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ROSWELL |
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Max - Jason Behr Liz - Shiri Appleby Michael - Brendan Fehr Isabel - Katherine Heigl Sheriff Valenti - William Sadler Kyle - Nick Wechsler Maria - Majandra Delfino Alex - Colin Hanks 
OTHER ROSWELL SEASONS Season 1 Season 3 OTHER ALIENS AMONGST US SERIES 3rd Rock From the Sun Dark Skies Threshold Invasion 
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Skin and BonesThe summer hasn't been kind to the alien support team in Roswell. Max has been distant, trying to sort out in his head the fact that he is the leader of an alien race reincarnated to lead the fight against the mysterious 'enemy'. His girlfriend Liz, unable to cope with the fact that Max was promised to Tess in a previous lifetime has been away for the whole summer. Michael has been training himself to be a soldier and avoiding his ex-girlfriend Maria. Nasedo, the shape-shifter has succeeded in shutting down the alien hunters of the FBI by pretending to be Agent Pierce, the leader of that group. Worst of all, the bones of the real Agent Pierce have just been found by a visiting geologist and might conclusively prove the existence of aliens on Earth. Oh, and the mysterious 'enemy' has finally shown up in Roswell. After a brief summary of what happened in Season 1, the new season gets off to a flying start with the discovery of Pierce's bones, the introduction of the all-too curious congresswoman, and the shock attack on one of their number by the mysterious 'skins'. That's a lot of plot to get into one episode, but by keeping to the main story of the body and its potential for exposure, especially for Michael, it manages to be an exciting start. True, the idea of Max standing inside a working particle accelerator and not suffering any ill-effects is somewhat far-fetched, but there are hints that this is going to be a much more action-oriented series from here on in. The entire cast has grown up over the summer (or started using makeup anyway) and that makes them different characters from where we left them, but the background plot takes care of all that. Whether the acting skills have improved remains to be seen. TopAsk NotWith Nasedo dead, a warning about the coming of the Skins on his lips, the threat to Max, Isabel, Tess and Michael is all too real. Fear stalks the group and Max seems to be paralysed and unable to make the big decisions. When the UFO centre is taken over by a man with an alien artefact then it is clear that he has to be taken care of. The fallout from Nasedo's death is a mixed bag in this episode. Sure, everyone is scared, but only Tess mourns the man who saved them quite a few times and she only seems to mourn him for a few minutes. The paralleling of Max's position as inexperienced leader with that of JFK during the Cuban missile crisis is sledgehammer subtle and really could have been done without. The new owner of the UFO centre means that there is a plot at the end of the episode, but it comes to nothing. The identity of one of the skins is made clear. TopSurpriseIt's Isabel's birthday, but amongst the cake (with Tabasco in it) and surprise parties she receives the unwelcome present of a vision of Tess in danger. Whilst the others try to locate Tess and the spotlight turns on both the visiting congresswoman and Isabel's new date, Isabel follows her vision and learns the truth about Nasedo's death. The more action-oriented start to this series of the show is all the more evident in this episode. The flashback structure shows Isabel and Tess in deadly danger and then takes us through the lead up to it before coming to the payoff. It's a pretty standard structure, but here it works well enough and the pay off is actually worth the waiting for. There are issues with it, of course. Isabel's rant at her absent mother in their crashed ship is never convincing and surely in their quest for answers they actually would have taken the time to explore their crashed ship when they first discovered where it was. Apparently not. TopSummer of '47Michael's failing a class at school and gets handed an extra assignment to interview a war veteran about what it was like in World War 2. The veteran, though, was on the base in 1947 when the UFO crashed and Michael manages to get him to tell his story, a story that has a direct bearing on the aliens. Telling the story of the veteran and the 1947 crash through the medium of using the usual actors to play all the parts is a fun idea and it pays off quite well. The story itself starts off as being annoyingly off the main plot arc, but proves to be interesting enough once the novelty value of seeing the usual actors in different roles wears off. As it comes to its conclusion, though, the relevance sets in and there is even a surprise development right at the end. The period is evoked very nicely and what looked by being a filler episode finally becomes a worthwhile trip down memory lane. From a promising start, the show is slipping into heavy teen soap opera territory. TopThe End of the WorldIn the future, the battle is lost and the world is falling under the control of the enemy, so Max transports back through time in an attempt to change history. The battle was loss because Max and Liz's relationship sent Tess off in a strop and the team was broken up. The solution is to end Max and Liz's relationship before it gets any deeper, but how do you get rid of someone so utterly in love with you? That's where Kyle comes in. This episode is far more interesting than it has any right to be. The tangled love lives of teens in the stuff of early evening soap operas not science fiction, but the added twists of Max from the future changing everything and knowing