Sooooo... the 90s saw the beginning of a string of tv shows which infused good ol' fashioned teenage drama with the supernatural. The front runner of all being, in my very biased opinion, Buffy. Cause let's face it, Joss Whedon is a god! And anyone who says otherwise can suck down a nice big cup of shut the fuck up!
One show I never had the pleasure of watching, though, was Roswell (and I use the word pleasure now, after having finally watched the 1st season, with as much sarcasm as I can muster) . What a load of absolute fucking tosh! Seriously. There are a LOT of bad shows out there, but I think there's a switch in my brain that turns me into a mentally challenged tard so I'm able to watch them without minding. But Roswell? It took all my strength not to repeatedly bang my head against a wall just relieve some of its cringe worthy lameness!
Ok so for those who haven't seen it or need a rehash the Pilot starts off in Roswell, New Mexico, famous for a supposed 1947 UFO crash landing and cover up. It opens to an alien themed cafe, awesomely named the Crashdown, where our little gerbil-esque heroine, Liz Parker, is waiting tables, being eerily (and forever after) stared at by Stalker-boy, Max Evans. All of a sudden a fight breaks out between two guys, and naturally, this being America, one of them has a gun (probably both actually, but you only see one). Lo and behold the gun goes off and someone gets shot. But dun dun DUUUNNN! whats this?! it's our little gerbil-ateer, Liz! Max rushes over there and its revealed that he has powers when he puts his hand over her wound and heals her. In all his genius he throws tomato sauce on her and tells her not to tell anyone.
Later at school, Liz asks Max what's going on, and Max tells her that he's an alien.
It's not just him though. There's also his blonde bombshell sister, Isabel Evans (that is if Katherine Heigl is your thing) and their "woe is me - my adopted father's a drunken prick and no one understands me" best friend, Michael Guerin, both of which are far from impressed at Max's "coming out".
In fact Max's open closetry leaves the town Sheriff, Jim Valenti, very very suspicious, especially when two alien fanatics are claiming they saw Max heal Liz. So what are a bunch of ickle alien teenagers to do!? Throw him off the scent of course and what better way to do that than by telling even more people!
Insert Liz's bestest best friend, Maria DeLuca, Roswell's answer to Chloe Sullivan. In fact, she can be gerbil no. 2. Seriously I don't know what the writer's were thinking when they wrote this show but I think it was something like "let's see how many annoying characters we can come up with!" Well clap clap for the fucking handicap you guys succeeded.
Anyways gerbil no.2 gets all hoity cause she knows she's not included in the whole secret aliens club, so Liz tells her to save their friendship (God knows why. If I'd been the guy in the cafe at the beginning I woulda let off two rounds and offed both those annoying bitches). Bla bla bla they manage to thwart Valenti with all their keen intellect combined, but not without the Sheriff swearing "I'll get you Max Evans, and your little dog tooooo....."
And thus concludes the Pilot and so setting the scene for the 1st season. Well kinda.. Valenti's Columbo detectivity (yes I just made that word up!) along with government agents and Max and the others' concerns for who they are and where they're from is all but trumped by them wanting to hook up with one another. And its so cringe-worthy that a little bit of vomit comes up in my mouth just at the thought of it.
Seriously, Liz is so goody goody, there is no substance to her character what so ever. And Max is meant to be the sexy, quiet reserved type, who tries to do the right thing and not get involved with Liz, so as not to hurt her, but it just doesn't work! (And is it just me or does he have an awkwardly long neck?) The writers were obviously trying to do the whole forbidden love bullshit, reminiscent of such romances as Buffy and Angel. Only difference is that Angel IS sexy and unlike the wet blanket that is Liz, Buffy IS hot!
Then there's gerbal no.2, I mean Maria and Michael. She is seriously nails down a blackboard painful. Michael on the other hand is a little more interesting, but the fact that he falls for Maria makes all respect you had for him go down the drain... And when they kiss it's nauseating (actually so is it when Liz and Max kiss too). Not sure what it is, but it definitely provokes my up-chuck reflexes.
Isabel also hooks up with their other friend Alex, played by Tom Hank's son. They aren't actually too bad. Colin Hanks plays a convincingly cute geek and Katherine Heigl's snobby character is no where near as bad as the other two girls.
Also in the picture is Kathleen Topolsky an under cover government agent, posing as a teacher. She's all evil and sneaky in the beginning of the series before she fucks up and leaves for a bit. Then she reappears towards the end of the season to warn Max that the government are onto him and will come for him any day now! Complete with a bad brown wig, which looks more like a cat died on her head, Julie Benz's acting and the direction is sooooo soooooooooo terrible I found myself laughing out loud (keep in mind that I was at work and got many a confused stare at my outbursts).
FINALLY the season goes back to them trying to trace their routes and they meet another alien Tess Harding, played by Emilie de Ravin who's american accent is hilariously woeful! (why didn't they just get an american OOORR someone who can do an accent, I think the trick Ms Ravin is not to sound like an ozzie bogan...) Anyways she helps Max and the others remember who they are and that she and Max were meant to be as are Isabel and Michael. (Boo hoo poor gerbils cry weh weh). End of Season 1. (THANK FUCK!)
So in conclusion.. The character's are annoying. The story lines are piss weak as is the dialogue... And when I wasn't grinding my teeth and swearing at the stupidity of the show, I was laughing very loudly at the stupidity of the show. My fat elephant-o-meter would dump a whollleee lotta fat elephant shit on this, the runny diarrhea kind. In fact for this to be even classified Sci-fi is a complete insult to the genre. As my boss so eloquently put it, its like sci-fi for chicks... Now being female I did say an affronted "Hey!!" But when he changed it to "sci-fi for people who don't know or like sci-fi" I had to agree.
