TV Review - Roswell, New Mexico

Carina Adly MacKenzie started as a writer for The Originals, a spin-off series of The Vampire Diaries, a teen soap that's very much in the vein of the movie franchise Twilight (2008). In The Vampire Diaries, the story centered on a young woman who falls in love with a supernatural being. It all centers around these people who live in a small town that has a history of supernatural beings, as they're pitted against various forces who want to either expose or destroy them. This series would obviously draw comparisons to The Vampire Diaries because the premise here is pretty much the same. Instead of vampires, the supernatural beings in question are aliens, but the type of supernatural beings is practically irrelevant. It's all just a meager frame-work for the typical teen soap opera rigmarole that will inevitably play out here.

That rigmarole includes if the human girl and supernatural boy will get together or not, as well as if the supernatural secret will be revealed or not, and in general who will have sex with whom. Given that the head-writer as well as a handful of the actors here come from The Vampire Diaries or The Originals, it makes sense to contrast this series with those shows. It would make sense if this series wasn't a direct remake of a series that was on the air nearly a decade ago.

Jason Katims is the Emmy-winning writer who created Roswell (1999), an adaptation of a string of books by Melinda Metz. When Katims adapted the series, he made the human girl, a white girl or Caucasian, whereas Metz's book was more true to the area and had her be Latina. MacKenzie corrects that difference ten years later and does indeed make the human girl a Latina. One might assume that MacKenzie is jumping on the recent bandwagon set by the remake or reboot of Charmed (2018).

Charmed was a remake from a series ten years prior. The one glaring difference is that the main characters were now mostly Latina. MacKenzie isn't copying the ethnicity changes from that show. It might be the case or simply a coincidence, but the likelihood is that MacKenzie is merely being more faithful to the source material than Katims was. Katims wasn't all that faithful in that his series didn't follow all the crazy plot-lines from the books, but what he and his writers did craft were interesting narratives and characterizations that made that series a bit of a 90's classic.

Aside from the ethnicity changes, as well as modernizing some of the sexual orientations of a couple of the characters, MacKenzie and her writers don't do much here that makes this series as compelling as the 1999 original. To be fair, while MacKenzie is faithful to the ethnicity of the characters, she does diverge in major ways and in probably just as many ways as Katims did.

First off, the series isn't set in high school like the books and the original series were. MacKenzie sets her story ten years after high school for the main characters. There are various other differences that can be pointed out, but that first difference, shifting it forward in time that much, is such a fundamental change that a lot of what made the original series succeed is lost here, though I do appreciate what MacKenzie was trying to do.

Jeanine Mason (Grey's Anatomy) stars as Liz Ortecho, a medical researcher who has been working in Denver, Colorado. She returns to her hometown of Roswell, New Mexico, for her 10-year, high school reunion. She's worried about her father who is an undocumented immigrant, which wasn't the case in the original series or books. Despite being undocumented, Liz's father does own a business, a restaurant known as the Crashdown Cafe. She decides to help out her father at the cafe.

Liz is supposed to go back to Denver, but one of the reasons she stays in Roswell is to find out what happened to her sister. Ten years ago, Liz's sister, Rosa, died. Liz uncovers evidence that maybe her sister was murdered.

Nathan Parsons (The Originals and True Blood) also stars as Max Evans, a deputy sheriff who used to be an aspiring writer. He notices the increased xenophobia regarding undocumented immigrants. He fights against it as much as he can. The reason is because he himself is an undocumented immigrant. Unlike Liz's father, Max isn't from Mexico or any other foreign country. He's an alien from outer space. He along with a couple of other aliens emerged from pods after their spaceship crashed. Their pods were hidden inside a cave where nobody found them. Max and the two others emerged from the pods as children ages 5 or 6. They walked from the cave to a highway where they were eventually picked up.

Lily Cowes (BrainDead) co-stars as Isobel Evans, the sister to Max. She is one of the three aliens who emerged from the pods. She along with Max realized that they were aliens with special powers. Each of them have similar powers and each has a unique power. Her unique power is telepathy and mind control. Like Max, she's also ten years out of high school. She works as a lawyer, which is what her adopted father did. She's also married to a lawyer named Noah Bracken, played by Karan Oberoi (Counterpart and Notorious). Whereas Max is a bit more quiet and reserved, Isobel is a bit more brash and bold.

Michael Vlamis also co-stars as Michael Guerin, the brother to Max and Isobel. Technically, he's not their brother because he wasn't adopted with Max and Isobel. Max and Isobel got adopted together as siblings and were raised as such. Michael got put into the foster care system. He grew up with them, knowing that he was connected to them and that he was an alien from the same pods, but legally he was never their sibling. He works as a mechanic and lives in a trailer out in the desert near where their spaceship crashed. What's notable about him is that he's bisexual, and he's mostly in lust or in love with a wounded warrior named Alex Manes, played by Tyler Blackburn (Pretty Little Liars). Michael is the wild, rule-breaker type.

The inciting incident, which starts the narrative, is a shooting at the Crashdown Cafe. Liz gets shot and Max uses his unique power of healing to save her life. This leaves an alien hand-print on her. The evidence that Liz finds about her sister is that she died with a similar hand-print on her. This leads Liz to think that her sister's death is linked to the three aliens somehow or maybe one of the aliens could even be responsible for her sister's death. This mystery is what's driving this first season. That along with all the more blunt political references make this remake a lot heavier than the original.

Katims' series dealt with heavy things and serious topics at times, but it wasn't as heavy or even as dark as MacKenzie's series is. It's not that this is a good thing or bad thing, but it does feel in-line with a lot of the other CW shows. That unity and similarity don't help this series to stand out. The same could possibly be said about Katims' show, which probably was produced in a congruent way to other shows on the WB at that time. Even still, that show managed to be more captivating.

Katims' series was brighter, lighter and funnier. It also allowed its characters to have more fun. Liz's character is saddled with a murdered sister and a father in fear of deportation right from the beginning, which also saddles her with all this weight that may or may not help one's enjoyment straight out the gate. The original series worked because it focused on the romance between Liz and Max. Yes, the original series had danger, but it wasn't so much that it distracted from the romance or the chemistry between Liz and Max, which you always felt. It's difficult to feel the chemistry between the two characters here because of it being saddled with all that weight. It's also tough to have a romance between two people when the woman suspects the man of murdering her sister.

In the first few episodes of this remake, the alien mythology is more put to the back-burner. The focus is Liz's murder mystery, which is obviously connected, but it still feels like the alien mythology isn't as foregrounded as it was in the original series. In the original series, for example, we see the three aliens using their powers more than they do in MacKenzie's series. As such, it was fun to see them use their powers, often to help them get out of sticky situations. Here, that fun has been absent.

What's also absent or supremely lacking is the relationship between the three aliens. In the original series, Max, Isobel and Michael felt like siblings because there were numerous scenes of the three of them spending time together and talking to each other. That dynamic is very much not present in MacKenzie's series. Katims' series did have the three eventually develop their own separate lives, but they never felt so separate and far apart. This series feels like the opposite. It also feels like it's not really trying to bridge the divide between the three.

The original series would have them band together in minor adventures. This series so far doesn't have that. It doesn't have that camaraderie and it doesn't seem like it's trying to build it. The direction of the original series produced more iconic images and stronger emotional beats. This series doesn't have that same direction. Mason as an actress hasn't captured me as Shiri Appleby did in the original series. This series also doesn't have a catchy theme song like the original, "Here With Me" by Dido.

Rated TV14.

Running Time: 1 hr.

Tuesdays at 9PM on CW.