RoswellPilot
DVD Season 1
Victoria - TwoCents Reviewer
victoria@thetwocentscorp.com
“September 23. Journal entry 1. I’m Liz Parker and five days ago I died.”
Whoa! Best first lines of a TV show ever! How can that not draw you in?!
The scene after that is Liz Parker waitressing at The Crashdown Diner in Roswell, New Mexico. The diner’s taking full advantage of the alien rumors that surround the city and is decked out in full alien memorabilia and kitsch. Liz Parker and her best friend Maria DeLuca are even wearing Alien antenna headbands as they go about their duties serving food and hyping alien lore to unsuspecting tourists.
Continue reading...
Posts
Roswell
ReplyDeletePilot
DVD Season 1
Victoria - TwoCents Reviewer
victoria@thetwocentscorp.com
“September 23. Journal entry 1. I’m Liz Parker and five days ago I died.”
Whoa! Best first lines of a TV show ever! How can that not draw you in?!
The scene after that is Liz Parker waitressing at The Crashdown Diner in Roswell, New Mexico. The diner’s taking full advantage of the alien rumors that surround the city and is decked out in full alien memorabilia and kitsch. Liz Parker and her best friend Maria DeLuca are even wearing Alien antenna headbands as they go about their duties serving food and hyping alien lore to unsuspecting tourists.
Liz and Maria are the best version of best friends ever – they joke, they goof off and the chemistry is instant and awesome. As they banter about some guy named Max who keeps staring at Liz, the scene suddenly gets tense as two random patrons break out into a fight and one pulls a gun. Before anybody knows what’s happening, the gun goes off.
The next thing you know the dude, Max Evans, who was staring at Liz like a Class A stalker is hovering over her. He holds his hands over her gunshot wound and we see flashes of children and other memories. Liz is healed and Max’s spilling ketchup on her and begging her not to say anything before he runs off with his buddy.
And just like that – bam! The show throws you into the action and emotion. If ever there was a twisted, heart-wrenching love story it’s Max and Liz’s – or at least it’s going to be. The opening scene makes sure you realize that.
Of course Roswell establishes right off that it’s not going to be without its humor either. Maria’s description of the gunman and his buddy is a “muscular Beavis and a beefy Butthead.” To which the police officer responds “I’m assuming they weren’t cartoons?”
When Max and Liz talk the next day after the gun incident he tells her he’s an alien. She probably already figures out he’s a little off since she’s sporting a shiny silver hand print on her abdomen where he healed her. Max begs her not to tell anyone. “My life is in your hands now.”
That buddy that ran from the Crashdown with Max turns out to be Michael Guerin, also an alien, and he’s totally pissed that Max exposed them to a stranger. Max’s sister Isabel Evans is also pretty irate about it. She too is an alien. After getting pulled over by the Sheriff, who obviously has too much time on his hands, Michael panics and wants them all to leave town. “Roswell’s not home, it’s not even our solar system,” Michael reminds them. It becomes clear that while Max and Isabel have a happy home life with adoptive parents, Michael lives with a foster dad who doesn’t care about him. Max says they aren’t leaving.
When Max shows up at Liz’s house late one night you can’t help but squee with excitement. Turns out those images we saw of kids and flowers and stuff when Max healed Liz was images from her childhood. He got a glimpse at her entire life when he healed her and it freaks her out even more so he decides to give her a glimpse into him. It starts with two little lost kids (Max and Isabel) in the desert and goes on from there. Liz does a voice over of the scene and we hear her say “I saw me as he saw me. And the amazing thing was, in his eyes… I was beautiful.”
Next stop, Epic romance!
Liz demands to know everything she can about Max and he tells her. They think they came from the 1947 alien ship crash and were in incubation pods. They can change molecular structure which is how he healed her. No one else knows about them – not even their adoptive parents. That makes Liz ask the obvious, why save me and risk letting the secret out? Max says “because it was you.”
And as an audience member you can’t help but scream “Kiss him already!” which she doesn’t.
Liz doesn’t tell anyone Max’s secret at first – even though it causes her friends Maria and Alex (a goofy yet adorable guy) to become suspicious. Then her boyfriend, Kyle Valenti (the Sherriff’s son who seems like a cross between Tom Cruise in Top Gun and Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted’s) sees the silver hand print and tells his dad who shows Liz an old 1956 photo of a dead dude with the same hand mark. Sherriff Valenti also gets a hold of her waitressing uniform with the bullet hole and hands it over to the FBI. It’s all too much for Liz – especially when she tells Max and he decides to leave town – so she tells Maria the alien secret. She reacts by running screaming from the Crashdown however pulls it together in time to help Liz and the alien trio throw Valenti off.
They fake a hit and run accident and a silver hand print on the victim and try to blame it on Kyle. Even though Valenti knows the hit-and-run was fake it’s enough to make him realize that he’s got nothing to convict Max or anyone else and he reluctantly backs off.
And then just when you think that Max and Liz will finally kiss at the end of all this, Max tells her they can’t be anything and it’s not safe for them and he leaves.
Damn you teen alien angst, you win! Until next time…
Love the show! I miss it so. Wow that rhymes, I am such a dork. Anywho, I love Roswell. And definitely produced some great actors and actresses.
ReplyDelete