Thanks to johnnysunshine for this :)<\/p>\n
The new issue of British magazine Cult Times contains this very positive
\nlook at the Hybrid Chronicles which just aired over there. I thought
\npeople would like to see it since the magazine is not always easily
\navailable in the U.S.<\/p>\n
\nAudience research in America, apparently, has it that there are very
\nfew genuinely regular viewers of anything: the vast majority of viewers
\ntune in to a maximum of half a dozen episodes of a given series in any
\ngiven year, preferring to dip in and out in a casual manner. Personally
\nI\u2019m loathe to believe such generalized nonsense, partly because it implies
\nthat people like me who watch several shows obsessively are in some way
\nfreakish and unhealthy, and partly because it discourages the practice of
\ncontinuing stories over several episodes, of which I am particularly fond.
\n(I can\u2019t remember why we started referring to this sort of thing as \u2018story
\narcs\u2019, but as I suspect it may have something to do with J. Michael
\nStraczynaski, I\u2019m trying to give it up.) Roswell has always been
\nreasonably canny about continuing both its developing Sci-Fi background
\nand its character-based plots over time, while still concentrating on
\nstandalone episodes for the casual viewer to enjoy. The four episodes
\nshown on Sky 1 this month, though (sub-titled The Hybrid Chronicles in the
\nUS), showed the value of occasionally throwing caution to the wind and
\ndoing an honest-to-God serial.<\/p>\nA Law Unto Himself
\nTo Serve and Protect started the ball rolling well by focusing on
\nSheriff Jim Valenti, the only grown-up to have been let in on the aliens\u2019
\nsecret, who consequently occupied a very interesting and difficult
\nposition. Part of the point of The Hybrid Chronicles was to deal with the
\nconflict between Valenti\u2019s official position and the fact that he
\napparently received his cues and clues from a bunch of weird teenagers. In
\nthis case, his only leads on a kidnapping case came from a winsome alien
\npsychic (Isabel), who frustratingly didn\u2019t even take the time to note down
\nthe registration number of the kidnapper\u2019s car before screaming herself
\nawake. Together with an effective scene in which Valenti\u2019s son Kyle had a
\ngo at the aliens for dragging his family into their alien mess, the story
\nmade the most of Roswell\u2019s most effective on going theme – the struggle to
\ncontain a dangerous
\nshared secret within a steadily expanding group of people.<\/p>\nFrustrated Lovers
\nWe Are Family saw the effects of poor Valenti\u2019s co-operation, which led to
\nthe
\nkidnapping being prevented only at the cost of an investigation into him
\nand his methods, and specifically why he kept hassling a certain Mr.
\nSorenson. (Isabel was more help in identifying him as the kidnapper,
\nmostly because she had dated him in the past.) More importantly it
\nexploited Roswell\u2019s other major strength, which is schmaltz. Alex (Colin
\nHanks, son of Oscar-hogging superstar Tom) returned from a trip to Sweden a
\nsexier and more interesting person, and decidedly over his crush on Isabel
\n– apparently to Isabel\u2019s chagrin. Meanwhile, Liz had a wistful turn over
\nthe fact that she and Max couldn\u2019t even snog (I\u2019m not clear on why,
\nreally), let alone go to Sweden, in an obvious but affecting tribute to
\nfrustrated lovers everywhere – with Maria\u2019s charming rogue of a cousin,
\nSean,
\nwaiting in the background.
\nRefreshingly, it\u2019s difficult at this stage to tell whether Sean is an
\ninfluence for good or bad, partly because Liz so obviously needs a regular
\nhuman boyfriend, and the warnings about him all come from the increasingly
\nannoying Maria. I could have happily lived without many of the supposedly
\ncomedic scenes in the next episode, Disturbing Behavior, of her and Michael
\ninvestigating the background of Laurie (the kidnap victim of To Serve and
\nProtect, and somehow related to Michael). I can only assume that she was
\nfelt necessary to liven up the scenes of the other characters being quiet
\nand serious, gazing ponderously into the distance, which come to think of
\nit is probably her role in the whole series. Perhaps what Roswell needs
\nmost is a character who can be genuinely likeable, outgoing and funny
\nrather than loud-mouthed, pushy, objectionable and moronic.<\/p>\nEvil Goo
\nThe other thing that was going on in all these episodes, of course,
\nalthough not to such an extent that it was too obtrusive, was some Science
\nFiction. The reason why Laurie was kidnapped was so she could be buried in
\nthe ground with some semi-solid blue goo, which turned out to be a fatally
\nvirulent sentient virus that had possessed poor Sorenson and made him carry
\nout its bidding. The clever thing is that this fairly average Sci-Fi plot
\nhad enough of a presence, and was carried out well enough – special effects
\nand all – to make The Hybrid Chronicles appealing to those for whom only
\nsuch content holds any interest. For those of us who are after something
\ndifferent, even the serial\u2019s final episode (How The Other Half Lives) mixed
\nin some nice character-driven scenes with all the stuff about the goo.
\nTrapping Alex and Kyle in a cave provided one such diversion, as did the
\nvery downbeat image of Isabel sitting alone with Sorenson\u2019s corpse.
\nThere\u2019s a particular satisfaction, I think, about coming to the end of
\na story and
\nfeeling not only a sense of coherence and cohesion about the journey you\u2019ve
\ntaken, but also that you\u2019ve had time to see some scenery along the way.
\nThe Hybrid Chronicles achieves that sense of pace and balance to an extent
\nthat would be impossible with a single episode, and is inevitably lost with
\nthe increasingly common story arcs (sorry) that stretch across a whole
\nseason. In reviving what might be called the forgotten art of the serial,
\nRoswell has provided a surprisingly authoritative template, which other
\nseries would do well to follow.<\/p>\nJohn Binns<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thanks to johnnysunshine for this :) The new issue of British magazine Cult Times contains this very positive look at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"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":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roswell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1961"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}