Thanks to Lark for sending this in, and to squanto for forwarding it from his sick bed! You better get well soon squanto!<\/p>\n
The caring teens on WB\ufffds \ufffdRoswell\ufffd really are from a different planet<\/p>\n
January 29, 2000
\nby Manuel Mendoza
\nThe Dallas Morning News<\/p>\nHOLLYWOOD \ufffd There\ufffds a new girl for Max!
\n\ufffdRoswell\ufffd creator Jason Katims drops this little nugget of things to come while standing inside the show\ufffds gaudy Crashdown Cafe, and you can almost hear the chat rooms starting to whir.<\/p>\nThe Crashdown is where Max Evans, sensitive alien boy, saved the life of Liz Parker, skeptical Earth girl, launching one of the TV season\ufffds most intense romances on one of the season\ufffds best new shows.<\/p>\n
As played by Jason Behr, 26, and Shiricq Appleby, 21, you\ufffdd never know that Liz and Max are different life forms. Rarely have two young actors created this kind of chemistry on a screen of any size. That chemistry reaches a new level of intensity on Wednesday night\ufffds groundbreaking \ufffdSexual Healing\ufffd episode, complete with metaphorical
\norgasms.<\/p>\nAfter that, it\ufffds difficult to imagine anyone else catching Max\ufffds eye, but it will happen this month \ufffd and into the May sweeps \ufffd when Katims introduces an outgoing new student as a potential love interest.<\/p>\n
\ufffdLiz is ready for some action, too,\ufffd jokes a dolled-up Appleby shortly after driving onto the Paramount lot to film her \ufffdBlind Date\ufffd episode.<\/p>\n
\ufffdShe\ufffds so over the alien.\ufffd<\/p>\n
Based on a series of children\ufffds books called \ufffdRoswell High,\ufffd \ufffdRoswell\ufffd is among the latest wave of teen shows unleashed by the WB network, home to \ufffdFelicity,\ufffd \ufffdDawson\ufffds Creek\ufffd and \ufffdBuffy the Vampire Slayer.\ufffd
\nClosest in tone to the latter, it uses teen aliens as a metaphor for teen alienation just as Buffy uses vampires as a metaphor for the horrors of adolescence.<\/p>\nKatims is new to sci-fi, though he\ufffds getting help from David Nutter, an early \ufffdX-Files\ufffd director and Roswell executive producer.<\/p>\n
\ufffdMost of the time, I\ufffdve been putting three people in a room and waiting for them to cry,\ufffd says Katims, who cut his teeth on the seminal but short-lived teen series \ufffdMy So-Called Life.\ufffd<\/p>\n
\ufffdRoswell\ufffd combines the genres almost seamlessly. The aliens\ufffd fear of getting found out by the authorities, along with an almost primal search for their roots, drives the plots. But it\ufffds the relationships
\nfostered by those hopes and fears that give the show its oomph.<\/p>\nIn the pilot episode, Liz is shot at the Crashdown in front of Max. (Her father owns it, and she works there as a waitress.) No longer able to hide his long-standing crush on her, Max risks exposure by using his
\nalien powers to heal the wound.<\/p>\nConverging story lines have followed: Liz gets the truth out of Max \ufffdhe and his sister Isabel (Katherine Heigl) and best friend Michael (Brendan Fehr) were in pods aboard the alien spaceship that crashed in
\nRoswell \ufffd then immediately tells her best friend and fellow waitress Maria (Majandra Delfino) and later her childhood buddy Alex (Colin Hanks).<\/p>\nThis makes Isabel and the brooding Michael paranoid, especially since the town\ufffds Sheriff Valenti (William Sadler) has become suspicious about the healing incident. Valenti also has an ax to grind: His father, the former sheriff, was a laughingstock for his belief in the alien crash. On another teen show, this situation might be used to propel the six kids apart, mimicking the cliques and hallway politics that dominate
\nmost high-school shows. Instead, Katims uses it to bring the characters closer together, exploring what it means to grow up \ufffd without
\npatronizing the young audience.<\/p>\n\ufffdCompared to other relationship shows, you have high stakes,\ufffd Katims says. \ufffdIn adolescence, everything seems like an emergency. Well, in this show, we use the fact that they are in danger, that there is a
\nneed to lie. It\ufffds putting them in a more adult situation than they would otherwise be in.\ufffd<\/p>\nBetween scenes. Majandra Delfino and Katherine Heigl are sitting in a booth at the Crashdown, finishing each other\ufffds sentences. The diner, which mocks the town\ufffds alien-crash mythology, is painted a
\nsickly orange and green, the walls covered with pastel art of aliens among the cactus. One makes a peace sign.<\/p>\nThe \ufffdspecials\ufffd board lists a misspelled \ufffdExtra Terestral Taco Salad\ufffd and a \ufffdChocolate Milkyway Shake.\ufffd \ufffdToday only,\ufffd it says, \ufffdadd Unidentified Fried Objects to any sandwich for 25.\ufffd<\/p>\n
