I’ve never been into sci-fi/fantasty but I made an exception for Roswell when the show premiered way back in 1999 (god, that makes me feel old). Mainly because I was a teenager and all the promos heavily pushed the Max/Liz love story angle (and I’ve always been a sucker for a good love story).
So I watched the pilot, loved it, and kept on watching until the show ended three years later.
Then I forgot all about it until a few months ago when news broke that the CW was making a reboot.
I immediately went back into nostalgia mode and remembered how much I adored Max & Liz and Michael & Maria, and I checked Amazon to see if I could order the whole series. Two weeks later, my re-watch completed, I have plenty of thoughts and questions.
Season One:
-The pilot is still one of the best pilots I’ve ever seen. So much good stuff, including the intense Max/Liz chemistry, which is off the charts.
-I’d forgotten how annoying Max and Liz’s on-and-off relationship status is. First they’re friends, then they kiss, then they decide they shouldn’t be together, then in a drunken moment Max tells Liz he wants her, then after he says they shouldn’t do anything, then they decide they should be together, then stupid Tess arrives and Max becomes attracted to her while at the same time still loving Liz, then Liz gives Max up at the end of the season finale so he can fulfill his destiny with Tess. Ugh.
-That moment still has the power to make me tear up, though. Kudos to Shiri Appleby and Jason Behr.
Season Two:
-Why is Maria wearing hair extensions? Don’t get me wrong, she looks good, but I also like the short hair on her too.
-Why can’t Liz tell Max the truth about catching her and Kyle “sleeping together” after Future Max leaves? The episode, The End of the World, is equal parts heart-breaking and infuriating, thanks to two amazing performances from Shiri and Jason. Quick summary: Future Max returns to the past to tell Present Liz that she has to sever ties with Present Max because if she doesn’t, all of them will die in 2014. Oh, and she can’t tell Present Max about it because if the two meet, they’ll explode or cease to exist or something. So Liz is forced to push Max away the cruelest way she can figure out to, by letting him find her and her ex Kyle naked in bed together. Max is devastated, Liz is devastated, and Future Max goes back, confident he saved the world. But why can’t Liz tell Max what’s really going on after Future Max leaves? There’s no good explanation and I hate when she keeps assuring him that she did in fact sleep with Kyle.
-Why doesn’t Liz tell Max everything about the-world-will-implode-if-they-stay-together thing in the season finale when she finally admits she didn’t sleep with Kyle? That drives me nuts. To be fair, there’s a lot of other stuff going on (like Liz and Max grappling with him returning to his home planet, but still).
-It’s so unfair that we get a Max/Tess love scene and just two measly Max/Liz kissing scenes (well, three if you count Liz’s visions). Speaking of Liz’s visions…
-At the end of episode one, Skin and Bones, Max asks Liz if they can ever go back to the way they were and touches her arm. Liz then has a flash of her and Max making out heavily. But that never happens over the course of the season. I suppose I could theorize the making out would’ve happened if Future Max hadn’t shown up but that just leads to more questions and no good answers.
Season Three:
-Yay, Maria doesn’t have hair extensions this season.
-I love, love, love the season premiere. Lots of Max and Liz kissing and helping each other (even if they do commit a crime and get arrested).
-Max and Liz’s story line the rest of the season? Meh. Liz’s dad forbids them from seeing each other for awhile, thinking Max is a bad influence, then he changes his mind. Then Max is kidnapped by this cult thing, then Liz starts to develop weird powers and is shipped off to this strange school in New York before Liz finally arrives home right before Graduation, the final episode.
-What is the deal with Liz’s powers? In Graduation, she can suddenly see the future again by touching people (she and Max save a woman from armed robbery and the core group from being killed).
-Why do Michael/Maria, Jesse/Isabel, and Max/Tess all get “love” scenes (I use quotes because they’re extremely tame) but Max and Liz never do? That still bugs me to this day.
-I get over it in the end, though, because I love, love, love that Max and Liz get married and we see them leaving the chapel the last few minutes of the episode. If they’re married, they’re having sex so I guess I just have to use my imagination.
Final thoughts:
There’s definitely a lot of good and bad in the three seasons of Roswell, like any TV show. But the good moments outweigh the bad for me, so I’m happy to have the DVDs on my shelf to re-watch again and again.