Tube Reviews.com – Roswell Reviews-Check It out

I found a website that has reviews of Roswell (among other shows) at Tube Reviews (http://www.tubereviews.com/)

I’ll post tidbits from some of the reviews along with the links in the episode title and the grade it “earned” to the reviews so that you can read the whole review yourself. [Sadly, the website is not available anymore.]

PILOT
– by ANTHONY C. FERRANTE
[…] The mixture of teen angst drama and sci-fi is handled rather effectively, etching out its own distinct voice and flavor like the WB’s other teen genre series BUFFY — but not coming off as a clone. It also helps that the directorial guiding force is David Nutter, late of THE X-FILES and last year’s other teen angst genre flick, DISTURBING BEHAVIOR. He finds the right tone for the show early on, setting up a lot of the strange character quirks but also giving the show a look and voice that’s very different from the glut of other teen-centric shows.

Another amazingly complex and touching moment occurs when Max explains to Liz that he saw her entire life through her eyes when he saved her. To show the extent of his powers, he shows her his life through his eyes, particularly the emotions and feelings he had toward her during the school years. It’s a very rich moment that is played to perfection by Appleby’s Katie Holmes-esque spunkiness….
GRADE: A-

THE MORNING AFTER
– by CHRISTOPHER ALLAN SMITH

Entry two in the intriguing beginning of WB’s new teen genre drama continues to skirt the knife edge between drippy clich�s and alien show silliness. Having not been a viewer of the similarly mixed BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, I have to admit I’m pleasantly surprised Katims and company can build drama from story elements so threadbare (Roswell aliens, governmental conspiracies, high school melodrama). I’d have bet it couldn’t be done […] GRADE: B

MONSTERS
– by CHRISTOPHER ALLAN SMITH

A new wrinkle with Isabel is unearthed here when she walks into the dreams of Maria to see if she’s going to crack under the Sheriff’s pressure. The exchanges between Maria and Isabel (whose lifelong ambition, we discover, is literally to be a supermodel) are humorous and threatening at the same time, and a kick to watch. Also, they hold the kind of �different girls trying to be friends� electricity that was always an electric third rail in high school. The unexpected finale, where Maria decides to keep the secret of the three to herself under the Sheriff’s pressure, has an unexpectedly satisfying logic to it. Still a fun episode, but the sedate pace of storytelling might get irritating after a few weeks […] GRADE: B

LEAVING NORMAL
– by STEVEN FELTY

I was not particularly impressed with Roswell as a series. I think it could be a movie, but when the plot gets stretched over several weeks the writers are forced to fill the time with Max and Liz making cow eyes at each other. The most refreshing character in the series is Maria DeLuca, who is played by Majandro Delfino. DeLuca has what many of the others in the series lack: personality. Delfino as DeLuca injects whatever scene she is in with energy. To a lesser degree, actor Brendan Fehr as Michael also creates energy when on screen. Fehr plays the teenage angst a bit to the edge. He doesn’t overdo the troubled, brooding schtick, which is so easy for a young actor to do in a series aimed at the largest group of consumers in the country: 18 to 24-year-olds. After all, the producers want the audience to identify with the characters so they will watch the show and see all the commercials. Unfortunately, the series moves at too slow a pace to keep interest in what the characters are going through […] GRADE: C

MISSING
– by STEVEN FELTY

[…] Back in episode three, Michael broke into Sheriff Valenti’s office and stole a key that gave him the vision which now inhabits his thoughts day and night. The rest of the show has the five main characters giving out more red herrings than a discount fish market […] […] Most of the episode is about Liz and Max and contains some painfully slow scenes of dialogue between them. Sometimes you get the feeling that the actors know just how boring they really are, and they are embarrassed by it […] GRADE: C-

Mandy Note: The reviewer doesn’t seem to know how to spell Topolsky’s name-fyi

285 SOUTH
– by STEVEN FELTY

[…] One of the reasons that this episode gets a higher rating is because it exploited the two characters that have personality: Michael and Maria. Another reason is that it literally went somewhere. In my opinion, high school students hanging out in Roswell does not hold much possibility for action or adventure — even if three of them are aliens. Another factor that made this a better episode is that Polasky takes a quantum leap in development of character, leaving us with no doubts about the distance she will go to get what she wants. Let’s hope the series can keep generating more momentum and not fall back into the anemic dialogue of teen hell […] GRADE: C+

