Thanks to Nikki for sending this in :). Oh, btw, in case you may miss an article, head to the archive where you can read articles from when the site began last year all the way to the present :)<\/p>\n
The article is three pages long and includes short
\nreviews of the first 5 books (not included here) and a full-page photo of
\nMajandra and her sister, incorrectly identified as Katherine Heigl.<\/p>\n
Website to order backcopies is www.visimag.com<\/p>\n
Starburst Special #43 (UK) (pp 94-96)<\/p>\n
Men Are From Mars\u2026
\nMy boyfriend is an alien! Teenagers have it hard nowadays, especially at
\nRoswell High\u2026<\/p>\nRoswell was an ideal target for producers eager to develop a hit TV series.
\nSomething happened in the notorious New Mexico town in the summer of 1947,
\nand ever since exactly what it was has been the source of intense debate.
\nFrom serious conspiracy theory documentaries to big budget dramatizations
\nand even, believe it or not, a musical \u2013 The X-Files\u2019 worldwide popularity
\ndrew attention to the so called Roswell Incident, using the event as part of
\nits ongoing mythology arc, and soon everyone was hopping on the bandwagon.
\nEven Star Trek had its own take on the UFO crash. Wasn\u2019t it about time we
\ngot \u2018Roswell the Tv series\u2019?<\/p>\nWell yes, and no. The flipside of all this media attention is that everyone
\nknew what happened from every conceivable angle. And even if they didn\u2019t,
\nstories of the Roswell incident are an easily exhaustible commodity,
\nespecially when you have to fill 22 hours a year. Ultimately, what made the
\ntopic so alluring was that Melinda Metz had taken the abandoned wreckage and
\ncrafted her own conclusions into a series of popular children\u2019s books called
\nRoswell High. Set in the more accessible era of the current day, Metz
\ncreated her Roswell alien \u2013 or, rather, aliens \u2013 in the guise of attractive
\nteenagers. Given the popularity of WB shows such as Buffy the Vampire
\nSlayer and Dawson\u2019s Creek, it wasn\u2019t a surprise that the TV series producers
\nDavid Nutter and Jason Katims developed from these books was quickly snapped
\nup by the station.<\/p>\nFor the TV series both the romantic and Science Fiction elements were played
\ndown. The books were very much in the style of an action adventure series
\nwhere the teen aliens and their human friends, slowly pairing off as the
\nrange progressed, had to evade the machinations of the local Sheriff. While
\nthat basic concept remains, the TV series makes a stronger issue of the
\naliens\u2019 reluctance to date their human friends, and keeps us very much in
\nthe dark about their alien origins.<\/p>\nThe first of these two changes is very much in the series\u2019 favour. After
\nthe runaway success of Dawson\u2019s Creek, it can\u2019t be a bad idea to give the
\naudience more of what they like; Max, Michael and Isabel\u2019s non-terrestrial
\norigins giving plenty of cause for deliberation when romance is on the
\ncards. So: they cast Dawson\u2019s Creek star Jason Behr (who played heartthrob
\nChris Wolfe) in the lead role and in the female lead role Shiri Appleby,
\nsomeone who, in a bad light, could pass for Katie Holmes (who plays Dawson\u2019s
\nbest friend), and took it from there.<\/p>\nBeing obtusely mysterious about what we\u2019re dealing with, on the other hand
\nis a little more questionable. It\u2019s symptomatic of the X-Files generation
\nto sell a series on insubstantial promises of major revelations.
\nNevertheless, to be fair, it is this very fact that drives the plot.
\nSheriff Valenti, whose Dad got a very bad name for himself by chasing aliens
\nwants to expose the aliens at Roswell High. Now, in such circumstances,
\nyou\u2019d probably sit tight and not give him anything to go on. The aliens,
\nhowever, want information as badly as Valenti, and by searching for the key
\nto their origins, they inadvertantly let things slip.<\/p>\nIn a nutshell then, the series deals with \u2018relationship stuff\u2019 and \u2018alien
\nstuff\u2019. By the middle of the first series Max has paired off with Liz.