Both Delfino and Heigl say they\ufffdve been recognized in public since the show started, mostly by little girls at malls. Delfino has also been noticed in her Miami hometown.<\/p>\n
\ufffdIn South Beach, I\ufffdm big with the gay men,\ufffd she says. \ufffdI walk down Lincoln Road, and they\ufffdre like, \ufffdOh my God, we love Maria!\ufffd But Miami\ufffds weird.\ufffd<\/p>\n
Only 19, Delfino has been busy. She was a regular on \ufffdThe Tony Danza Show\ufffd and appeared in the film \ufffdZeus & Roxanne.\ufffd She also has three other movies in the can, including a parody of the rampaging
\nteen-horror genre.<\/p>\nHeigl, 21, is even more of a veteran. A model by age 9, she\ufffds been acting since she was 12. She played Gerard Depardieu\ufffds daughter in \ufffdMy Father the Hero,\ufffd Peter Fonda\ufffds daughter in the TV movie \ufffdThe Tempest,\ufffd as well as having roles in \ufffdThe Bride of Chucky,\ufffd \ufffdUnder Siege 2\ufffd and
\nSteven Soderbergh\ufffds \ufffdKing of the Hill.\ufffd And she has a cameo in the upcoming Cinderella story \ufffd100 Girls.\ufffd<\/p>\n\ufffdThere\ufffds nothing worse than not doing anything,\ufffd Delfino says.
\nHeigl: \ufffdAnd sitting around.\ufffd
\nDelfino: \ufffdLike vacation.\ufffd<\/p>\nLike Liz and Max, both their characters are up for a little romance. In fact, when her intense makeout sessions with Max cause Liz to have visions, some of which may be clues to the aliens\ufffd origins, Maria gets jealous and seeks out Michael. But their mashing produces only the usual results.<\/p>\n
Heigl, whose character also seeks out a little experimentation before the episode is over, doesn\ufffdt seem to know much about the story line.<\/p>\n
\ufffdWe\ufffdll talk about that later,\ufffd Delfino tells her.<\/p>\n
Shiri Appleby\ufffds cat is biting her on the head. Then the phone interview is interrupted twice more when call-waiting beckons.<\/p>\n
\ufffdThis is the rudest thing,\ufffd she says upon returning. \ufffdI\ufffdm sorry. If it rings again, I\ufffdm not going to answer it.\ufffd Then it does. But she said …\ufffdI know, but I have to (take the call). I\ufffdm a girl!\ufffd<\/p>\n
Appleby confesses that she was nervous about these latest love scenes, \ufffdnot only because Jason and I are just friends but also because of having to put this on tape and having people see it, like my parents.\ufffd She and Behr discussed her fears, and once the cameras rolled, \ufffdit was a really amazing experience,\ufffd she says. \ufffdIt was OK to feel insecure and feel nervous because this person was going to hold your hand and do it
\nwith you. I wasn\ufffdt going to feel ashamed or embarrassed afterward if something didn\ufffdt feel right.\ufffd<\/p>\nShe also credits Katims for not pandering to the teen audience. \ufffdHe doesn\ufffdt write trying to sound like a teen-ager or what he thinks
\nteen-agers say. He just writes from a real honest place of what it\ufffds like to grow up. He\ufffds not talking down to teen-agers. He\ufffds allowing us to really be ourselves.\ufffd<\/p>\nWilliam Sadler, the veteran stage and movie actor who plays Sheriff Valenti, also has a love interest on \ufffdRoswell\ufffd: Maria\ufffds mother. More importantly, Valenti is not the standard bad guy.<\/p>\n
\ufffdThat was my big question,\ufffd Sadler says. \ufffdWhere\ufffds this guy going? At the end of every episode, is he going to be standing in the dust, going, \ufffdCurses!\ufffd That would\ufffdve gotten old real fast.\ufffd<\/p>\n
Despite being the only non-teen-age regular, Valenti is not without his young admirers. Sadler recently received a pair of red boxer shorts from the online Valenti Admiration Society, a reference to the outfit he was wearing when his character died in the film \ufffdThe Hot Spot.\ufffd<\/p>\n
\ufffdWhat I\ufffdm finding fascinating,\ufffd he says of \ufffdRoswell,\ufffd \ufffdis how they\ufffdre sewing together the two genres, the \ufffdX-Files\ufffd-ish suspense and the relationships, the alienated kids finding each other. I have not seen it done anywhere else.\ufffd<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thanks to Lark for sending this in, and to squanto for forwarding it from his sick bed! You better get<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"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-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roswell","tag-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}