo Anderson - Nancy Parker
• Garrett M. Brown - Philip Evans
• Mary Ellen Trainor - Diane Evans
• Diane Farr - Amy De Luca
• Devon Gummersall - Sean De Luca
• Sara Downing - Courtney Banks

Season One

The first season ranked #28, with an average nielsen rating of 2.6

"September 23rd", Journal entry One, "I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. After that things got really weird..."

Liz, Maria, and Alex are high school students and best friends residing in Roswell, New Mexico. While waitressing at her parents' restaurant, the Crashdown Café, Liz witnesses an argument between two customers and is accidentally shot. Max Evans rushes to her side and heals the wound simply by placing his hand over it, bringing her back to life. Liz later discovers a silver handprint on her stomach. During a biology class experiment, Liz sneaks a sample of Max's saliva and examines it under a microscope, discovering that Max's cells look nothing like human cells. She confronts Max, who then admits that he, his sister Isabel and their friend Michael are aliens whose spaceship crashed at Roswell in 1947. Max divulges that he saved her life because he has strong feelings for Liz. She is immediately drawn to him, even though she is dating the sheriff's son Kyle Valenti.

Liz is initially sworn to secrecy, but she eventually tells Maria and later Alex the truth. The group of six reluctantly become friends as they struggle to protect the alien trio from mysterious government agents, curious UFO-seekers and Sheriff Valenti, who is suspicious of them. Michael and Maria engage in a romantic relationship and Alex develops a crush on Isabel. Max and Liz's relationship however becomes a focus of the season as they fall in love. Early on, it is revealed that the aliens had emerged from incubation pods long after their spaceship crashed. They were able to survive as they were not yet born. When they hatched from the pods in 1989, they emerged as human six-year-olds.

Toward the end of the season, they learn of a fourth alien named Nasedo who is a shape shifter. He has a violent, murderous past and nearly causes Max's demise at the hands of a vengeful alien hunter who had lost his wife and unborn child to Nasedo. The gang initially believes that Tess Harding, the new kid in town, is Nasedo as she seems to have a strange effect on Max, but it is revealed that she is a fourth alien-hybrid just like the other three. However, unlike them, she possesses knowledge of their past lives and the concept of their supposed destiny. At the end of the season, it is learned that Max, Isabel, Michael and Tess are clones of the royal four of Antar and that Max is the King, Isabel his sister, Michael is second in command and Tess is Max's wife. Their essences were kept alive in the clones and taken to Earth where they assumed human form. Their mission is to one day go back to their home planet Antar and retake the throne from Kivar, Max's enemy. As a result of this revelation, Liz breaks up with Max as she believes that she can't get in the way of Max's destiny and runs home.

Season Two

The second season ranked #113, with an average of 4.04 million viewers

The second season introduces the Skins, a race of aliens also from Antar who have been searching for the alien hybrids since they hatched. Their mission is to locate and turn them over to Kivar, who is now king of Antar. It is revealed that Liz's new boss, Congresswoman Whitaker is a Skin and her brother Nicholas is the leader of the Skins. Along with a renegade Skin Courtney, a Crashdown Café waitress, who believes that Michael, not Max, should have been in charge of Antar, the group travels to the town where Congresswoman Whitaker was from and discover that the whole town are Skins and that they are ready for the "Harvest".

Nasedo, the shape-shifter who was protecting the teens as well as acting as a father to Tess, is killed by Congresswoman Whitaker at the beginning of the season. As Tess has nowhere to go, she moves in with Sheriff Valenti and his son Kyle. Shortly after, the pod squad destroys the Harvest. It is revealed during the "Harvest" that Isabel was also formerly named Vilandra. Vilandra was in love with Kivar, Max's enemy and rival and betrayed her family for Kivar. This haunts Isabel so much that it creates a rift between her and Max when they find out that another set of clones of the royal four were created. The clones, known as the 'dupes', are exact copies of Michael, Max, Isabel and Tess, only they grew up in the sewers of New York city. Their names are Rath (Michael's clone), Zan (Max clone), Vilandra (aka Lonnie, Isabel's clone), and Ava (Tess's clone).

