Dreamwatch-Highs and Lows-Roswell

Thanks to Nikki for sending this in.

Dreamwatch (UK) June 2000

‘Highs & Lows’

Roswell High bears many similarities to another highly popular teen fantasy
series, as Keith Topping discovers when investigating its possible demise.

We all know the scenario so well. It’s a universal constant in science
fiction isn’t it?

You find a series that you really like. You start to get interested in the
characters, investing time and emotional attachment to them and their story.
You look forward to forthcoming developments and then, just when you think
that the future is in good hands and that nothing can go wrong, a bit of
horrid reality shattered your little bubble universe and the rumours start
that your series days are numbered. Typical. Most readers will, I’m sure, be
able to quote dozens of examples of bygone favourites that have ended on the
whim of a TV executive somewhere who, frankly didn’t understand the concept
of what the series was all about. And even if there was only you and four of
your mates watching it well, what the hell, you liked it.

Television, being the business of compromise that it is, we sometimes have
to take the rough with the smooth. True we only got five years of Quantum
Leap when another two or three would have been nice. True, Dark Skies had
far more potential than it was ever allowed to display. True (and just to
prove that the concept is neither new nor wholly confined to US networks),
there is no way Star Cops deserved to last only nine episodes. But
sometimes, such threatened cancellations can really hurt. The latest victim
of the rumours circuit is Roswell High. If you believe everything that you
hear, then all we may ever get to see of this strangest of strange love
stories between Liz Parker and Max Evans is twenty-two episodes. Just one
season of looking at the world of hormone charged teen angst set amid the
staggering New Mexico landscape. A mere six months worth of stories of alien
children and suspicious adults. Roswell (suffix added for overseas sales) is
one of the best new series (SF or otherwise) to have emerged from the US in
the last five years. It’s right up there with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and
Stargate SG-1. Yes, it really is that good.

For those of you who have never watched it on Sky, you’re missing out on a
genuinely impressive piece of imaginative, clever cross-genre television. A
teen soap that wants to be science fiction, or an SF show that wants to be
Dawson’s Creek? In reality Roswell High is both. And it’s neither. In actual
fact it’s so much better than Buffy, you have to wonder how it was that the
series ever got off the ground in the first place. But once it did, it
matured rapidly, showing a fine ability to be wryly amusing whilst keeping
the dramatic storylines of creator Jason Katims and executive producer
Jonathon Frakes never far from the surface.

So the question has to be asked: Why on earth is Roswell High in trouble
with its ratings at all? Everybody should be watching it. The simple truth
is that Roswell is possibly a victim of its own chameleonic abilities. Many
viewers simply don’t know what to make of it. The series to which it most
akin, Buffy, also had these problems early on when its critical standing was
far higher than its audience appreciation. Roswell High’s very clear agenda,
from episode one really, was to stand aloof from the vast lore of the town
that gave the series its name and to send up the whole idea of little green
men and dodgy autopsy footage ( the episode The Convention which poked
merciless fun at SF and UFO conventions and all the stereotypes that they
throw up is particularly noteworthy here).

So, if Roswell doesn’t want to be a series that takes the staple elements of
you average SF concept (and it seemingly doesn’t) then what, exactly, does
it have that makes it so watchable? So special? The answer to that is
simple. It’s got a terrific cast. Again, Buffy is the most obvious template
here; an ensemble piece centered around, but not exclusive to, a pair of
central characters with comic and aesthetically interesting foils that can
paired off to great effect. (Anybody else see an obvious link between
Maria’s role in Roswell High and Willow’s in Buffy? Or compare the pairing
of Isabel and Alex with Cordelia and Xander?) Ultimately, like Buffy,
Roswell features a superb bunch of young actors: Shiri Appleby (Liz Parker),
Jason Behr (Max Evans), Brendan Fehr (Michael Guerin), Katherine Heigl
(Isabel Evans), Majandra Delfino (Maria DeLuca), Colin Hanks (Alex Whitman)
and Nick Wechsler (Kyle Valenti), all of whom are attractive and charismatic
and can do comedy and drama in equal measure.

