#roswell reaction'd

[mantra4ia]

OG Roswell vs Roswell New Mexico

I just finished rewatching Roswell (concluded/three seasons/streaming on Hulu) circa my youth from late 90s/early 2000s in order to compare it with Roswell New Mexico (new/ongoing/CW), and I have made the following conclusions so far:

Pros-

CW definitely picked the right actors for Max Evans and Liz (formerly Parker) Orcheto. I love Nathan Parsons - he has the soft-spoken, essense of puppy dog look that Jason Behr had in the role- and the chemistry between them is great.

That said, I think the original series did it better. Nothing beats the casting Shiri Appleby and Jason Behr and their goofball mariachi scenes, biology lab shenanigans, and alien 👽 ears. Sidenote about RNM: for as much as I love the unexpected twist of Alex and Michael together in RNM, nothing beats the casting of Majandra Delfino and Brendan Behr either. Their fantastic "at the same time I want to hug you, I want to wrap my hands around your neck" Michael-Maria dynamic is unbreakable, which I think the CW is trying to replicate with Alex but not with the same bantering charm.

RNM definitely comes out swinging with the political commentary/humor, and it makes the show feel of-the-times in the same vein as classic Roswell's "George Bush is an alien" t-shirt and the other references of the era to various 90s pop culture and music artists. The revival doesn't always stick the landing with the laugh, but the effort is there.

So on the subject of humor, levity in the original series is beyond compare. Yes it's corny, yes they pull out all the stops on hokie. But that's also what makes it so endearing. Seeing the main characters' relationships with their parents is also an unfortunate missing piece that RNM, by the mechanics of the "all grown up" plot, misses out on. Mrs. DeLuca, Mr. Evans, and the sheriff, had their fair share of laughs in Roswell and I miss that.

Alien special effects have far improved over the course of nearly 20 years. No more silver paint handprints, woooooohoo.

That said, nobody does 90s music transitions between scenes like Roswell. Nor jump cuts and cutaways.

I like Roswell New Mexico's homages to the OG show (the CrashDown, the waitress uniforms complete with antenna, and the ketchup are still priceless). More than anything, I like the fact that RNM paid attention to where Max's character left off in the original series, a little lost in purpose but wanting to help people, and so they made grown up Max a deputy, and likewise Liz became a scientist. And of course, the throwback mentions of Liz and Max in bio lab, Liz wiping hot sauce from his face...

But why have an homage when you can have the original hot sauce? Or, for that matter, half broken Jeep, fully DoA Jetta, and peach Snapple?

I'm thankful that so far there is no sight of the Tess character in RNM (I say, despite my love of Emilie de Ravin), and that they've seemed to pass along her mind warp power to Isabelle.

Cons-

How dare RNM backseat Maria DeLuca's character?! She was the beating heart and soul of terrestrial Roswell, her friendship with Liz is vital to the show in a way that the revival is not pulling off so far.

Roswell New Mexico has one advantage over Roswell for which I am grateful, and that's the fact that Maria, Max, Liz and crew are grown up and not keeping diaries anymore (thankfully I think TVD used up that plot device and the well has gone dry for the foreseeable future), which leads to fewer face-eating awkward make-out scenes in high school back rooms. Yet somehow the post-teenage angst is still front and center, go figure.

I like Michael Trevino. He's a welcome addition to any ensemble. But the CW plug to the Vampire Diaries/Julie Plec by putting a VD book on the shelf in Rosa's room is so cringy I can't take it. I am trying to black out the fact that Plec is EP on RNM and they make it impossible.

Roswell was kind of episodically self-contained with very few true cliffhangers, whereas Roswell New Mexico seems to stretch out the plot arcs a bit more. I can appreciate that added bit of complexity.

However, RNM also takes itself way too seriously. And I'm not just talking about the balance of drama and humor, for which the revival leans into the dramatic side heavily. I'm talking about the fact that the original Roswell, while it fully embraced the science fiction, was also self-effacing at times, like it was in on the joke that everything was just a little bit ridiculous. It embraced the cornball element. Dare I say it loved the cornball, and I think that's part of the reason why it's so rewatchable and bingeworthy years later. Roswell New Mexico has none of that.

I never understood the need for royal hierarchy conflict, love triangles, babies, and exiled aliens fighting a nearly unseen foe - Kivar - in Roswell (because more often than not the plots double back on themselves and come up half empty), so I'm glad Roswell New Mexico took a more worldly approach to the problems the protagonists are facing.

Sadly Michael Guerin and Isabelle, like Maria DeLuca, fall flat in the new series so far. In part I think it's because the story hasn't done a lot of relationship building between them and Max (it spends so/too much time building the drama and tension around Liz's sister's 'murder' plot that I'm not yet invested in) to highlight the sibling connection that made the first iteration charming. And that's a shame.

Lastly, who's disgusting idea was it to swap hot sauce for acetone polish remover? Never. No. NO.

Overall, I still much prefer the original Roswell vs. the Roswell New Mexico revival. It has a rewatchability and heart that the new series has yet to capture for me. I could give it time at least until I see the episode that Shiri Appleby directs, but I think that the new tone of the show is something else entirely and I'm not the biggest fan.