Rath, Vilandra and Ava come to Roswell after killing Zan to convince Max to return with them and represent the family at a summit meeting of the families of the five warring planets. Both Max and Tess go with Rath and Vilandra to New York, Ava stays in Roswell because she is haunted by the death of Zan. Nicholas returns as a voice for Kivar and it is revealed that the owner of the UFO museum, Brody Davis was used by an alien many times to communicate on Earth, acting as a puppet, explaining why he believes he was abducted by aliens since he has no memories of the incident. Rath and Vilandra tell Tess and Max that if they give Kivar the Granilith they can go home to Antar. Max remembers what Liz told him before he left that "the Granilith could be dangerous if in the wrong hands" and turns down Kivar's deal. Lonnie betrays the others as she meets Nicholas in secrert discussing her desire to return to Anta, as she remembers more about her past life and wants it back, regardless if Kivar gets the Granilith. Nicholas tells her that can be arranged as long as Max is dead. Needless to say, the assassination attempt fails and Rath and Lonnie 'disappear'. Ava, still in Roswell, goes to live a 'normal' life and is also not mentioned again; however, she does reveal to Liz that since Max healed her and brought her back she has 'changed' and will be different from now on.

Alex for most of the second season, leaves Roswell to go on a trip to Sweden. However shortly after coming back he dies in a car accident. It is discovered that Tess had killed him accidentally while trying to use Alex to translate the aliens' mysterious Destiny book that was found in the first season. Alex had never gone to Sweden and was made to think he did by Tess's mind control powers.

The death of Alex has a dramatic effect on Liz as she is devastated by the loss of her best friend. She finds a photo with Alex's head missing, causing her to suspect that Alex was murdered. Her investigations lead her into trouble with Max and the others when she accuses an alien of killing Alex. Through her investigation she discovers that Alex never went to Sweden and that he had actually been to Las Cruses College. She goes with Maria and Michael and they find out that Alex had been working on the translation of the Destiny book. Even though they find the translation, they are unable to find out who the killer is. It is revealed that the killer is in fact Tess.

Max impregnates Tess while Liz is investigating Alex's death. At the end of the season, Max and the others decide to leave Earth after Tess tells Max that their son is dying due to the Earth's atmosphere. As they are about to leave, Liz tells Max that Tess was the one that killed Alex. It turns out that Nasedo and Tess made a deal with Kivar: Nasedo wanted to return to Antar but was unable to for fear of execution, so he set up a deal, pledging to return with Max. Max lets Tess go and the gang watches as Tess leaves Earth via the Granilith. Max tells Liz that he loves her, and that now he must save his son.

Season Three

The third season opens with Max's quest to save his son. He and Liz are arrested after holding up a convenience store. They both end up getting out of jail, but their actions have serious consequences for the rest of the season. Max, during the holdup, found an alien ship which was being stored in the basement, but when he goes back, the ship is gone. An incident in L.A involving a supposed fifth alien leads Max to L.A. Knowing that the alien is a shapeshifter and in the film industry, Max tries out a stint in acting and auditions for a role in Enterprise. The fifth alien is in fact a very successful producer and Max forces him to help him find the ship, which is at a military base. They attempt to fly it but the ship is too damaged from the crash in 1947. Max leaves L.A disappointed and he feels as though he has let his son down.

Isabel is revealed to be haunted by Alex's ghost. She begins a relationship with Jesse Ramirez, an attorney who is several years older than Isabel and works with her father. As the season unfolds, Max and Isabel's father is diving deeper into the past of his children, due to Max not giving him a satisfactory reason as to what happened in Utah, or why Max was even there in the first place. Midway through the season, Isabel gets married, much to the disappointment of her parents, Max and Michael. While on honeymoon with Jesse, Kivar comes in contact with Isabel. He awakens Isabel's past life, Vilandra, who betrayed Max and Michael in their previous life for her love with Kivar, which is the reason the four of them died in their first life. Kivar tries to compel Isabel (now reawakened as Vilandra) to travel through a portal back to their home world, and Max and Michael attempt to stop them. In the end, Isabel pushes Kivar into the portal.

