"Morning After"
Airdate: October 13, 1999
In the vain hope that watching it in fast-forward may actually force the plot of the series to move at a normal pace, I taped the second episode of Roswell last Wednesday, and promptly went out to buy a VCR cleaner an hour later. With my poor, brave recording machine now rid of the festering filth this insufferably bland series had wrought, I held the cassette containing the infernal program and considered my options. Shall I go the Lisa Kohles route and smash it into tiny pieces with a crowbar (see Dr. Giggles review, issue 5)? Label it "Insomnia Cure" and auction it off on eBay? Or perhaps keep it as a perverse confidence booster, knowing that whatever I wind up doing with my life, I will in all likelihood never create anything as insipid, pretentious, pointless and insulting as Roswell, a show that in its sophomore episode beat out reigning champ Dark Skies as Worst Genre Series of the 1990s.
Such a shame that it was this episode I recorded instead of the pilot, in which lead actress Shiri Appleby gets shot through the stomach but regrettably, cruelly, does not die. Of all of the terrible actors and actresses on Roswell -- believe me, there are many, and I will get to them all in due time -- Appleby is by far the worst. I'm not sure I've ever encountered a more incoherent and idiotic television actress in my life, and I'm including the casts of Saved by the Bell, Teletubbies and every single Aaron Spelling drama ever aired in my assessment.
Sallow-cheeked and talent-barren, Appleby plays Liz Parker, one of the many WASPy inhabitants of Roswell who seem incapable of uttering a complete sentence. Genre series are known for their tough, smart, multi-faceted women (see early Dana Scully, Space:Above & Beyond's Shane Vansen, and virtually every female on Buffy the Vampire Slayer for examples) but Appleby's Parker heads off in a new, simpering direction. A spineless wuss whose vacant, mindless stare is either a result of Appleby's inept acting or the terrible writing that further mars the series, Liz exists only to lust after the equally dense Max Evans (Jason Behr) and to dish out pseudo-profound aphorisms that are sprinkled liberally with the word "like". "Even I have something to hide," announces Liz at the end of the episode. Oh yeah, like what? Your talent? Your brain? Moving on...
The second worst character (and corresponding actor) on Roswell is that of the aforementioned Evans, a high-school student from outer space played by 26-year-old Jason Behr. Behr appears to be a graduate of the David Duchovny School of Acting, which recommends one say all lines in an emotionless, monotonous drone; unfortunately, unlike Mulder, Behr's character has no dry wit or brief moments of passion to lighten the mood. Like all characters on Roswell, Max Evans is very serious, and his situation -- he is a displaced alien with no knowledge of his roots; oh how metaphorical an expression of teenage angst! -- is conveyed by the writers with all the rigid solemnity of a WWII epic. This doesn't change the fact that Evans is about as believable a brooding rebel as Dylan McKay and that Behr has all the charisma of a narcoleptic.
That's the biggest problem with Roswell, actually -- it has no concept of what it truly is, or of its meager limitations. The series it most evokes is pre-earnest-goes-to-camp Melrose Place, and it will undoubtedly never reach the so-bad-it's-addictive status of that or any great soap opera series. I will defend Melrose, or Beverly Hills 90210, or even Dawson's Creek before trying to justify Roswell. While the former three know well their place as cheerfully mindless, often cleverly campy entertainment, Roswell, like producer Jason's Katim's older series My So Called Life, seems to think it's actually saying something important.
What is so disconcerting about this is that the message it's conveying, if taken seriously (which granted, is hard to do), is rather unsettling. Despite its posturings to outsider status, Roswell is a conformist fantasy, an hour-long zombie Gap ad in which every character blabbers incoherently, seems willfully uneducated and superficial, but still carries an air of snobbish superiority. Blank stares pass as profound thought, simple-minded actions as grand rebellion; and even more disconcertingly, nearly all characters of non-Anglo-Saxon ethnicity (anyone non-Caucasian, or with Slavic or Italian last names) are Evil.
Case in point is Kyle Valenti (the Misguided and Wrong-Doing boyfriend of Liz), the only vaguely likable character on the series. He fails to comprehend his peers' pretension and idiocy, and even points out (thank you!) that Czechoslovakia is no longer one nation. ("Czechoslovakian" is Roswell's oh-so-liberated, not-at-all-obnoxious code word for "alien".) Of course, these radical tendencies towards intelligence and coherency probably leave him with a life-span of about two more episodes, which is still more time than my little cassette recording of this monstrosity is going to earn. Anyone got an extra crowbar?
LIKE FACTOR: Since there is no one remotely attractive on this series, the gross-out aspect is obvious and all the women suck, I have replaced the usual Factors with one that counts the number of times "like" is used inappropriately. (Hey, it helps me stay awake!) In my rough estimate of around 20 minutes of dialogue, the Like Factor clocks in at an even 25.
Roswell can be seen Wednesdays at 9pm EST on The WB.
-- Sarah Kendzior
We welcome your comments on The 11th Hour and this review. Please send letters to: letters@the11thhour.com
