Thanks to MyrnaLynne for this :)<\/p>\n
\n“Starlog” magazine, Sept 2002 #302
\nJason Katims talks about the end of Roswell<\/p>\npage 13 “Sci-Fi TV” section
\nRoswell
\nSciFi will begin running “Roswell” this fall or in 2003. Series guru Jason
\nKatims reviews the show’s last days on page 74.<\/p>\np. 74-77 “Roswell Farewell” by Joe Nazzaro (8 photos from various episodes –
\nARCC, the Bewitched episode, and Graduation – accompany the article)<\/p>\n“Series guru Jason Katims bids adieu to Earth’s favorite alienated teens.<\/p>\n
So that’s the end: our life in Roswell. What a long strange trip it has been.
\nWill we ever go back? I don’t know. Even I can’t see everything in the
\nfuture…”<\/p>\nAnd so ended “Roswell,” the story of Liz Parker, a high school student and
\npart-time waitress, who got caught up in mysterious adventures with a trio of
\nteenage aliens stranded on Earth. Based on the popular ‘Roswell High’ books by
\nMelinda Metz, the weekly TV series was developed by writer-executive producer
\nJason Katims, who saw his pet project go through a number of trials and
\ntribulations (as he discussed in STARLOG #292). Originally developed for Fox,
\n“Roswell” eventually landed at the WB, which cancelled it after two seasons. At
\nthe 11th hour, UPN stepped in to pick up the series, but that network’s
\nenthusiasm was short-lived: After pulling it from their mid-season schedule,
\nUPN first cut “Roswell’s season episode order, then cancelled it entirely.<\/p>\nFor Katims, watching “Roswell” go from the brink of extinction to unexpected
\nlife and back into oblivion again has been a difficult process, but not without
\nsome rewards. Gaining an extra 20 episodes allowed the show’s writers to tell
\nsome interesting stories, and spend some additional time with the characters
\nthey had grown to love. When the end finally came, it wasn’t entirely shocking.
\n“I would say when they reduced our order and pulled back two episodes,” notes
\nKatims, “that was the time when the writing was on the wall. For me, the
\nmessage was that the show was not going to be coming back.”<\/p>\nSUMMER DAZE
\nBut that end was still many months off. Meanwhile, Katims and his writing staff
\nneeded to continue their series for a new network, but in a way that would allow
\nunfamiliar viewers to jump on without feeling they had already missed out on too
\nmuch. The answer was to let some time pass between seasons and being new
\nstorylines that would eventually dovetail with previous events.<\/p>\n“It was the same precedent that we has set up between Seasons One and Two,” says
\nKatims. “For instance, when we went from Season One into Two, we said several
\nmonths had passed, so what happened over those three months? The same thing
\nhappened between Seasons Two and Three. The only big off-screen thing we did
\nwas have Jesse [Adam Rodriguez] and Isabel [Katherine Heigl] meet over the
\nsummer, but other than that, everything we set up happened [on-screen]. Max
\n[Jason Behr] was looking for his child and Liz [Shiri Appleby] had joined him on
\nthat search. And Michael [Brendan Fehr] had decided that he was going to stay
\nin Roswell and get a job. So we tried to imagine what would have happened over
\nthose months during the summer and tried to pick up from there, as opposed to
\ncoming in the next day. We could have done it the other way, but that’s just
\nthe way we chose to do it.”<\/p>\nThe writers also tried to avoid some of the mistakes that they had made in the
\nprevious season, including too much time spent on alien mythology and red
\nherrings such as the Skins and Dupes, and not enough character- and
\nrelationship-driven stories. “I think what happened in the second season was
\nthat we started going in so many different directions with the show’s mythology
\nthat the backstory got very complicated, and even people who new the show got
\nconfused,” Katims confesses. “It was too complicated, and by doing that, I felt
\nwe were losing the emotional value that the series had always had. We were
\nlosing the observation of character and relationship. I’ve always felt that
\n“Roswell” is very strong in an almost unusual way, because it’s a SF show with a
\nvery quirky idea: teenagers as aliens. There’s something that could be
\nconsidered almost silly about that, but it wasn’t, and that’s what I always
\nloved about “Roswell.”<\/p>\n“I remember when we were shooting the pilot, and I was on the set watching
\nJason’s interpretation of Max Evans, how real he chose to make this character,
\nand how serious all this was to him. I thought, ‘Wow, this is really great,’
\nbecause if you told the idea of this show to somebody, they would think it was a
\nsitcom, because it’s kind of flawed in its nature. And yet the way Jason chose
\nto portray that character, and what we – the director, David Nutter, everybody
\nand I – were trying to do was use that conceit as a jumping-off point
\ndramatically, but otherwise make it very real, to treat it as if it was actually
\nhappening.”<\/p>\nAs the clock began ticking toward the end of “Roswell’s” final season, there
\nwas still plenty of ground to cover and not much time to do it. With several
\ndifferent storylines to resolve, and UPN trimming two episodes from the season,
\nsome ideas simply never made it to the screen. “What we had to do in four
\nepisodes, we ended up doing in just two, so for the final two episodes, we threw
\nout one story and then made what was going to occur in three episodes happen in
\ntwo,” Katims explains. “Unfortunately, we had to throw out a story that we were
\nvery excited about, so that was frustrating. The idea was to do a ‘What if?’
