2024/10/04

Roswell, developed, produced and co-written by Jason Katims, first aired on The WB channel October 6, 1999. Only the first two seasons aired on The WB. Initially Roswell was cancelled after the second season but 20^th Century Fox was able to persuade the UPN Network to pick it up for a 3^rd season as a package deal with Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Roswell’s 3^rd season aired right after Buffy but could not hold on to the viewers who had been watching Buffy. So UPN cancelled Roswell after 3 seasons. The last season has less episodes than the first two, only 18 episodes but at least the creators were able to close the show with satisfaction.

The show is about 3 teenage alien/human hybrids who try to survive, posing as humans, while trying to learn more about their alien powers, as well as figuring out how to get home. Max Evans (Jason Behr), Isabel Evans (Katherine Heigl) and Michael Guerin (Brendan Fehr) are trying to live under the radar but that changes when Max, who definitely has a thing for Liz Parker (Shiri Appleby), saves Liz after she has been shot by a random bullet. From then on the show begins and are the lives of the 3 aliens even less safe than before.

Normally I am not into young adult shows, usually they annoy me too much but it definitely was different with Roswell, yes they were young, yes they were annoying at times but most of the time they acted more like (real) adults. And although it sometimes is soapy, also has heavy drama elements, not to forget romance, the show is also a real SCI-FI show. Perhaps less in the first season but more in the remaining seasons.

They want to find their way home, meanwhile they are also hunted by an alien hunter, the sheriff Jim Valenti (William Sadler) is having suspicions about these 3 alien teenagers. His son Kyle (Nick Wechsler) had a relationship with Liz but when her interest shifts to Max, Kyle gets jealous of him and also pays more attention to Max and the other aliens and he also sees things he does not understand.

When the show premiered it generally got favorable reviews and quickly gained an outspoken fanbase. The show was in trouble in it's first season with the ratings. In season one it were mostly relationship-driven stand-alone episodes. Season 2 went into a slightly different direction, still there were relationship issues but now also more SCI-FI elements which were introduced and also multi-episode story-arcs instead of more standalone episodes. Ronald D. Moore, who previously worked on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, came in to help develop the SCI-FI elements.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the show still holds an 87% audience score, which is impressive to me. I watched it about 5 times now and I know for a fact that I will keep watching this in years to come. My last rewatch dates back to June-August 2018, six years, so I think it is about time to do another rewatch of the show. I however want to (re) watch many shows so it still can take awhile. Except if I can persuade my wife to watch it with me, I might can start watching is sooner! Currently, according to Rotten Tomatoes you can stream the show on Hulu as well as Apple TV, I myself own the show on DVD so that will be my way of rewatching it. Strange thing is that Roswell has only been released on physical media in North America and the UK.

A few years ago the show got a reboot. I really hoped that these characters / actors would return for this but sadly this was not the case. I never watched the reboot, didn’t appealed to me after seeing some trailers and reading some things about it. So I cannot say anything about the reboot content-related because I have never seen it, so instead of bashing it, I don’t not give an on opinion about the reboot.

Final Word:

25 years is a long time, it does not feel that long ago when I think about the show and the series intro from Dido “Here With Me”. Really loved that intro, one of the best I’ve ever heard or seen. I don’t understand why it was not that popular, I really enjoyed it, all seasons. I don’t think there will ever be a reboot with the original actors, that I would like to have seen. Still, happy with the seasons I do have, and yes I will be watching it again soon! Happy 25^th Anniversary Roswell!