Series premiere: Roswell, New Mexico
So before I review Roswell, New Mexico, I have to confess that I wasn’t a regular watcher of the previous series. Too much teen age romance angst for me, never really got into it. That may not be a fair representation of the show, but the few episodes I caught, it didn’t work for me. So I am watching RNM not so much as a reboot continuation as a whole new show.
Here’s the quick run-down … aliens are real, they crashed in Roswell in 1947, three kids were in stasis pods for 50 years, and in 1997, they emerged together and are growing up in Roswell while hiding their identities. Ten years ago, something happened in Roswell, a girl named Rosa and two friends died in a car accident of some sort like a DUI, and Rosa’s sister Liz left town to go to university. Ten years later, she’s back, and runs into her old secret crush, Max. Psst…Max is one of the secret aliens, along with Isobel and Michael.
Something goes down, Liz gets shot, and Max uses his alien superpowers to save her while she’s unconscious. But it is enough to trigger her curiousity, and he eventually tells her the truth, much to the non-delight of Michael and Isobel. Meanwhile, a doctor friend and ex of Liz notices she has a weird alien mark on her chest, and reports it to a military contact who monitors what is going on in Roswell. Enter the MIB. Dun dun dun.
Jeanine Mason plays curious Liz, and while I haven’t seen her before, she reminds me of someone…Chloe Bennet aka Skye aka Daisy aka Quake on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. There are a whack of scenes in the episode where she has almost the same quirky style of Skye from the first couple of episodes, except her Spanish accent is much better. I don’t know Nathan Parsons as Max either, but he does a great job of looking emotionally torn, between telling her nothing and telling her everything. I’m a little surprised they jump all the way to telling her everything in the first episode. Hi Lois Lane, nice to meet you, btw, I’m Superman too. Not much mystery there.
Anyway, Michael Vlamis plays Michael, and I don’t remember him being gay in the previous one, but maybe he was. Don’t know him either, but I liked him. He does snarky well. Lily Cowles is the least-experienced of all of them, and plays Isobel, but I quite liked her. She looks genuinely shocked in a few places to realize that Max is actually in love with Liz. Now, don’t get me wrong, she has this ridiculous speech about how they can never be together, which is weird considering SHE’S MARRIED TO A HUMAN. But maybe that’s Max’s whole psychic bond thing (although she tells him to fall in love with someone else).
And just for fun, the mystery with the dead sister from 10 years before apparently has something to do with the three aliens. A secret that Liz can never know. Dun dun dun.
Here’s the thing. I predicted CANCELLATION, but I kind of liked it. Not enough for me to watch, but I think it might have legs. I’m predicting RENEWAL.
