The Pilot
Air Date: October 6, 1999

Take the most pretentious leanings of The X-Files, add a healthy dose of vapidity straight out of Saved By the Bell, slow it down to about one one-hundredth the speed and what you're left with is Roswell, not only the worst teen show of the season (yes, that includes Popular), but possibly one of the worst shows ever to air on the WB. And yes, I meant that WB. Never in my wildest imagination did I believe a genre show could be so relentlessly dull and humorless, so horribly acted and terribly written, as is Roswell, the inept new series from the crack-addled creator of My Show Called Like. This a series that makes Homeboys From Outer Space seem a profound meditation on alien intelligence. Hell, it makes that hour of Dawson's Creek I watched beforehand look positively Shakespearean by comparison.

Dawson's Creek, at least, was entertaining, and if I could really convince myself that James Van Der Beek's abnormally swollen cranium marked it as a genre series (hey, if they ever remake This Island Earth, the boy's a shoo-in!), I'd review that instead. But I feel a moral duty to warn each and every one of you who may have been seduced by those glitzy ads, those enticing (but oh-so-disappointing) "-Ehr" boys, or the once-reputable name David Nutter in the credits. Take every feeling of unease you had after hearing of Roswell's unbelievably contrived premise (high-school students who are aliens, or a way to simultaneously cash in on both the sci-fi and teenage markets), and amplify it ten zillion times -- it still wouldn't suffice to describe this insufferable program. For the love of God, stay away, and maybe this half-baked spaceship will crash land in the Nielsen basement where it belongs.

Where shall I begin? Should I start with the acting of the unbelievably inept Shiri Appleby, a dull-witted Katie Holmes who says every line like she's struggling to remember it? Or perhaps dare to investigate the true mystery of Roswell -- how to distinguish one bland brunette boy from the other? Midway through the show the cast changed clothes, and I was hopeless to identify who was who. No wonder the aliens went undetected for so long -- who in the world could pay attention to these tedious, emotionless clones? That is, to do something aside from screaming "My God, just finish your &%$#ing sentence!" at the TV.

That's the other problem with Roswell -- well, okay, one of the many problems with Roswell -- every cast member utters their lines like they were doped up on a hefty dose of Quaaludes. It's as if the script contained fifteen minutes of dialogue and they were forced to stretch it out to an hour by talking really, really slow. And stupidly. Series co-creator Jason Katims is the kind of writer who appears to have actually written the words "like" and "you know" and "um" in the dialogue well in advance. My sister and I used to play a game with his previous monstrosity, My So-Called Life (which is still better than Roswell), where we would count the number of times a character uttered the word "like" inappropriately; our record was 39 in one episode (that's nearly one per minute), but I can tell you right now, the pilot of Roswell beat it cold.

So can it be saved? Not that I can tell. There seems to be no discernible plot to Roswell, and there are certainly no likable or interesting characters. The 1-800-COLLECT commercial I saw midway through the program portrayed an alien-human relationship with more imagination and passion, and that ad had Al Bundy in it. The series strives for a feeling of teenage alienation alá Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it lacks any of the wit, intelligence or feeling that makes that series so unique. The makers of this insipid tale of loneliness straight out of the Rachael Leigh Cook School of Nerddom should be forced to watch Freaks and Geeks every day for the rest of their lives as punishment. Me, I just want that hour of my life back.

DROOL FACTOR: The only thing I was drooling over was my clock, as it slowly turned towards that flashing red 10:00 signaling that my hour of torment was coming to a close.

GROSS-OUT FACTOR: Like, everything. The fact that the series was allowed to air.

STRONG CHICK FACTOR: If you're a graduate of the Kate Moss School of Acting, perhaps you'd appreciate Appleby's vapid performance. Katie Holmes should sue her ass for defamation.

-- Sarah Kendzior

Roswell can be seen on Wednesday nights at 9pm EST on The WB