When the CW announced they would be rebooting Roswell, I’ll admit that my first thought was: ‘Who is even asking for this?’ Now, don’t get me wrong; like any good teenaged TV nerd, I watched every episode of the original show back in the heydays of the WB. I even read the book series by Melinda Metz upon which it was based. Roswell was one of the WB’s crowning achievements in teen drama back in the late 90s/early 2000s, sharing the throne with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek, Angel, and Charmed. But it definitely wasn’t the best one of the five, and I was willing to admit that, even at 15. Now, twenty years after the original show’s premiere, we have a new Roswell and a new Charmed and there are talks of a Buffy reboot and I’m sitting here thinking:
Needless to say, I had little vested interest in watching this show. Neither the original series nor the Melinda Metz book series were groundbreaking stuff… But then my roommate confessed he was shanghai’d into watching the first couple of episodes–and he actually found them interesting! My roommate, a 34-year-old man who never even saw the WB show, is even less of a target demographic than I am, so I had to admit that my interest was piqued. After he described the first two episodes, I decided to check Roswell, New Mexico out after all.
The Main Differences:
Liz Ortecho vs. Liz Parker
In the 2019 series, main character Liz (Jeanine Mason) has reclaimed her surname from the book series, Ortecho. In the 1999 series, the protagonist’s name was changed to Parker, presumably because the actress cast (Shiri Appleby) wasn’t Hispanic and didn’t really look it. And because it’s 2019 and topical (and the writers just couldn’t resist the obvious joke), Liz Ortecho’s Mexican father is an ‘illegal alien’ living in Roswell, and he has a harder time hiding it than the actual aliens. This actually serves a function in the show to explain why this Liz, harder and tougher than the 99′ version, is hesitant to bring the alien drama to the police: she is worried that the blowback will harm her father by association.
We Aren’t Kids Anymore
Both the book and 99′ series took place when the main characters were teenagers and bumbling through life and pesky feelings as teenagers do. But the 2019 series postponed the entire plotline by over a decade, starting ten years after high school graduation, when Liz has returned to town for the first time since leaving at 18. Part of me is intrigued to watch these characters approach the same problem as [mostly] functional adults. It makes them harder and more mature (and as a bonus, we don’t have to pretend that a bunch of 27-year-olds are 16) and as such the stakes feel higher. Max (Nathan Parsons), Michael (Michael Vlamis), and Isobel (Lily Cowles) have had an extra decade to settle into their secret lives and in some ways that has made them smarter–but also more desperate and dangerous.
That brings me to the biggest change from canon:
The Dead Sister
The driving force behind the 2019 series is the addition of Liz Ortecho’s older sister Rosa (Amber Midthunder)–and her mysterious death that caused Liz to leave town for a decade. Rosa was Liz’s troubled older sister who allegedly caused an accident that claimed the life of herself and two other local girls back in 2008… but it isn’t until Liz makes her return to Roswell that she stumbles upon the alien secret and realizes that Max, Michael, and Isobel were involved in the death of her sister. She is determined to discover the truth, which brings me to the only change that really concerns me:
A Long Time Ago, We Used to Be Friends…
The high emotional stakes behind Rosa’s death, in addition to the time and distance, unfortunately resulted in a less cohesive main cast. Max, Michael and Isobel had their share of disagreements in the 99′ version, but they always felt like a family. 2019 Max seems like he barely tolerates the other two and regards them as an eternal burden he must bear. On the human side of things, erstwhile Liz, Maria and Alex were also a tight trio, but their 2019 counterparts have barely interacted. In the newer rendition, it seems like Maria (Heather Hemmens) was more Rosa’s friend than Liz’s and Liz and Alex (Tyler Blackburn) have lost touch. I was pretty disappointed by the Maria revelation. With Rosa dead and Isobel so abrasive, I was counting on the Liz-Maria sisterly dynamic and–after the first seven episodes at least–we have been thus far denied this.
Not Your Momma’s Teen Drama
The dysfunction is disappointing but the new dynamics are what potentially make Roswell New Mexico it’s own entity. Liz is still curious and strong-willed, but she starts out much stronger because of her 10-year absence. She, Max, and Isobel are more like their 99′ counterparts (but Max is a deputy sheriff now!). Maria is still into the holistic stuff, but she’s more self-assured and less spacey than the teenage Maria from the original show and books; she also has the least amount of screen time of the seven leads. Kyle (Michael Trevino) is the most radically different; though we are shown through flashbacks that he used to be a jerk, he is now one of the most likable members of the cast, a kinder and well-adjusted adult who is let in on the alien secret much earlier than he was in the original series. Sadly, his father, Jim Valenti, is dead in this version. Alex is a gay former soldier who lost his leg oversees and reluctantly returned home to his abusive father. He still secretly pines for one of the aliens, but rather than Izzy, it’s Michael he is paired with. In the 2019 version, moody loner Michael is bisexual but only has eyes for Alex; this is disappointing only because 99′ Michael and Maria had the most memorable chemistry of any pairing on the show, and I have sorely missed that dynamic here, but I’m interested to see where they take the Michael-Alex pairing.
The incident that kickstarts the show is still the same: Liz is shot in the diner where she works and would surely have died if Max had not made the impulsive decision to heal her using his alien powers. I’m glad the show gave viewers a mystery because it helps to focus and drive the plot beyond just scared teens trying to hide their secret. That fear is still present, but the characters have had ten more years to set themselves up. This serves to make them more capable but also means they have more to lose.
The show is moving along at a fast pace, which is as alarming as it is refreshing. Liz and Kyle find out about the aliens very early on and secrets are revealed in rapid fire succession. I can’t articulate how grateful I am that characters are confronting each other with what they know right away instead of holding on to all their secrets and letting them fester for half a season. This show may not be perfect, but I have to at least give it credit for not making me roll my eyes and groan with impatience every week.
By the halfway point of season one, things have already heated up; there is one bombshell that will inevitably be revealed before season’s end, but only viewers of the original will have the heads up on this one. After toying with us for a couple weeks by making us think first Max then Michael murdered Liz’s sister, the show finally revealed Isobel as the killer, but is everything what it seems to be? Evidence seems to suggest Isobel was in a sort of fugue state when she murdered those girls; she certainly wasn’t herself in the flashbacks, so was she in control when she killed those girls? The show wants us to believe Isobel is having some sort of psychotic break but old school viewers have already been given the true culprit: TESS. Her name was dropped in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it line from episode six and it is obvious she is being set up as the real killer. The original Tess was the most troubled character of them all and responsible for more than her fair share of mayhem, if my memory serves. It’s only a matter of time before she is revealed as the true murderer; the only questions are: have we met her already? What is her endgame? Just how crazy/dangerous is this Tess?
I’d love to see Roswell, New Mexico work in some of the old actors in new roles, especially since most of their careers never took off after the original show ended in 2002. Shiri Appleby directed the series’ 9th episode, which aired on March 19th, but I’d love to see more. Only Katherine Heigl and Colin Hanks really broke away from their association with the WB drama (and to a lesser extent, Nick Wechsler and Emilie de Ravin, thanks to ABC’s Revenge and Lost/Once Upon a Time respectively). I’d love to see Jason Behr or Brendan Fehr show up in a recurring role if the show gets past season one and frankly, William Sadler would still make the perfect Jim Valenti if the show decides to have him show up in flashbacks. My hope is that the Rosa murder mystery will wrap by the end of season one and, if a second season is ordered, there will be new questions to answer. The show made a good choice to concern itself with something that was never an issue in the books or ’99 series. As its own entity, it has more freedom to explore these different-but-still-the-same characters in a whole new context.
