Roswell: Season 3

Roswell came onto the scene in 1999, following Dawson's Creek in the WB lineup. The first two seasons were broadcast on the WB before the rights to the third season were picked up by UPN, which aired the final 18 episodes in the 2001-2002 television season.

I never watched Roswell while it was on television, but after reading a good review about the first season, purchased the DVD set and was hooked on the story. Both the first and second season sets were quite good and I was certainly looking forward to the third and final season when it hit DVD stands earlier this year.

Roswell follows the lives of alien-human hybrids Max Evans (Jason Behr), Isabel Evans (Katherine Heigl) and Michael Guerin (Brendan Fehr) as they try to live their lives as normally as possible in the alien-crazed town of Roswell, New Mexico. Their secrets were safe until Max used his powers to save Liz Parker (Shiri Appleby), bringing Liz and her friend Maria (Majandra Delfino) into the secret.

Over the course of the first two seasons, Sheriff Jim Valenti (William Sadler), his son Kyle (Nick Wechsler) and Alex Whitman (Colin Hanks) found out about the aliens secret. Alex was killed at the end of season two by yet another alien-hybrid, Tess Harding (Emilie deRavin) who was carrying Max's son, the heir to the throne on their home planet. All of these aspects play a part in the start of the third season.

Liz and Max, torn apart in season two by Max's relationship with Tess, are back together and in the very first episode, they are trying desperately to find a way to find Max's son. Throughout the season, that is one of the big story lines, as Max searches for the son that is rightfully his. He knows that Tess left Earth to return to her home planet, and he wants to find a way back to save his son. As the season, and the series, draw to a close, Tess returns to Earth to bring Max his son, who is 100 percent human, and Max, knowing he can't raise a son, gives him up for adoption.

The story line between Max and Liz was the main motivation in season one and it again takes center stage in season three. Liz's father forbids the two from dating, even at one point, sending her off to boarding school in Vermont. These two actors share amazing chemistry and their relationship is an incredibly believable one straight to the final episode. You really get the sense that these two love each other. When Max is supposedly killed while rescuing Valenti from a fire (and the requisite bad guys), Liz, at boarding school in Vermont, has the sudden feeling that he is dead.

Michael and Maria have quite possibly the stormiest relationship in town. Their on again, off again, human-alien relationship is put to incredible tests. Michael struggles in school, takes on another job in addition to his work at the Crash Down Cafe, Liz's parents' restaurant. All of this is tough on the relationship between the two characters, but again, as the series winds down, the viewer begins to realize just how much they mean to each other. Maria, on another note, gets her dream chance to be a singer, but the realities of the "Music Industry" send her back to Roswell.

Isabel, we find out as the season opens, is in a relationship with Jesse Ramirez (Adam Rodriquez), a lawyer in her father's firm, who is eight years older than she is. She struggles with the truth about herself and her feelings for Jesse and how the two should intertwine. A visit from beyond from Alex helps convince her that Jesse is indeed the one she should be with. The two get married, but it is only after Isabel is shot that Jesse finds out the secret about his wife, her brother and their friend. This storyline is Isabel's strongest story line of the three seasons, by far. She showed her acting chops (which can now be seen on the ABC hit Grey's Anatomy) in fine form.

Valenti and his son Kyle, as possessors of the alien secret, are always in on the goings on of the aliens, but in this season, their parts were not as great as in the first two. They both have major parts in a couple of episodes, particularly as the season drew to a close. but ultimately, the two characters were not as central to the show as they could have been. Valenti's career as a singer (he was fired as sheriff in season two) is an interesting turn of events, however.

The final episode was very well done and everyone involved should be commended for wrapping up the series in a solid way, a way that brought closure to everything. The three aliens, Liz, Maria and Kyle, all pack up after a near sniper attack at graduation, where Max saved his friends and MIchael, in turn, saved Max, and leave town. Valenti, back in a uniform as a deputy (You've got to start somewhere), helps them get out of town and we hear, like we did in the very first episode, a journal entry from Liz, as she descibes how her life is now that she's left Roswell. We see her and Max's wedding and we see her father, reading the journal, finding out just all that had happened in the last three years of his daughter's life, as the van with the six friends leaves the church where Max and Liz tied the knot, and rides off into the sunset.

As far as extras go, this set isn't bad. There are four commentary tracks, including a great one from Creator Jason Katims on the finale. The only bad thing about these tracks, is each of them features only one person, which can be a little boring, but for the most part, they are informative.