\nepisode, a time-travel idea, where we would go back to different moments in the
\nshow’s history – including the pilot – and say, “What if Max hadn’t saved Liz?
\nWhat if Michael ended up saving her instead? What if Maria [Majandra Delfino]\ntold Liz to duck before she got hit with a bullet?’ I thought the notion of it
\nwas a very fun and novel way to look back at what we had done.<\/p>\n“What we wound up doing as the finale, we had originally hoped to do as a
\ntwo-hour wrap-up, but it ended up just one hour. So that was disappointing too,
\nbut at the end of the day, as I said, I’m very happy with how the final episode
\nturned out. We were able to make the best of it, and the truth is, it’s always
\nfrustrating, but that’s TV. Things happen and schedules change, so you have to
\nroll with the punches. You thought you were going to air an episode in
\nFebruary, and it ends up in May, or you get a couple more or a couple less
\nepisodes than you expected. You just have to go with it. Often, challenges like
\nthat make things better.”<\/p>\nSPRING HAZE
\nOne plot thread the writers had always intended to resolve was the return of
\nTess [Emilie de Ravin], the fourth alien hybrid, who had taken her son (fathered
\nby Max) back to their home planet last season. In the penultimate episode “Four
\nAliens and a Baby,” Tess manages to make amends for her past misdeeds, and
\nleaves the infant in Max’s care, albeit briefly. “I had always wanted to bring
\nTess back later in the season,” Katims insists. “Among the things I was really
\nadamant about doing this year, whether or not the show was coming back, was to
\nresolve the issue of Max’s son, and also to have Tess return. So we were able
\nto combine those two things into one story.”<\/p>\nWith just one episode left, there was still loads of material to pack into the
\nfinale. Katims teamed up with co-executive producer Ron Moore to write
\n“Graduation,” in which they attempted to tie up most of the show’s continuity,
\nas well as send the characters off in new and different directions. “I’m very
\nhappy with the final episode, and I was glad the network really got behind
\ngetting people to watch it. We were off the schedule for a while, so it was nice
\nto know that people were aware that “Roswell” had come back.”<\/p>\nIn many ways, ‘Graduation’ brought “Roswell’s” story full circle, notably with
\nthe use of Liz’s diary – which started off the series in episode one, and ends
\nit as her diary is finally turned over to her parents. “Liz was the
\npoint-of-view character at the beginning, and we actually returned to that in
\nthe final episode,” says Katims. “We framed the episode with voiceover by her,
\nand gave the show back to that idea – that we’re putting it in Liz’s
\npoint-of-view. We thought it would make a really nice bookend to the pilot. At
\nthe series’ beginning, it was all told through her writing in her journal. That
\nwas the frame for the whole show, and we returned to that, where she actually
\nfinished her journal. And I think because of that, the finale is very much
\nconnected to the first episode: it almost has a nostalgic feeling for people
\nwho know the roots of the show and how it got started.”<\/p>\nIf the series had lasted beyond a third seasons, Katims indicates that there was
\na definite direction in which they would have headed. “When you watch the
\nfinale, you can actually see some of those things being laid out,” he remarks.
\n“When we were writing the shows, I always found myself particularly drawn to
\nepisodes where they wound up helping people. For example, there was the
\nChristmas episode, where Max heals the children with cancer at the possible risk
\nof exposure. There was something about that idea that was very powerful to me,
\nso that was where [we wanted] to go. And when you watch the final episode,
\nthat’s what we were setting up.<\/p>\n“There’s one scene where Max says to Liz that that’s what he wants to do, and in
\nthe final episode, Liz begins to have premonitions and flashes. You see the
\nbeginning of her becoming clairvoyant, and you realize that’s ultimately the
\neffect that Max’s healing is having on her. So if the show had gone on, she
\nwould have become the catalyst to get the stories going. Liz would have some
\nkind of vision, they would follow it up, and it would take them to different
\nplaces.”<\/p>\nLooking back over “Roswell’s” three-year run, Katims has no difficulty putting
\ntogether a quick list of his own personal highlights. “I have a bunch of
\nepisodes that to me are what I like best about the show,” he reflects, “but it
\ndoesn’t mean that’s what is best about the show: they’re things that I like.
