Thanks to okulaja fan for sending this in. It’s an older review, but I hadn’t seen it before!<\/p>\n
\nE.T. High: Roswell<\/strong><\/p>\n
Written by James Koonce, October 7th, 1999<\/p>\n
High school is hard. Just ask Max Evans (Jason Behr) – like every other kid,
\nhe’s got midterms to worry about, popularity issues, and a new girl he’s in
\npretty deep like with. Of course, unlike most high school students, Max is
\nalso from outer space.<\/p>\nOn Roswell, the new drama series from the WB, high school and science
\nfiction collide. Humans rub shoulders with little green men, aliens become
\npartners with alienation, and the whole thing is set against the dusty
\nbackdrop of the first purported extraterrestrial crash landing fifty-two
\nyears ago in the middle of the New Mexico desert.<\/p>\nSince the crash when they were mere children (their kind age more slowly
\nthan human folk, accounting for their high school appearances), Max and his
\ntwo fellow UFO-riding compadres have clung together, their only remaining
\nallies following the alien diaspora. And they’ve actually managed to
\nassimilate pretty well; they’ve slipped under the radar of the locals in
\nRoswell, living a low-key existence, desperate to find out what happened
\nhalf a century ago while keeping their presence as mum as possible. But now
\nit’s Crash Anniversary time, and freaks are coming out of the woodwork.
\nArmchair conspiracy buffs and full-on weirdos the world over are making the
\npilgrimage to the interplanetary point of contact, and needless to say, it’s
\na little tougher for the non-natives to hide.<\/p>\nEven tougher when Max blows their cover. While at a diner, teenaged waitress
\nand fellow West Roswell High student Liz Parker (Shiri Appleby) takes a
\nstray bullet fired during an argument between two visiting patrons. Death is
\ncertain for lovely Liz, but breaking every code he and his brethren have
\nsworn to live by, Max uses his alien powers to save her, drawing the bullet
\nfrom her abdomen and out of harm’s way. But he leaves behind a telltale mark
\n– a silver handprint. And now everyone in Roswell knows what they’ve
\nsuspected all along . We are not alone.<\/p>\nOf course that’s just what Max’s friends never wanted to have happen. But it
\ndoesn’t stop there – Max further attracts the attention of the local sheriff
\n(William Sadler), whose son coincidentally happens to be Liz’s ersatz
\nboyfriend, who’s seen the silver handprint, and seen Max with Liz. Not
\nknowing all the facts, but still thirsty for an alien auto-da-fe, the
\nsheriff puts the squeeze on Max – how much does he know about what’s going
\non? For the others, it’s time to fly. But Max recognizes the value of
\nstanding their ground – if they leave, they prove everyone right, and their
\nlives will never be the same. But if they stay and weather the storm, they
\nhave a chance of survival.<\/p>\nLiz, naturally, wants some answers. She knows she was shot, yet somehow she
\ndidn’t die. And she knows Max was responsible. Backed into a corner, he
\nlevels with her: let’s just say he’s not from around these parts.
\nFortunately, Liz isn’t an ordinary high school girl, she’s\ufffd different. (As
\nLou Grant would say, she’s got spunk.) Max finds he can trust her. Together
\nthey organize a plan to divert the attentions of the increasingly paranoid
\nSheriff, culminating in a climax at the trippy Crash Festival. But they know
\nit’s only a matter of time before he’ll be back.<\/p>\nBased on a series of young adult novels, Roswell was created by Jason Katims
\n(who also created the short-lived Gen-X series Relativity) and David Nutter
\n(late of FOX’s The X-Files). Both know their respective territories pretty
\nwell, and it turns out that teen angst and creepy not-of-this-world science
\nfiction aren’t the strange bedfellows one might think. The pilot crackles
\nwith intelligence; the teen characters are realistic in a way the kids on
\nDawson’s Creek will never be, yet at the same time they can rise to the
\nchallenges before them with adult-like seriousness. Appleby in particular
\nstands out among the cast. It’s clear that Liz is intrigued by this new
\nwrinkle in her relationship with Max, but she’s not buying everything
\nwholesale. She’s curious and wants to know the truth, but she’s still a
\nyoung girl. And Max, at once grateful to have someone to open up to and
\nfearful that he’s endangering his precarious way of life, finds in her a
\nkind of delicate soulmate. Their time onscreen is what makes the show come
\nalive. Being chased by sheriffs and suspected of alien origins is certainly
\nwhat makes the show go forward, but the core remains the bond growing
\nbetween these two.<\/p>\nHow long the stories can remain interesting will be the real question; even
\nThe X-Files takes a break from Mulder’s sober quest for close encounters
\nonce in awhile. But fortunately for this show, it has a deep reservoir of
\nhigh school life to draw from in order to keep it going: proms, finals,
\nSAT’s. Can’t you just see it? MTV’s Spring Break Roswell: Alien Getaway.<\/p>\nNow that’s creepy. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thanks to okulaja fan for sending this in. It’s an older review, but I hadn’t seen it before! E.T. High:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[40],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roswell","tag-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}