Katims Reflects On Roswell

Thanks to Arthur for sending this in

From: SciFi.com

Jason Katims, executive producer of UPN’s teen alien series, Roswell, revealed to SCI FI Wire the regrets he has about the show, which ends its three-year run this year, with just two more episodes to go. “We were always trying to find the right balance between the science fiction and relationship aspects of the show,” Katims said in a frank interview. “And … it’s very much a show that sort of skewed one way or the other in different episodes, and I was sort of fine with that. But sometimes I felt like the show got off too much into too complicated of a sort of mythology … and became too serialized, particularly in the second season. … It just got out of hand.”

Katims added, “At the beginning of that season, we introduced the Skins as [Max’s (Jason Behr)] adversary. And looking back at it, I wish that we had just stayed with the Skins and used that as the running adversary throughout that season. If we had, they might have even stayed in for the third season. But we dropped it and just moved on, and I think that I would have done that differently. I think … we went on to other things, and I think … things became so complicated that it was hard to keep up with it. So that was what I would have done differently, definitely.”

But Katims added that he remains proud of the series, though it struggled to find an audience through its first two years on The WB and its last on UPN. “The things that I’m happy with about the way that it’s turned out is I feel that we have used the metaphor of the show–of these aliens hiding in plain sight and living as humans, but being outsiders–and … we’ve used it as a metaphor for growing up and coming of age. And by this third season we were dealing with much more adult themes. … One of these aliens was entering into a marriage [Isabel (Katherine Heigl)], another one had a child [Max], and the other one was trying to figure out what he was going to do for work and deal with the neurotic relationship that he was in [Michael (Brendan Fehr)]. So they have grown up a lot. But I think that … we did stay with the basic theme of what this show always was, which is about how in a way we’re all outsiders, and we’re all living as outsiders with secrets, and I think that that was always the strength of the show.” Roswell airs its final two episodes at 9 p.m. ET/PT May 7 and May 14.