I'm not really sure what last year's new season preview said about
Roswell. Being a new show there was, no doubt, quite a lot of advance
publicity and it probably covered all the relevant points. That is:
three teenage aliens, three teenage human friends and their attempts to
keep their secret from the authorities. More importantly, however, the
series was about Max and Liz; about how their typical adolescent
concerns were paralleled, and often complicated, by the fact that one of
them was an alien.
In many other TV series that would probably cover all bases for this
year too. TV producers are very fond of finding a formula that works and
sticking to it (I'm talking mainly about Star Trek). Just beyond the
mid-point of Roswell's first season, however, the show was moved from
Wednesdays to Mondays and a decision was taken to play up the science
fiction elements of the show. This time around, we're not starting from
the assumption that Max seems a pretty average high school student who
then turns out to be a little out of the ordinary. This year we start
from the unsettling knowledge that he's the leader of an alien race who,
by the evidence of last season's finale - Destiny, is about to be
pitched headlong into a battle with another race of aliens led by a
member of the Backstreet Boys.
It seems likely, even given this rather melodramatic shift in the
scale of Roswell, that the producers will claw back a little of what
went before. Noting that the three aliens and the three humans had
rather cosily paired up, a fourth alien in the shape of Tess (Emilie de
Ravin) is to become a regular. According to the message left behind for
our alien friends, she is destined to pair off with Max. But even if
saving the world figures strongly on Max's 'to do' list for the rest of
season two, it seems a safe bet that he'll still want to be with Liz.
It's also worth considering that there is now an alien working
undercover in the FBI special 'alien hunting' unit. We will just have to
wait and see whether that will prove useful or just keep the authorities
off their back. Meanwhile, co-creator Jason Katims is hinting that a
regular character may be killed off. Who will that be? Well, that would
be telling . . . nominations can be sent to the editorial office.