Michael takes a job as a security guard during the night at a local pharmaceutical factory. But little does he know that the owner of the company has been going through the trash to obtain Michael's DNA and they find out that he is an alien in an attempt to heal a dying millionaire. Michael and Sheriff Valenti find a room with all of Michael's things and realize what the company has found out, Valenti however is captured. Michael enlists the help of Max and Isabel go back to rescue Valenti. Max is captured and coerced into healing the dying millionaire. Max is at first wary of doing so, as the millionaire has lived out his life and will die of natural causes, but Max attempts anyway. Max ends up transferring his age and the millionaire takes Max's body, killing Max. Michael and Isabel come to grips with Max's death but a patrol of guards come. Michael and Isabel use their powers to destroy their vehicles, but Isabel is shot. The millionaire is at his house in Max's body when he receives a memory of Liz. He can't stop thinking about her and decides that he must kill her. Michael manages to heal Isabel, because Max is essentially dead, and Max's powers were transferred to Michael as his second in command. As the millionaire is about to kill Liz, they both fall from a building window. Seeing that Liz is about to die, Michael uses his powers to save her life, while Max hits the ground. The millionaire dies and Max miraculously survives. The group heads back to Roswell.

The FBI has also been studying the group for many months and is closing in on them. When Tess returns with Max's son, Zan, the gang has to group together and try to escape Roswell. In an effort to protect her son, Tess blows up the Army base and sacrifices herself. The baby is revealed to be fully human, as Max's and Tess's human sides of their DNA were the sides that produced the baby. So Max, realizing that the baby could have a normal life, gives him up for adoption. He uses his father's help to get the baby into a good family. The series closes when Liz, Max, Michael, Isabel, Maria and Kyle escape from their high school graduation and hit the road in a bus, where there are a few goodbyes, especially between Kyle and his father, Jim Valenti. The final scenes of the show feature Max and Liz getting married and Liz's father reading the infamous journal that Liz wrote, chronicling the last three years. The final scene has Liz peering out of the van in her wedding dress saying, "I'm Liz Parker and I am happy" - bookending the first line of the first episode of the series.

Episodes

Main article: List of Roswell episodes

Airing history

Roswell High was originally developed by 20th Century Fox Television and Regency Television for the FOX network, though it landed on the WB (re-named simply Roswell) thanks to the latter network's offer to extend a full 22-episode upfront commitment. The series premiered on October 6, 1999 in the United States to generally favorable reviews. Although it quickly garnered an outspoken fanbase, the series almost immediately entered a steady ratings decline that would keep the show under constant threat of cancellation.

In response to the ratings problems, the network ordered the relationship-driven standalone episodes of the early first season to be replaced with more sci-fi themes and multi-episode plot arcs. Starting with the second season, veteran sci-fi writer Ronald D. Moore was brought in to join Katims as an executive producer and showrunner, and to further develop the sci-fi elements. During seasons two and three, members of the fanbase increasingly grew divided between those who had preferred the original style (criticized by opponents as too soapy or melodramatic) versus those who preferred the newer style (criticized by opponents as too dark or convoluted).

In the United States, Roswell lasted for two seasons on the WB. On May 15, 2001, the WB cancelled the series, a move widely anticipated due to the disappointing ratings. However, Fox was able to persuade United Paramount Network to pick up Roswell for a third (and ultimately final) season in a deal packaging the underperforming series with Fox's coveted property Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which UPN had just managed to steal away from WB in a heated bidding war. However, Roswell failed to hold onto enough of the audience from its new lead-in, Buffy. So once again, it faced cancellation. Roswell's final episode aired on May 14, 2002. Shiri Appleby has been quoted as saying that the decision of the writers to go away from the basic love story of the first season, to a more convoluted sci-fi plot in season two played a large role in the cancellation, and that at least she felt the finale "gave the audience what it wanted," which was Liz and Max together as the final season more or less returned to the original season's plot lines.

DVD releases

A Region 1 boxed set of all three seasons is available.

Note: Each DVD release had many songs on the soundtrack changed from the original broadcast versions as a result of license fees.

Original Novels

Other than the original Roswell High book series that inspired the TV series, a range of novels were published based on the events depicted in the show. These however, largely ignored the continuity of the original novels, and acted to embellish on events that largely went unexplained on screen.

The Pocket Books Novels

While Roswell was still on air, three novels were published by Pocket Books. When the show was cancelled, this range ceased publication.

