Dec. 7, 2000 | Monday, Dec. 4
"Roswell" (WB, 9 p.m.)

Dear Diary,

Why is everything such a big letdown?

I though from the teasers that "Roswell" was going to be really stupid before I saw a single episode. The hour-long teen drama looked from the flashy commercials like some sort of "X-Files" meets "Dawson's Creek." But as I learned from "Millennium," not even "X-Files" writer Chris Carter can do another "X-Files" -- and who needs yet one more WB vehicle for Gap clothes and mediocre pop songs?

The first show, though, was sort of magic. Or at least it had one pretty spectacular moment. It happened toward the end of the show. Max, who is a hybrid alien living in Roswell, N.M., healed Liz, a high school girl he had a crush on, after she was accidentally shot. Liz figured out, more or less, that he was an alien and that he had risked his secret to help her. She was scared. He was scared.