Toronto’s Starweek issue Sat. Aug 4, 2001

Thanks to waterlight for transcribing the article and thanks to Leanne for letting me know about the article :)

This article was taken from Toronto’s (Canada) Starweek mag.(issued on Saturday Aug. 4, 2001). **Please note the last 6 paragraphs.**

Roswell: True Teen Alienation

Nowhere was the teen fallout felt more than at the WB network, which sank like a stone in the ratings behind tiny UPN.
One of the teen shows WB debuted that season and kept for a second year was Roswell, which examines teen angst felt through alien eyes.
In the fall, the drama jumps along with Buffy the Vampire Slayer to UPN, and the network plans on running Roswell directly behind Buffy Tuesday nights, a perfect fit.
But starting tonight, viewers old and new have a chance to catch up with the series as Space starts to air the first two seasons syndie strip style, Monday to Friday at 7 p.m.
Roswell is an interesting cross between Dawson’s Creek and The X-Files. (Many teens feel so alienated that they could be aliens, right?)
The premise: Three teens (Jason Behr, Katherine Heigl, and Brendan Fehr) from outer space are stranded millions of miles from home in a harsh and often hostile environment with the police and government constantly after them. But they’re teens, right? So they also go to high school.
But didn’t the original Roswell incident happen way back in 1947? If so these teens from outer space certainly don’t look their age.
The series explains this away saying they were placed in incubating pods and only hatched decades later to be adopted by human parents in the 1980s.
Executive producer Jason Katims had worked on My So-Called Life so he knew all about teen problems. Co-executive producer David Nutter came from The X-Files and director Jonathan Frakes was best known as a co-star of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Roswell successfully plays off the two genres. The teen aliens must hit their classes and their books or they’ll be noticed (That’s the Dawson’s Creek angle). But they’re constantly in peril (The X-Files side).
The series opens with “normal” lead Liz (Shiri Appleby) waitressing at night and getting shot in the chest.
If she dies there goes the series, so in steps classmate and alien Max (Behr) who heals her by laying on the hands.
Critics have noticed that Behr plays Max like a young David Duchovny – all brooding looks.
Indeed Behr’s sex appeal was peddled by WB publicists in an attempt to keep the series going. Behr came off the series Dawson’s Creek (he played Chris Wolfe), and tends to deliver every line with a solemnity that becomes almost comical. But Max can’t lighten up or he’d become just another Dawson, right?
When WB threatened cancellation, enraged teen viewers mailed over 3000 bottles of Tabasco sauce to harried network executives. The teen aliens just love to down the hot stuff as if it were candy.
Can a skeptical teen alien and a skeptical earth girl find true happiness? If they do then Roswell will be over.

The article also includes a picture of Shiri and Jason. The caption underneath it states: “Roswell’s Shiri Appleby and Duchovny knock-off Jason Behr.” I still don’t get it.