\nOf course, the pilot is a favorite of mine, and then the second season Christmas
\nepisode [“A Roswell Christmas Carol”]. ‘The End of the World’ where Max comes
\nback from the future, is another favorite. The first season’s final handful of
\nepisodes were very strong, including ‘The White Room’ – which was especially
\nstrong – and the first season finale, another good show. And honestly, I think
\nthe series’ final episode is one of my favorites.”<\/p>\nGRADUATION DAYS
\nFor the time being, that appears to be it for “Roswell.” Although there’s every
\nchance that the characters could continue to appear in the “Roswell High” books
\nby author (and former series writer) Metz, those adventures won’t carry on from
\nthe TV show. “The books have always lived in a parallel universe that’s
\ndifferent from the show,” Katims states. “What Melinda has done with the books
\nand what we’ve gone on to do with the show – we’ve both used the first book as
\nthe jumping-off point, but we’ve gone in different directions, so the
\ncharacters, their experiences and what happens to them is different. I honestly
\ndon’t know what the story is in terms of more books being written, but I think
\nthey’ll continue to follow the path that Melinda has already been exploring in
\nthem.”<\/p>\nIf there’s one aspect that the books and the TV series have always shared,
\nthough, it’s a devoted fan following which continues to be intrigued by the
\nadventures of Max, Michael, Isabel and Liz. “For me, that has really been the
\nmost surprising thing about the show: The continued support we’ve gotten from
\nthe fans and their passion for the show. First of all, I hold them responsible
\nfor keeping “Roswell” on the air as long as they have, and I think that’s rare,
\nthat the fans can actually have an effect like that. They’ve also raised a
\ntremendous amount of money for charities, for no reason other than that they
\nwanted to.<\/p>\n“Over the years,” Katims adds, “I’ve had a chance to meet and talk to some of
\nthe fans and get a sense of how much they care about the show and the
\ncharacters, and that has been an amazing experience for me. It’s something that
\nI don’t know will ever happen again, and I think that’s something I’ll always
\nremember about “Roswell.”<\/p>\nBy the time “Graduation” finally aired in mid-May, the production team had
\nmostly moved on to new frontiers. “We finished mixing the last episode and it
\nwas in the can,” Katims recalls, “and at that point we were pretty much done
\nwith the show other than a few people running around the office doing things.
\nOnce it was essentially, completed, I was in a position to take a breath and see
\nwhat happened next. Even before the show was officially cancelled, the writers
\nknew that there was a great probability that it wasn’t coming back, but what was
\nvery nice was that they all said if “Roswell” did return, they would be back.
\nIf that wasn’t a possibility, they were going to go out looking. So Ron Moore
\nis working on a new project [a Battlestar Galactica revival], and some of the
\nothers are on to other things.”<\/p>\nAs for Katims, “I’m having a little time off right now. For the last few years,
\nI’ve only had a week off between seasons, so it has been a pretty grueling
\nschedule. I’m taking some time off, but I’m also starting to think about what’s
\nnext.”<\/p>\nIt may be far too early to look back at “Roswell” with any degree of
\nobjectivity, but there are lessons that Katims has taken from the experience.
\n“As a writer, I’ve learned to be more imaginative, and to be bolder with story
\nthan I had been before. This show lent itself to doing a lot of story, and I
\nhad always done stuff with little story. It has always been about nuance, but
\n“Roswell” combined the two: We were able to do a lot of story, but also keep
\nthe characters’ nuances, and that was one of the show’s trademarks.<\/p>\n“As to what I’ve learned as a producer,” Katims offers, “it has been a very
\nuseful experience, because as a creator and writer-producer, you’re constantly
\nstruggling in terms of knowing when to listen to people who are telling you
\nthings, and when to stick to your own guns. It’s a very difficult line to walk,
\nbecause you have blind spots as a writer. Sometimes you really need help, and
\nsometimes people lead you down paths that aren’t the best ways to go. So what
\nI’ve gotten better at is distinguishing between the two and being able to stay
\nthe course and stick to the vision of the show – but I’m also able to get help
\nfrom the many talented people around me. So that’s what I came out of “Roswell”
\nwith.<\/p>\n“It’s interesting” Jason Katims notes, “because “Roswell” was a show where we
\nwere always on the verge of being cancelled, literally from the time we turned
\nin the pilot. So it’s a little bit easier for me to be philosophical about it
\nbecause I feel like we’ve had several lives, and in a weird way, we’ve all been
\nprepared for this to happen.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thanks to MyrnaLynne for this :) “Starlog” magazine, Sept 2002 #302 Jason Katims talks about the end of Roswell page<\/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":[2210,2387,5],"tags":[29,407],"coauthors":[2273],"class_list":["post-2649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors-directors","category-jason-katims","category-roswell","tag-jason-katims","tag-starlog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649","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=2649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29155,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions\/29155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2649"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}