Determined to blog something not-so-serious this week, and also have fun creating a photo to accompany this post, I’m writing about Roswell—the TV show—and using a rubber stamp recently acquired for papercrafting. The green alien action figure was obtained at a conference when I worked for the US Air Force JAGC. Funny, huh? And having lived in southern New Mexico almost a year now, the background tile was a gift from a neighbor.
I have yet to actually visit Roswell, a city a little over a hundred miles east of me, but with currently spiking gas prices I’m thinking it might take longer to explore the International UFO Museum than I’d hoped. There’s also an annual UFO Festival there that commemorates the 1947 flying saucer landing, but it’s over the Fourth-of-July weekend this year, which doesn’t seem to be a stellar time to have such a thing, so I won’t be there.
But last month while surfing Tubi, I stumbled upon the decades-old TV series, having no recollection of it airing from 1999-2002. Also not a stellar time for me personally or professionally, so I likely wasn’t as focused on the extraterrestrial subject matter as I am now with writing my Other Worldly novels, and was probably less interested in a story featuring high school kids.
These days I’m not as busy in life and also considering writing a next generation series with twenty-something aliens, so Roswell felt like a perfect TV viewing diversion from the absolutely awful state of our nation. Especially since it’s based on the young adult “Roswell High” ten-book series by female author Melinda Metz. The first was published in 1998, so it didn’t take long for it to be acquired for a TV series. Gotta love that.
With Roswell, we’re talking about a teen drama featuring what turned out to be not mere aliens, but human-hybrids (sound familiar?) hiding as teenagers in Roswell fifty years after the 1947 crash. How’s that possible? We soon learn they existed in incubation pods for decades before three emerge at the human age of five years old. I found this to be a fascinating and refreshing take on the infamous Roswell incident. Not to mention it uncannily tracks with my aforementioned rubber stamp, which could easily be an alien teenager hitchhiking.
The Roswell genetically engineered alien-human hybrids are different from those occurring naturally via genetics in my OW novels, but I still enjoyed seeing similar subject matter—and I’m glad I hadn’t seen this show before I began writing Alienable Rights in 2017 lest my literary imagination appear to be unoriginal. Because Roswell also has alien shapeshifters in season 2, which first show up in my fifth OW novel, Alien Sensation, from 2022.
There’s another similarity between the show and my books that I surely appreciated, and that’s the US government claiming to be the good guys when it comes to engaging with extraterrestrials. In Roswell, it’s the diabolical FBI—and US Air Force—that declares all aliens bad and murderers out to destroy humans because they see themselves as superior. Pretty much classic and self-serving projection—because it’s humans who seem to be plagued with that hubris and bigotry.
The difference in my OW novels is it’s the Department of Homeland Security targeting aliens (along with a maniacal presidential administration), but DHS didn’t yet exist when Roswell aired, not having been formed until 2002 in the wake of 9/11. Although I also snark it up about the Air Force—and Space Force—also not yet formed in the Roswell years.
In the TV show, it therefore doesn’t surprise me that Air Force dudes turn out be very bad guys, but it is disturbing nonetheless. Especially when an Air Force officer refers to the Roswell aliens as “things” or “creatures” while the military is the entity displaying inhumane behavior toward Max, an alien with the ability to heal humans and bring them back to life. An alien also deeply in love with a local human teenage girl he saved from a gunshot wound.
Particularly scary is an episode wherein an Air Force pilot collides with a UFO, ejecting from his jet before it crashes in the desert outside Roswell. We ultimately learn it’s Air Force policy to claim the pilot is dead from the crash, followed by the pilot’s summary execution by the government in order to maintain the coverup that UFOs don’t exist. Eerily, this brought to mind the rash of NASA scientists mysteriously dying or going missing in present day.
Overall, I found the first season to be the most clever, lighthearted, and enjoyable, especially scenes at the Crashdown Café, with fun alien-themed names for food like Saturn rings, and kitschy-cute server uniforms. Season 2 got a little too dark for me (I think that means I’m getting old). And Season 3 was even darker and less believable on some levels, though there was an entertaining and amusing episode with a 1960s TV take straight out of Bewitched called I Married An Alien.
Ultimately, Roswell aliens are not all good—eventually some bad ones wreak havoc—but then neither are all humans, just like in my OW novels. And it’s refreshing to have what appear to be quintessential Hollywood human bad guys—high school jocks and local law enforcement—turn out to be alien advocates and protectors. Something my OW protagonist Rowan Layne would certainly applaud.
Speaking of Hollywood, the one total downer about Roswell is it becomes pretty obvious that it’s not actually filmed in Roswell, or even anywhere in New Mexico. I first noticed a palm tree in a downtown scene, and then became suspicious about quaint cobblestoned streets and far too many green lawns. Perhaps it would not have bothered me, had I watched this series when it first aired, to learn that it was filmed in Covina, California, but it sure peeves me now that I live in New Mexico.
Even the Crashdown Café where many scenes are shot and several of the teenaged characters work, is located on Citrus Avenue in Covina. Jeez. And, horrors, West Roswell High School scenes occur in Long Beach. Not to mention the desert scenes are from Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park in Agua Dulce, CA. Big fat bummer. And also false advertising for the Roswell area itself.
Also speaking of Hollywood, another fun thing about the show is a few of the stars. For me, seeing a younger Shiri Appleby play Liz Parker (the teen saved from a bullet wound by alien Max Evans) when I knew her as a not-so-sweet reality TV producer from the 2015 show UNReal, was a nice surprise, as was movie star Katherine Heigl portraying alien Isabel Evans, and doing so fabulously well. The only other actor recognizable to me was Colin Hanks, great as geeky and loveable teen human Alex Whitman (though odd that that’s the name of the main character portrayed by the late Matthew Perry in the 1997 movie Fools Rush In), but one standout starring role was teen human Maria DeLuca played by Majandra Delfino.
When I did a “Where are they now?” search for cast members, I learned some returned when the show underwent a reboot titled Roswell, New Mexico from 2019-2022. The good news is this one was actually filmed on location in various spots in the Land of Enchantment, though not in Roswell. The bad news is Tubi isn’t currently offering it, and Amazon Prime doesn’t have it for free, requiring purchase of entire seasons.
So…I’ll wait and hope it eventually pops up. Kind of like I’m having to wait to visit Roswell itself. In the meantime, I can always rewatch Roswell to see what I notice the second time around. Like UFO sightings themselves, you never know what you might be missing while caught up in the moment.
Interesting article. Had no idea such a show existed.
Thanks! It is kind of a kick, and surprisingly has many strong female characters.