Roswell, New Mexico is the site of a famous alleged UFO incident in the 50s. It's widely regarded as UFO central. Being a teenager in a place like that is hard enough, but imagine what it would be like if you were an alien in a teenager's body trapped in the one place where everyone goes to look for aliens. That's the set up for ROSWELL. Max, his sister Isabel and their friend Michael are all aliens trapped in teenagers' bodies. They know this, but that is all that they know. They have powers, but don't know how to use them or how powerful they are. What they do know is that they have to keep their identities secret at all costs. Enter Liz Parker and her friends. She stumbles on the information, but since she is falling in love with Max that proves to be less of a problem than he thought. The interest of the Sheriff, son of a discredited alien hunter, is less welcome.

Teenagers feel awkward at the best of times. Their bodies are changing to the point that they sometimes feel like aliens in their own skin, so the idea of them actually being aliens isn't much of a stretch. As a result, ROSWELL can mix up the usual concern of aliens on the run (FBI, capture, torture, autopsies, cheesy alien conventions) with more down to earth considerations (dating, homework, how embarrassing Dad is etc). As a result, the show is aimed squarely at the teenage market with not a lot given over to other viewers. Still, we were all teenagers once.

The show actually works best when it is dealing with the alien concerns rather than the teen concerns and as the series gets into its last third the alien plot takes over completely to reveal all the secrets that the cast have been searching for all along. It is, at times, mawkish, overly romantic, overly sentimental and downright slushy, but it also has moments of brutality, action and adventure that bring it back from the edge.