Roswell
"The End Of The World"

Airdate: October 30, 2000

Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when you said goodbye.
-- The End Of The World written by Dee/Kent

Skeeter Davis crooning that tune always makes reach for a hanky. Which makes it a good thing that Roswell didn't defile that wonderful song by using it in this episode. Instead they decided to carve an image into my brain that may make me forever reject my own ethnicity.

Sorry, Mom and Dad, I can't be Mexican-American anymore 'cause you see this really bad actor on this mostly lame series during this really stupid episode...

Max and Liz, the couple so stupid they make me want to scream.

On second thought, I don't want to fully explain that scene as I would then have to remember it and, as Xander Harris would say, I'm trying to repress.

Warning: You're going to find a lot of italics in this review because I really, really, really disliked "The End of the World."

While I'm sure there are those out there who wept buckets, I'm sorry to say (well, okay, so I'm not really sorry) that my tear ducts were dry as dry could be. And not just because I've never been a big fan of the series, but because the excuse created to not go to the source and tell Tess about the future was incredibly pathetic.

Pathetic as in stupid.

Stupid as in even 14 years later Max and Liz are a couple of idiots who don't have a lick of sense between them and if they were real they would both be considered brain dead due to a complete lack of frontal and rear lobal activity.

In Liz's place I would have told Future Max to go screw himself then marched right on over to Sheriff Valenti's house and given Tess the lowdown. And if that didn't work? I would have told her that if she even thought about leaving Roswell I'd hunt her down and tear every strand of her bleached blond hair out by its roots and then drag her sorry ass back to town so she could fight the bad guys like she's supposed to and save the world. But then again I have a brain. And a spine. Two things Liz is obviously lacking considering her actions, or rather, lack of intelligent actions in this episode.

Of course, Future Max is no rocket scientist either. If he had such faith in Liz, then why didn't he tell her to tell his Present-Day incarnation what would happen if Tess broke the "unit"? Surely Present Day Max would have had the same faith in her and then, as leader, PDM could explain the importance of the "unit" to the others and keep Tess in town.

But noooooo... Instead, two stupid people do a lot of stupid things and get all sentimental because they are too stupid to do the one thing that would probably get Tess to stay: Tell her the truth and make her feel needed.

You know what? I'm happy Liz and Max won't get to share a wonderful life -- as short as it was going to be -- together. They don't deserve a "happily ever after." They are simply too damn stupid.

Series creator Jason Katims is credited for writing this episode so while the techno-crap probably belonged to Ron Moore and Jonathan Frakes (Is he still involved with the show? Do I care?), the rampaging stupidity, I'm certain, is all Katims' fault.

Ah, but it wasn't all the opposite of peaches and cream (whatever that is). I still had my wonderful moment between Maria and Michael. It involved, of course, name calling and slapping. Even Alex was really terrific in this episode, first being there for Maria and then risking his life to stand up for his heart-broken friend. However, I fear that such scenes will only lead to the typical teen-soap partner shuffling. Which wouldn't be so bad if Roswell didn't affect science fiction roots and didn't include the likes of Moo and Monotone in its cast of characters.

To tell the truth though, I could probably stand it if Monotone were kept onboard. He's not completely awful in his scenes with Maria. It's just his pairing with the stupidest, weakest, most annoying young woman on TV that makes me wish he'd vanish in a flash of CGI.

-- Linda M. Najera

Roswell airs Monday nights at 9pm EST on The WB.

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