Beside the are some equally impressive representatives of the older
generation; actors like William Sadler, Julie Benz and Mary Ellen Trainor
who add the same anchoring qualities here that Anthony Stewart Head and
Kristine Sutherland bring to Buffy. But where Roswell goes even further than
Sunnydale’s finest is that it can afford to drop its adult characters at
will and spend entire episodes concentrating purely on its teenage stars and
the sometimes near-the-knuckle nature of their trials and tribulations.
Buffy, of example, was well into its second year before it got anywhere near
doing a storyline on child abuse with Ted. Conversely, Roswell was doing so,
openly and with a sense of outrage, by episode fifteen – the staggeringly
adult Independence Day.

The back story on Roswell High is relatively straight forward. Liz Parker is
a highly intelligent sixteen year old high school girl from UFO mecca
Roswell, New Mexico, working in her spare time as a waitress at her parent’s
diner, the Crashdown, with her feisty friend Maria DeLuca. One evening,
whilst on shift, she is shot during an argument between two meathead
customers. As Liz lies dying on the diner floor, her life is saved by a
mysterious ‘laying on of hands’ by the darkly brooding local hunk, Max
Evans. Liz keeps Max’s secret, but when confronting him with it later, he is
forced to reveal that he, his glamorous sister Isabel and their wild
outsider friend Michael Guerin are ‘not from around here’. They are from…
‘up there’.

After an effective pilot that sets up the characters nicely and displays a
keen sense of dry humour, subsequent episodes detail the alien trio’s
searches for clues as to their ancestry, whilst simultaneously attempting to
hide their secret from sinister local sheriff Valenti, whose son is Liz’s
ex-boyfriend and who has his own agenda for wanting to discover aliens in
Roswell, and the attentions of a the alluring, but mysterious school
counsellor Kate (sic) Topolsky. Writers like Thania St John (a Buffy
veteran) and Cheryl Cain tap effortlessly into the teenage psyche and
episodes like Monsters (focusing on the uneasy alliance between Maria and
Isabel), 285 South ( mini road movie) and River Dog (where Topolsky’s
elaborate trap for the aliens comes close to success) demonstrate an
accurate understanding of what, exactly, makes these characters so
interesting.

The outrageous sexual undercurrents of an episode like Heat Wave shouldn’t
be underestimated either, whilst St John’s epic The Balance casts the group
into Michael’s psyche in order to save him, literally, from himself. In
Roswell High there are frequent revelations and dramatic twists, but there
are also moments of quiet reflection and touching resonance (Sexual Healing)
that takes the viewer a long way from where they probably imagined they were
going to in a series about alien teenagers. A character like Alex, for
instance, appears at first glance to be nothing more than an a literal
Zeppo. A comic wall for the others to bounce sarcasm and insults off. But
Roswell’s view of outsiders is essentially proactive. Again, like Buffy, all
of the characters have something to stand outside of and be embittered by.
And for that reason, if nothing else, Roswell scores again over many of its
contemporaries.

The world of Roswell High School is a world in which growing up and becoming
normal may be a horrible reality for some, but it may also be an impossible
dream for others. Roswell began well in the US, a Wednesday night feature on
the WB network fitting perfectly into the mid-evening slot that Buffy had
made its own on Tuesday. But the ratings have been sluggish as conservative
viewers opt for less challenging (and as a consequence, less demanding)
television.

It’s difficult not to criticise heavily those who choose to watch Who Wants
to be a Millionaire ahead of Roswell (although to fair, earlier in the
season Roswell’s competition included Star Trek: Voyager and NBC’s acclaimed
West Wing). The WB have gotten nervous and, in an effort to attract new
viewers have taken the desperate step of moving Roswell to Monday Nights.
Initial response seems positive, but it remains to be seen if, in the long
term, Roswell has any sort of future. If there’s any justice