everything and Michael's relationship with the new waitress being driven by her nature as a 'skin' keeps things lively and bubbling. And anyone who was ever a teenager in love will wince at the method of Liz's final 'betrayal'. Brutal doesn't cover it. TopHarvestWhen the congresswoman that Isabel electrocuted to ash shows up dead in a car crash in Arizona and a mysterious letter shows up from the Universal Friendship League, The gang decide to head off to find out what is going on. Michael and Maria stay behind to deal with the enemy waitress, but find that all is not as it appears. This is a story about stupidity. The leter that the team read pretty much makes it clear that the Arizona place is the central HQ for the enemy, so walking in there and saying that you were friends with one of their members is tantamount to suicide. If the enemy weren't even stupider and reveal all their plans just in time to be thwarted then the series would be over right here. There are some interesting developments in the backstory, especially revolving around the husks that keep the 'skins' alive and the Harvest, but the plot is pure nonsense. TopWipeoutAll of the humans in Roswell suddenly disappear, leaving only a few who were outside the limits of the town in existence. The skins move in to destroy the Royal Four, but the quartet are a team now adn aren't about to give in without a fight. With the speed that plot lines are being thrown away in this second season it will be interesting to see whether the writers have enough left to get to the end. The vengeful skins are destroyed, the waitress is dead. Soon there won't be anybody to be a threat. This is a full up adventure story with little in the way of the character development and it is diverting, though hardly rivetting. TopMeet the DupesIn New York City, the Royal Four are a bunch of punks, using their powers to steal what they need and keeping one step ahead of the skins. Three of them show up in Roswell to ask Max to go to a big peace conference in the place of their own leader, who was killed in a car accident. Their motives, however, seem less honourable than even their appearances. In Summer of '47 Michael learned that there was a second pod with another cloned set of the Royal Four inside. Now they are introduced and there is a certain novelty value to seeing alternate versions of our heroes, but so unconvincing are the characters of the supposedly 'street' duplicates that the audience spends the entire time scoffing at just how poorly they come across. These aren't immoral street thugs, these are what really square people probably think street thugs might be like. The story, which has some merits, is seriously undermined as a result, but at least the audience can understand the mirthful reaction that all the humans give the new versions of the aliens. This is a full up adventure story with little in the way of the character development and it is diverting, though hardly rivetting. The lack of the duplicate Max for virtually the entire story feels like a really clumsy piece of writing, until it is explained right at the end. TopMax in the CityIn New York, Max is getting set to meet at the summit where there might be a chance for a negotiated peace between the five worlds, but behind closed doors deals are being done that will see people dead, left behind or taken back to the homeworld. The outcome of this depends on Max's decision and if he doesn't make the right one then he can still just be killed. Back in Roswell, however, the home team have learned about the Max duplicate's death and need Liz to get a message through to him. After the big set up in Meet the Dupes, this is a let down. The summit turns out to be six people sat in a room saying 'here's the deal, do you want it?'. Hardly the most in depth of negotiations. Better is the machinations behind the scenes as the Isabel and Michael clones scheme their passage home without the others and the Isabel clone schemes her passage without the Michael clone. The it all falls apart as Liz appears to Max to save his life and Tess 'somehow' fights the other two off, not knowing how or where they went after they tried to get inside her mind. You can bet that's not the last we've heard of that little substory. TopA Roswell Christmas CarolWhen a father is mortally wounded saving his daughter from a car accident, Max is unable to save him because there are too many people there. The ghost of the man then starts appearing to Max insisting that he 'restore the balance'. When Maria discovers that the new owner of the ufo centre has a daughter with terminal cancer then it's time for Max to step up and create his own little Christmas miracle. Oh no, a christmas special. This means a whole episode that is crafted solely around the need to lecture about the 'true meaning of Christmas'. This means we get Michael failing to get Maria the right present, but her realising that she doesn't really need a present, just Michael. We get Isabel putting aside her self-aggrandising christmas activities to help out Michael when he really needs it. We get Tess creating a real Christmas for Kyle and his father, enjoying her own first family christmas. If you weren't sugar intolerant before all of that then you will be afterwards, but wait - the worst is yet to come. The central story of Max saving the cancer kids because of his guilt over the man he couldn't save is obvious from virtually the beginning, laboured to the point of teeth-grinding awfulness and then descends into a pit of sentimentality that could sink a battleship full of hardened cynics. Apparently the true meaning of Christmas is artificial, mannered and manufactured sugary wallows like this. TopTo Serve and ProtectIsabel is cruising through her classmates' dreams