There is a featurette on the making of season three and all that went into the final chapter of Roswell, as well as a short feature on Shiri Appleby's DVD tour in Japan, where we see the actress promoting the first season on DVD in Japan.

All in all, this was a solid set. The series wrapped up in solid fashion, leaving no terribly loose ends. Anyone who tuned in from the beginning certainly should have been happy with the way things turned out. It was a fitting end.

We live in a pretty cool time. We can "own" films and TV shows, watch them over and over at home with big screen sets and kickin' sound and don't need to be rich to do it.

So when Roswell Season One was first released, I was pretty happy. As season Three finds its way to our hands, the cycle is complete.

I had a chance to meet and interview Brendan Fehr and he was a little surprised to find a middle-aged guy (me) who liked the series so much. I am and remain an unabashed groupie for Roswell.

I've always liked different stuff - Twin Peaks remains my favorite TV series - but I came to the first Roswell episode not expecting much. I was quickly hooked and I'm a bit puzzled by anyone who might wonder why. It might not be for every taste but it's hard to deny the quality of the work.

The series was impeccably shot. Sound, editing, music - it was all top notch. The first season's claustrophobic setting (the small city of Roswell) lent itself well to the story and allowed the characters to establish bonds before moving the series into a wider arena.

At the core of the series was (IMO) one of the all-time great love stories: Max and Liz. The chemistry was simply breathtaking and I can't recall a show with two more attractive young leads who seemed truly be attracted to each other. And when the bond starts by Max saving Liz's life, it's strong from the start. More than once I was swept with emotion, watching the scenes play out. Yes, there are some lame parts of all three seasons. Yes, there needs to be a suspension of disbelief in order to buy into the show. And as far as going on to more seasons, I think the show was working within a built-in box that had nowhere to really go. Like Lost and 24, it got harder and harder to keep the momentum and twists building.

Still - it was excellent. I've missed it over the years and am so grateful for the DVDs. Roswell was a perfect combination of movie/TV genres: teen love, thriller, science fiction, comedy, cliff-hanger ...

I wish all the actors well and hope they remain as connected with each other as fans of the show are connected to them.

Having enjoyed the first two seasons of Roswell, I wanted to enjoy the third season. I did up to a point, but objectively the series fell apart in the third year, and was brought to a merciful end after 18 episodes. This makes the season three set a poor value in both quantity and quality -- four shows short of a normal season of television, and deficient in imagination, continuity, and overall execution.

I believe the young actors in this series improved throughout their tenure in Roswell, but this is against the backdrop of declining script quality. The writing ignored logic at so many points, that anyone not in the grip of blind fannish adoration for this series would be quite annoyed.

To top it off, Jonathan Frakes produces some of the most inane audio commentary for a TV episode I've ever heard. Announcing the characters and actors as they come on the screen -- like we don't know who the stars of the show are???

What led to the demise of Roswell is probably the lack of a good story arc for the third season. For the first half of the year, Max was looking for his son, taken from him in season two by the duplicitous Tess (played by Emilie de Ravin, currently appearing in LOST on ABC). Then, Max loses interest in that quest. Isabel inexplicably abandons all caution and common sense, marrying a man she has known but a few short months. Inevitably this leads to conflict, since she decides to deceive him about her alien heritage. When her ex-lover from the home planet shows up on their honeymoon, more silliness ensues. Michael and Maria are together, then they split up, then they get back together, kind of, and finally Maria decides to commit. Colin Hanks comes back as a ghost (sort of) in one episode -- which seemed like an act of desperation to me.

Certainly there are enjoyable moments, and fans of the first two seasons will want to see the third. But keep your expectations low. Probably one of the best shows of the year, the one that is truest to the characters, is the episode about what the gang did on New Year's Eve. Maria and ex-Sherriff Valenti get to show their musical talents in several shows, Valenti with his country rock band the Kit Shickers, and Maria with her guitar in an aborted attempt at a recording career. I actually enjoyed the musical bits. The band Ivy puts in a cameo appearance in the wedding party.

Season three was a year of crazy capers, confused lovers, badly choreographed fights and action scenes, and villians with about as much depth as cardboard cutouts. And don't forget a healthy dose of stupid, stupid writing. None of it really adds up to much, and in the end, a prophecy of doom leads the aliens and their human posse to abandon Roswell. The epilogue, which informs us via a voiceover that Romeo and Juliet eventually marry, is hardly fitting. We wanted to see the series mature and actually experience that wedding in a future episode. The first and last episodes of the season are reasonably good, but overall Roswell ended its TV run with a whimper, not an antimatter explosion.