\nMichael (male alien #2, played by Brendan Fehr) has made his move on Liz\u2019s
\nfriend Maria (Majandra Delfino), and Isabel (female alien, Katherine Heigl)
\nhas started making eyes at Alex (played by Colin Hanks, son of the more
\nfamous Tom). Unfortunately, the more people they let in on their secret,
\nthe greater the chance of discovery. Which, in a round about way, is why
\nthey can\u2019t get too attached, the alien issue being in many ways a metaphor
\nfor all sorts of teenage hang-ups. \u201cI used to say teenagers were the aliens
\namong us,\u201d comments David Nutter. \u201cAnd I think all teenagers kind of feel
\nthat way in many respects sometimes. Our challenge is to kind of embrace
\nthat\u2026and have a lot of fun with it.\u201d And indeed they do: while Max and
\nLiz\u2019s relationship is a model in sexual tension, Michael and Maria share a
\nmutual mistrust. In 285 South, one of the best episodes thus far, it
\nreaches comic proportions when they find themselves trapped in a motel room
\ntogether and end up in a pile on the floor just as their friends barrel
\nthrough the door. Despite vowing \u201cNot if he was the last alien on Earth,\u201d
\nMaria soon finds herself locked in a cupboard with her pants down his
\ntrousers.<\/p>\nEven so, sometimes it is all \u2018work, work, work\u2019 and a lot of the kids spare
\ntime between lessons is taken up researching their past. Max got a job
\nworking at the town\u2019s UFO museum, so that he can rifle through their files.
\nThis and a key stolen from the Sheriff\u2019s file on EBEs, precipitates a trip
\ninto the desert, eventually leading the group to a Native American
\nreservation where they meet a wise elder called River Dog, who has met the
\nalien Valenti\u2019s father was tracking. The discovery of this fourth alien is
\ncentral to the alien\u2019s quest to discover who they are and where they\u2019re
\nfrom. The second half of the season will present us with the possibility
\nthat their elusive search is not just one of their kind, but also family.
\nThe burning question is, however, is he just another alien trying to fit in,
\nlike our fantastically attractive friends, or does he have some hidden
\nagenda? Jason Katims promises: \u201ca hint of the possibility that the fourth
\nalien might just not be all good\u201d. A grey area worth exploring.<\/p>\nAll in all, the series shows extraordinary promise. It may seem a little
\nslow: we are 11 episodes in and we have no clue as to what caused 3
\npint-sized aliens to become stranded in the desert 10 years before, while
\nMax and Liz\u2019s on-off relationship is a little frustrating at times. But
\nJason Behr believes, \u201cEverything is building to something. We can do things
\nslowly, play to the smaller quieter moments.\u201d And certainly, as Roswell
\ngained momentum, it garnered much critical acclaim. It was lauded by many
\nas the best show of the 1999 season. The New York Post described it as
\n\u2018wise, witty and watchable beyond its years\u2019, while elsewhere it was a
\n\u2018soulful drama mixing X-Files paranoia with WB young adult concerns.\u2019 At
\nthis time, however, it is unclear whether there is a future for Roswell.
\nDespite performing quite credibly in the ratings, it didn\u2019t do as well as
\nmany other WB shows \u2013 perhaps owing to its unfortunate clash with Star Trek:
\nVoyager when it was shown on Wednesday nights. Additionally, it was hoped
\nthat the show would attract a large teenage audience, and the demographics
\nhave shown the average age of viewers to be significantly older. It has
\nbeen rumoured that the WB only wish to renew two out of the four dramas that
\ndebuted last autumn, and since Science Fiction requires a larger budget,
\nRoswell may sadly soon be back in the past.<\/p>\nRichard Atkinson<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thanks to Nikki for sending this in :). Oh, btw, in case you may miss an article, head to the<\/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-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roswell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981","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=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}