RIVER DOG
– by STEVEN FELTY

Last week’s episode left viewers clinging to the hope that the series might just get interesting. In the previous episode, the “kids” were in a secret room beneath the mysterious Mr. Atherton’s geodesic dome when footsteps were heard above. The end of the episode had tension as thick as a government conspiracy, and this week’s episode did pay off to some extent […] […] As Max and Liz leave the cave, River Dog pulls Liz aside and tells her to be careful and make sure Max deserves her trust. So, at the end of the episode the viewer is left with an expanding mystery and the possibility of an improving series. […] GRADE: C+

BLOOD BROTHERS
– by STEVEN FELTY

[…] This episode illustrates a type of problem that many television sci-fi series have; improbable plot elements. I say improbable and not impossible because there is always an outside chance that an event can or could happen. However, in this episode Max ends up in a hospital emergency room where his blood is drawn. Now, if his blood is examined he will be found to be not of this world. So what do our intrepid teens do? They switch his blood with a sample of Alex’s. What makes this event improbable is that Liz gets the equipment to draw blood, Isabel does the deed and Michael switches it by smooth-talking the nurse/phlebotomist. […] […] The other problem in this little escapade is that when Michael switches the blood it has a perfectly typed label. Where did they get the nice typed label? Did they manage to sit at the nurses’ station and print one out without anyone asking what they were doing? Has the writer ever been to an emergency room? Has the director? […] […] As a final note, the two most interesting characters on the show are Michael and Maria. Their budding relationship has energy and spark. Liz and Max have a relationship that is similar to watching a snail move across the edge of a razor. It’s interesting but if you turn away and come back later not much has changed. Remember: don’t let writers, directors or producers get away with quick fixes or lame-ass plot twists so they can get their next paycheck. If you want better sci-fi on television then you have to demand it. E-mail the show. Watch smarter. Yours for the revolution. […] GRADE: C+

HEAT WAVE
-by STEVEN FELTY

[…] It has been brought to my attention that there are some people who find ROSWELL a great show. My editor forwarded an e-mail from a viewer of the series who praises the way the show handles complex relationship problems. I would have to agree that the series does handle teenage relationship problems with care and some sense of depth. As a matter of fact, a great deal of each week’s episode is spent grappling with issues of loyalty, deception, love and lust all set against a sci-fi background. […] […] This week’s episode hits on all of these subjects and tries to deepen the interplay between the characters in the process. The show starts off with a scene between Maria and Michael that plays more like a music video than anything else. That is not surprising because one of the elements of the show itself is to promote and sell bands by using their music as soundtracks. At the end of each episode the CDs are displayed from which music selections were culled. This is okay because I understand that the bottom line in television is the same as any other business: make money. But it does make me wonder if the show itself is written around the music. In other words, do the writers and producers look at what bands they’re pushing for the week and then put in scenes that fit the sound? Let’s hope not, because that may mean that the sci-fi basis of the show is secondary. […]

This series has already put out several hours of plot and story line and what bothers me is that not a lot has happened. I thought the series was going to break out when they all went to Texas but that didn’t happen. I keep waiting for sci-fi but keep getting teenagers worrying about book reports and lost journals.

Oh, well, maybe next week. […] GRADE: C-

THE TOY HOUSE
– by M. STEVEN FELTY

This is the first episode after the holiday break, and it was a pretty good return. The series itself has, in my opinion, gotten lost at times as to what its original take was going to be: sci-fi, or DAWSON�S CREEK with aliens. There are enough soap operas for the twenty-somethings, but not enough good sci-fi programs. ROSWELL will have to bust open and expand deeper into the sci-fi genre because the world of ROSWELL is simply too small to hold what is happening; the setting feels restrictive. OK, I�ll try and be more exacting. Max, Isabel and Michael are aliens whose real identities are going to come out somewhere down the line. The plots with them playing hide and seek with the FBI and the sheriff are simply too stagnant to continue. They would not make a long running series. Think of it; the kids go to college and always in the background is some guy in a gray suit talking into his sleeve or the sheriff getting in trouble for being out of his jurisdiction. Or perhaps they all stay in Roswell after high school, flipping burgers and working at the gas station or local convenience store while having little jealous fits and fights. Neither scenario sounds appealing to me, so I do not believe that the series will stay where it is. The actors all appear to have too much talent to keep pushing the same plots around ROSWELL. […]

I can�t help but wonder about the rest of the season because too many people are curious, and somewhere the FBI is going to come back and stir things up. We haven�t seen the last of them. […] GRADE: B

Part 2 With The Other Reviews Coming Soon. Just so you know-I didn’t skip The Balance-they don’t have a review up for that episode..