when one comes unbidden into her head, a dream about a missing girl. Sheriff Valenti goes into search mode straight away and thinks that he has found out who the girl is, but when she turns up safe and sound the heat is really turned on the lawman with his job put at risk. It's nice to see Sheriff Valenti at the heart of the story, even if that makes the story a bit of a police procedural of the kind that we have seen so many times, only with the added sci-fi hints. William Sadler is a fine actor and though his face looks more lined with every day can carry the show on the basis of his performance where the younger performers would struggle. Outside of the police story there are hints at the darker forces at work. There's the identity of the sniper who makes the rescue of the girl seem oh so like a trap set for the Royal Four, the increased attention that Valenti is coming under because of his actions and the arrival of Maria's ne'er do well cousin. TopWe Are FamilyFollowing the kidnap and rescue of the young girl from a shallow grave, she skips the hospital and shows up at Sheriff Valenti's house. Considering the trouble he is already in due to his inability to answer certain questions as to how he found the girl, he places her in Isabel's care, but she escapes and screams for help, revealing where she has been. Valenti is fired, but Michael and Isabel make a curious discovery. This is an episode that goes precisely nowhere with any great speed. Sure Valenti gets canned from his job, but that is merely background for a large part of the time. Michael finds some kind of wierd alien stuff at the burial site, but that has no answers and the revelation at the end is intriguing, but doesn't make up for the dullness of the rest. TopDisturbing BehaviorMichael and Maria endeavour to create a bond with the disturbed girl whose rescue cost Sheriff Valenti his job. This leads them to the house of her grandfather, a man who was apparently the target of aliens and who happens to look exactly like Michael. Back in Roswell, Liz tries to calm down Maria's concerned mother, whilst the Sheriff learns something disturbing about the geologist who is attracted to Isabel. Max and the rest learn something even more disturbing about the crystals retrieved from the burial site. The show's storylines seem to be careening off in all kinds of direction, losing the show's focus in the process. Where the first season was all about the trio of aliens and the fight to keep their secret, this one is trying to build larger mythologies and backstories that have to be unearthed. An OK way to expand the show, but there are so many of them that it's all getting a bit fractured, making this episode something of a set up for stories that will be continued and hopefully tied up later. It is, therefore, much less interesting and satisfying than others. TopHow The Other Half LivesThe crystals that were found at the site of the girl's abduction are a dangerous alien lifeform that can only bond with one in 50 million humans. Laurie is that human. Michael and Maria are enjoying the fruits of freeing up Laurie's millions when they learn the truth about Michael and Laurie's grandfather. Kyle and Alex get locked in a cave full of the crystals with the air running out whilst Isabel's geologist turns out to be host for the queen crystal and is on his way to deal with Laurie once and for all. This little side story is now done with as all the loose ends get tied up, well almost anyway. Laurie isn't mad, gets her money back and the sheriff is vindicated by the identification of the actual kidnapper. The earth is saved and all is good with the world, for a short time at least. It is undeniably fun watching Michael and Maria enjoying how the other half lives, but it isn't really credible that relatives willing to pay $4 million to have their neice committed would a) leave the evidence lying around for Maria to find and b) happily hand it over with no further action. This is a showcase for Majandra Delfino, whose Maria is quickly becoming the most fun character in the show, although the plot drive stories mean that none of the characters are really getting any time to shine. TopViva Las VegasMichael is getting cabin fever and stress, so he takes the money he was given by Laurie's evil relatives to finance a trip for him and Max to Las Vegas for some shallow fun. The rest of the gang manage to get invited along on the trip and all have minor adventures. Fun, be essentially trivial and disposable - whilst that is probably an apt description of a weekend in Vegas it also fits this episode. Main stories go nowhere, there's no real character development, just a reinforcing of what was already there and at the end of it the audience is no better off than they were at the beginning. It is another opportunity, however for Majandra Delfino to shine. Her introduction to the show is so much better than the usual 'previously on' intros and she gets to sing not once but twice. There can be no doubt that this episode will form a significant part of her demo tape from now on. That's OK, though, because hers is the only character who really seems to be enjoying themselves. TopHeart of MineIt's prom time which means that everyone's heart is about to go through the wringer. Michael appears to be with another woman one day after arguing with Maria, Max and Liz still want each other, but are looking to move on since Liz can't tell him why they broke up and Alex won't ask Isabel for fear of falling under her spell and being heartbroken once again. Kyle is taking Tess, but is strangely ambivalent about the whole thing. This is back to the teenage angst issues of the first season and manages to get by without ever being really convincing. It is obvious