Roswell
"Summer of '47"

Airdate: October 23, 2000

We do so love a man in uniform.

One month into the semester Michael is failing history, but his teacher decides to cut him a break. Sort of. It seems that a group of servicemen who were stationed in Roswell back in the 1940's are having a reunion and the SurlyBoy must interview one and write a report on it. How Michael happens to hook up with Captain Hal Carvey (Charles Napier), a man that saved his own pesky life back when he was still a podling in 1947, is not even addressed. But hey, this is TV, right?

Of course, it takes a while for this tidbit to come to light, but in the meantime Hal is content to tell Michael what it was like in the days right after the alien crash. As the old man speaks, Michael envisions the scene, putting himself in place of Carvey with all of his friends taking other important roles. The story that unfolds is one of murder, secrets, lies, backstabbings and military/government cover-ups. You know, just like today.

The problem with "Summer of `47" is that it makes the mistake of putting Brendan Fehr in the forefront, thereby cementing the notion that he has far more screen presence than his co-star Jason Behr. Not that I'm crazy about Michael's usual sullen act, but for some reason Fehr is able to give his disgruntled-alien alter ego more facets than whatever Behr is trying to do with Monotone Max. Yes, Michael is a jackass, but he's an interesting jackass. And therein lies the difference between the -ehr boys.

The same case can be made for Majandra Delfino and Shiri Appleby. While I'd like to slap Maria upside her Farrah Fawcett-do and tell her to stop shamelessly throwing herself at SurlyBoy, at least she alternates her mooning with righteous indignation once in a while. All right, so her accent in the flashback was enough to make this former Texas resident shudder, but at least she kept to it full time, unlike whatever Appleby was goin' for. Plus, you know, even when Maria is dippy she comes off as twice as smart as the cow-eyed Liz.

Okay, so not all of them.

While I don't really buy a war hero getting all mushy over a bunch of aliens that wiped out some of his fellow servicemen -- even if he was supposed to be all rebel-like -- "Summer of '47" had some pretty decent moments and not surprisingly all of them involved Brendan Fehr and Majandra Delfino. Okay, so Jason Behr was in the scene where he got punched in the face and Shiri Appleby's nurse was killed in what I can only hope was a painful manner, but those were mere fleeting moments of pleasure compared to the rest.

Also worthy of note was the present-day Hal Carver. From his comments about SurlyBoy's hair to his threat to shove him through a wall, the man was simply a lot of fun to watch. Alien-co-conspirator traits aside, it's easy to see how the young Fehr-issue Carver could become the latter day Carver. Of course, it was planned that way, but I'll give the show credit for making it believable and casting the great Charles Napier who managed -- on a show where the supporting-cast adults are regularly more interesting than the teen-ish leads -- to really stand out.

And as big thank you to whomever chose the Frank Sinatra version of "Fly Me To The Moon" to play in the background. It's been running around in my head for over 24 hours and compared to the rest of the crap that is usually played on the show, it's very, very nice.

Stuff That Happened

- Michael remembers that a lot of puny humans have helped him and the others and drops his ungrateful jackass act
- Michael tells Maria that there may be four more aliens out there like himself, Max, Isabel, and Tess

-- Linda M. Najera

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

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