#101 The Pilot – Primer

LIZ PARKER and her best friend MARIA DELUCA are waitresses at The Crashdown – the restaurant Liz’s father owns in Roswell, New Mexico. When two customers break into a fight, gunshots ring out and Maria screams realizing Liz has been shot.

The brooding yet handsome, MAX EVANS, quickly rushes over and places his hand on Liz’s gunshot wound. Liz and Max share a soulful connection as Max mysteriously heals Liz. Max pleads for Liz not to say anything, as he exits. Liz later discovers a silver handprint has been imprinted on her stomach where Max had healed her.

Needing a rational explanation, Liz confronts Max. Max confides to Liz he’s from “up north.” Liz realizes Max is an alien. Max swears Liz to secrecy saying his life in now in her hands.

Liz decides to guard Max’s secret, and is forced to lie to the people she treasures most in her life including not only Maria, but also her boyfriend KYLE VALENTI, her own father and her other good friend ALEX WHITMAN.

Later when Kyle’s father, and Roswell’s sheriff, JIM VALENTI, becomes suspicious of what happened at The Crashdown, he questions Liz about Max. When Liz denies knowing anything, Valenti shows her a photo of a dead man from 1959. Valenti explains to Liz the man in the photo also had the same hand-print that Kyle said he saw earlier on Liz’s stomach. Liz shows Valenti her stomach, and we see the handprint is gone. Valenti has no other choice than to let Liz go.

Now frightened of what she found out, Liz has gone to Max saying she wants to know everything. Max explains he doesn’t know where he’s from. He then explains and demonstrates his power to change molecular structure, which is why he was able to heal her wound. Max explains they came out of incubation pods looking like six-year old humans around ten years ago. Liz then questions Max’s saying “they,” and Max reveals his sister Isabel and best friend Michael are also aliens – the only ones of their kind on Earth. Liz then shares with Max the information about the photo Valenti showed to her, proving there may be others out there like them. Max runs off.

Not about to give up, Valenti decides to share what he knows with FBI AGENT STEPHENS. The Agent refutes the findings reminding Valenti that it was his own father’s obsession with aliens that eventually cost him his career. Valenti protests saying maybe his father was right all along. At home, Maria confronts Liz telling her she knows when her best friend is lying to her. Maria demands to know what’s going on and Liz decides to confide in Maria, telling her Max’s secret.

Meanwhile, Max has gathered Isabel and Michael and has told them about Valenti’s suspicions and the photograph. Max tells them it’s time to leave Roswell. As the three aliens drive out of town, they run into Liz and Maria. Liz explains if they run, they’ll only be proving Valenti’s suspicions. Liz tells them she has a plan to get Valenti off their trail. Michael is skeptical, but Isabel, not wanting to leave the only home she’s ever known, agrees to listen.

Later at the UFO Crashdown Festival, the kids are able to throw Valenti off their track. Valenti tells Max it’s not over, and he intends on finding out the truth.

Liz and Max share a moment alone, and she thanks him for saving her life. Liz then questions whether the two of them can ever be together, and wishing they could, Max says he doesn’t think it would be safe. The two agree to never be together, but inside, each feel an emotional connection no one will ever be able to deny.

Jason Katims Commentary

“Watching Jason Behr…I believed this whole thing was going to work.”

Transcribed by Lena

The pilot of Roswell was a challenge for me, because it was science fiction and I have not done anything in this genre [before]. I remember after I had read the original novel by Melinda Metz and was starting to thinking about adapting it for a series, I talked to people about the idea and there’s always this kind of chuckle people have, when you say well it’s about teenagers in high school and they would assume this tone and this slightly silly thing, which was not how I saw the show at all, but I realized that this was gonna be sort of a challenge of doing the pilot. It’s our own world that we are creating and I remember being on set and watching Jason Behr do Max. It was the moment that I believed this whole thing is going to work because Jason was Max Evans. And this scenes, because he played it that well and because you really believed him … all these scenes came to life. You know the scenes of Liz finding out and he is an alien her confronting with it he not to tell anybody. Everything was believable Which is a thing I am most proud of. Because like I said it it’s so hard to buy.