EW: Space Case-Roswell

Thanks to Chaz and anyone else who may have sent this in to me (I haven’t completely checked through all the emails yet since I’m working on ratings for Zap right now)Follow the link to read the rest of the article.

Space Case
”Roswell” is becoming more sci-fi to win a bigger audience. Fans saved the WB show last year — but this season, improved ratings are a must for survival
by Craig Seymour

”Roswell,” the WB’s cult hit about teenage aliens, is back for a second season after being saved by a novel fan campaign last May (they flooded network offices with the aliens’ preferred condiment: Tabasco sauce.) But even with a choice time slot, Mondays at 9 p.m., the show’s prognosis isn’t out of this world. The Oct. 2 premiere drew 4.1 million viewers, but lost 36 percent of the audience from the WB’s 8 p.m. lead in, ”7th Heaven,” while last week’s second episode was watched by 3.9 million people and lost 39 percent. If things don’t improve for the series — which averaged 3.5 million viewers last season — industry observers say it’s a goner. ”The WB will be watching it closely over the next few months to determine its future,” says John Spiropoulos, associate director of audience research for Initiative Media. ”To survive, it needs a much bigger audience than it’s getting.”

To lure new viewers, ”Roswell”’s producers plan to radically shake up the formula that earned it a vocal — if limited — cadre of fans last season. This includes shifting the focus away from the star crossed romance between alien boy Max (Jason Behr) and earth girl Liz (Shiri Appleby) that provided the show’s emotional core. ”We learned that simply having a human in love with an alien was not a potent enough story to build the entire show around,” says executive producer Jonathan Frakes, who may be better known for playing Commander Riker on ”Star Trek: The Next Generation.” ”So the focus this season is more on the aliens.”