from the beginning what is going on with Michael's new girlfriend, it is obvious why Kyle isn't that keen to get it on with Tess and it's frankly unbelievable that a girl who looks like Isabel isn't asked by at least a dozen guys. Only the Liz and Max story works, but even that is starting to get a little bit old. Since the future has now changed and they didn't get married in Vegas surely she can at least explain to him why they can't be together so at least he can deal with. Oh well. TopCry Your NameAlex is killed in a car crash and Max isn't able to bring him back. The whole gang are faced with real grief and find their own ways of dealing with it. Except for Liz, who splinters the group by suggesting that an alien killed Alex. Alex's death comes out of the blue (then again, he was getting it on with Isabel, so it was predictable) and that's how it should be. The audience now has enough invested in the characters for their grief to mean something and the acting of the ensemble is good enough to make it seem real enough. The burial scene with Maria singing 'Amazing Grace' is far more powerful than it really has any right to be. TopIt's Too Late and It's Too BadMax's world is coming apart. Isabel is determined to go to a college halfway across America and the only way to keep her near is to make her a virtual prisoner. Liz is completely obsessed with finding out the truth about Alex's death and seems to have found something out about his time in Sweden. Max is worried about her drawing attention to them and tries to stop her, destroying what is left of their friendship. Michael is having second thoughts about going back to their home planet as well, just as Max is getting closer to Tess and thinking it's the right thing to do. Well this is all very dramatic. It seems that Max has grown a backbone at just the time when it can do him the most harm and shatters what was left of the group. From wet liberal to evil dictator in one episode, that's not bad going. It's all very intense and it's all about the characters and that's why it works so well. Even Liz's closing in on what is wrong about Alex's death is more about the wedge it is driving between her and everyone else. There is a real sense that the end of the season is coming upon us and this is all building up to something and we are quite excited to see where it takes us. TopBaby It's YouMax and Tess make love and she immediately feels that she is pregnant. Alien pregnancies last only a month, but all is not well with baby Max. The atmosphere of Earth is killing him. Liz, meanwhile, gains Maria's help in her search for what happened to Alex, who turns out to have never gone to Sweden, but instead was using the ultracomputer of a nearby university to translate the aliens' book under the influence of other aliens. Events are racing towards the big finale as Max and Tess move onto a whole new level in their relationship. The alien pregnancy feels artificial and forced, but the scene in which Max and his unborn child connect is a very nice moment. When Max breaks down in the back yard it is the best work that Jason Behr has done in two seasons of the show to date. But it's all really about the plot at this point. The route home is becoming apparent at just the point where some of the aliens are finding reasons to stay. There will be tears before bedtime. TopOff the MenuBrody, the owner of the UFO museum and contact vessel for aliens, gets his brain fried and 'remembers' the memories of his alien inhabitant. Understandably freaked, he takes Max, Tess, Maria, her mother and cousin hostage. Michael and Isabel alert Valenti, but the cops also find out and plan to storm the building. The aliens have to find a way to defuse Brody before the whole situation can explode. This is a jarring episode because it seems totally out of step with the current flow of the story. It follows on from previous episodes to be sure, just not the ones immediately prior to it. There is no mention of Max and Tess's son or the fact that the atmosphere is killing him, something that seemed critical only one episode ago. The fact that the aliens have translated the book and found a way to go home is ignored. Alex's death and the mystery around it is forgotten. Also forgotten is sense. There are so many issues with this episode that it's hard to know where to start. Let's start with Maria's cousin Sean getting shot, but then wandering around trying to wire open doors and not worrying about not getting any medical help. Why would a fallout shelter have a control for opening the door on the outside where anyone could get to it? How did Valenti get hold of all the sheriff's department equipment when he 's no longer sheriff? This episode is an aberration that completely derails the mounting tension and pace of the approaching finale. TopThe DepartureThe freshly decoded book has told the aliens how to go home and they set the countdown in motion. Now they have 24 hours in which to make their goodbyes. They also have to deal with the fact that the killer of Alex is still out there and, it turns out, isn't who they thought it was. It's the season finale and, after the sideshow nonsense that was Off the Menu, the show finally delivers. The emotional goodbyes gives everyone a chance to throw their acting weight (or lack of it) around, whilst the hunt for the killer provides the big twist that turns everything on its head and sets up the next season. It's been a difficult season, patchy at best, but the characters have mainly made it through without annoying us enough to wish that they weren't going to come back. If it can use this episode as a measure and live up to that then a third season might be worth watching. Top |
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