1. Loose Ends by Greg Cox (June 2001)
2. No Good Deed by D.A. Stern (October 2001)
3. Little Green Men by D.W. Smith and K.K. Rusch (April 2002)

Simon Spotlight Entertainment Novels

Later in 2002, Simon Spotlight Entertainment (a division of Simon & Schuster), picked up the Roswell range and published a further eight novels. Following low sales, this range was also terminated a year later. The first four novels act a bridge between Seasons 2 and 3. The last four are set after the events of the series, and are considered by many fans to be 'Season 4'.

1. Shades by Mel Odom (September 2002)
2. Skeletons In The Closet by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin (November 2002)
3. Dreamwalk by Paul Ruditis (January 2003)
4. Quarantine by Laura Burns (March 2003)
5. A New Beginning by Kevin Ryan (June 2003)
6. Nightscape by Kevin Ryan (July 2003)
7. Pursuit by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin (September 2003)
8. Turnabout by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin (November 2003)

Trivia

• The television series was based on the Roswell High series of books created by author Melinda Metz under editor Laura J. Burns. The pair eventually joined the show in the 3rd season as staff writers. The episode "A Tale of Two Parties" marked their television-writing debut.
• Despite being set in New Mexico, the series was filmed entirely within Los Angeles and its surrounding districts. Most of the exterior shots were filmed in the city of Covina, California. This is the actual home used for exterior shots and is part of Zillow.com's Famous Homes series.
• The alien pod chamber (disguised as a rock formation of distinctive slanting rocks) are actually Vasquez Rocks, located outside of Los Angeles.
• One notable quirk was the aliens' favorite condiment, Tabasco brand hot sauce, which they liberally sprinkled on nearly every meal. It was finally explained in the third season that when the aliens came out of the pods, for the first few months they couldn't smell or taste anything except for strong flavors such as Tabasco sauce. Although their sense eventually matured, they kept the Tabasco habit. The Tabasco sauce connection was later highlighted by fans who sent thousands of the tiny bottles to network executives along with pleas to save the show.
• Delfino—who was pursuing a musical career off-screen — sang several times on the series, including the Phil Collins single "In the Air Tonight" and the gospel classic "Amazing Grace."
• Jonathan Frakes, an actor well known for his role in Star Trek: The Next Generation, was an executive producer, and directed several episodes. He also appeared in the pilot episode as an MC, then as himself in two other episodes, "The Convention" and "Secrets and Lies."
• Another link with the Star Trek franchise occurs in the third season episode "Secrets and Lies" in which Max auditions for a role in Enterprise while staying in Los Angeles.
• Yet another link to Star Trek was the guest appearance of J.G. Hertzler as teacher Mr. Lafeber in the episode "Ask Not." Hertzler is best known for his work in various Star Trek roles, most notably as the General/Chancellor Martok of the Klingon Empire in Deep Space Nine.
• Show creators went to great lengths to ensure accuracy between the show and the real town of Roswell, New Mexico. License plates on cars, driver's licenses, and even state seals were used in the series.
• Native American actor Michael Horse plays deputy Owen Blackwood in the first episodes of season 1. He was deputy Hawk in the series Twin Peaks and sheriff Charles Tskany in an episode of the X-Files.
• In the pilot episode, Maria tells best friend Alex that Liz sat next to Pam Troy, who she openly hates. Pam Troy is a character that was also referenced in Jason Katims's other hit, My So Called Life.
• The Tabasco that the aliens loved so much was actually tomato juice. The actors originally tried to tough it out with Tabasco but soon could no longer handle keeping up with the addiction and tomato juice was switched in.

References

• Crashdown.com — New WB Series 'Roswell' Ups The Ante On Teen Angst (Chris Roberts, Associated Press, September 29, 1999) retrieved June 19, 2005.
• SciFi.com — Laura J. Burns and Melinda Metz Graduate from Roswell High to TV (Patrick Lee, March 4, 2002) retrieved June 19, 2005.
• SciFi.com — WB Announces Schedule (author unknown, May 21, 2001) retrieved June 19, 2005.
• Zap2It.com — 'Roswell' Finale Aims for the Stars (Kate O'Hare, May 9, 2002) retrieved June 19, 2005.
• BeBeyond.com — 'Roswell' Gets an A for Human Relations' (Mike Antonucci, San Jose Mercury News, October 5, 1999) retrieved June 19, 2005.

External links

• Fansite with regular news, episode transcripts, etc.
• Roswell DVD information