My own "Roswell" marathon, or: First Impressions. (spoilers)

I will also call it “The Lost Week.” whew (I searched for any other “Roswell” thread and couldn’t find any.)

For reasons too absurd to delve into here, I found myself on a self-imposed “Roswell” marathon. I got through all 61 episodes in about a week, including a particularly Roswell-saturated weekend.

I guess I’d heard of people doing “24” marathons, but since I’ve always followed “24” as it goes along, I decided to do it with another series. And “Roswell” seemed to flow along pretty carefully from episode to episode. So I started watching and watching and watching, every night, until I was done. And now I’m done. Oh my gosh. I think this is my first and last TV series marathon! :eek:

I started watching the show with almost no preconcieved notions of what it was about. I only had the vaguest idea of who was who and what the show was about. I did my best to avoid spoilers, knew none of the history of the show (WB to UPN, etc.).

Just looking at the line-up of the cast, I thought I’d pretty much nailed how some of the characters would pan out. My first big impression was that the Sherrif guy (Valenti) would end up being some sour semi-villian who would always be one step behind our heroes, and would always be muttering, “Those darn kids!”

I also could not figure out how Kyle, Liz’s original boyfriend, fit into the equation. I did allow myself to look at the IMDb page and saw that the actor was in all three seasons. I simply could not figure out how he’d stay in the picture. He looked like a complete third wheel to me at first.

I had Isabel completely pegged wrong. I thought she’d remain cool and haughty and aloof and always kind of bitchy.

That Alex guy—well, he was going to be the token funny nerdy kid. Never really a big part of the show, but there for comic relief.

Maybe it was the “mainlining” of the show, where I never gave myself time to ruminate on one episode before loading up the next episode, but I simply did not expect some of the character developments at all. So, I definitely enjoyed the suprises in the characters. (Probably why I kept watching and watching . . . ) The Sherrif turned out to be a pretty cool guy and one of my favorites. Same with Kyle, who was hilarious and often got the best lines. And Alex, such a sweetie, ended up (sort of) with Isabel. Never saw that coming. I saw him having a crush on her, sure, but I never saw her reciprocating.

I’m sure all these reflections and ruminations are absolutely nothing new to the old-timer Roswell fan, but this is all new to me and my brain’s soaked up the whole damn show in about a week!

Near the end, I thought I’d crack. There were moments where I thought that I could not take that Max fellow for another second. He never smiles. He’s a very handsome fellow, but I don’t want to see that actor in anything else for a while. In one episode Max grinned, and his face was rendered absolutely unrecognizable to me. I got pretty close to actively disliking him near the end of the series. (But I don’t dislike him. Not quite. But it was touch-and-go for a while there.)

I liked Maria more and more. I think she, Valenti and Kyle (and Alex) were my favorite characters. I liked 'em all, but especially those.

Some of season three jumped the shark big time. Other episodes sucked but for the most part, I enjoyed the show. So hokey and angsty. Apparently just what I was looking for. I enjoyed the multiple references to Snapple in season three.

Another thing that was interesting about watching the entire series in a week instead of over the expanse of three years is that I saw how everyone changed so much more quickly. Hairstyles—oh my word, the hair. I hated Michael’s hair for most of the series. Maria’s hair got on my nerves as well. And why did they give Max that goofy Howdy-Doody haircut? They changed it for a few episodes (when he went to LA) and he looked so much better. But oh no—right back to Howdy-Doody. And let’s not get into makeup.

And please—let’s not start in with the plot holes! I didn’t think too hard about some of them and didn’t take any of that too seriously, but still . . . sometimes it was hard to not notice the lack of logic in the storylines.

Well, I had to spew all that out. I can’t believe I watched that whole damned show in such a short period of time. Any other Roswell fans want to share some insights?

Also, has anyone else here done a “marathon” of any particular show (like 24) and if you did, do you believe that saturating yourself with the show over a short period of time altered the way you absorbed the show, or how much you enjoyed it?

I must say, it was kind of fun to do a “marathon” of a show like this, just once, but I think that’s all I’ve got in me. My brain is fried.

Hello fellow Roswell fan!

First of all where were you able to watch them all consecutively? I’d die for the dvd series but I can’t afford it just yet and they aren’t being rerun in canada as far as I can tell.

Roswell was an awesome show and i pretty much agree with your post. The characters really grew on you and surprised you in many ways. I really wish that Alex had stuck around but c’est la movie career I guess. The third season was my only disappointment I mean I stopped watching cause it was so awful and I worship the show.

The only show I’ve ever really watched consecutively would be Friends and I don’t think it diminished it at all.

Nothing else to add, just wanted to agree that Roswell was an excellant show…
Cant wait for the DVDs when they come out here next month.

So hey maybe if ya liked it so much ya could sign the petition for the movie… not like these ever work but hey worth a try!

http://www.petitiononline.com/mlmovie/petition.html

Well, nice to see some other Roswell fans!

Mr Jim, I cobbled the series together from various sources, mostly from the Internet. Some of the episodes were pretty bad quality, so I definitely will want to get the DVD set. Delly, thanks for the link! I’ll look into that.

I think seeing the whole series in such a short period of time probably made the sucky episodes less sucky to me. After all, if it sucked, so what—the next episode (that I’d be seeing in about 40 minutes) would probably be better. And so forth.

I’m not the age demographic that this show was directed towards (not a teenager or young 20-something), and at first I wasn’t sure how well I’d like it. But an interesting show is an interesting show.

I did think it was funny how the parents of all these kids were often nowhere to be found during entire episodes. I mean, how many 16-17 year old kids can go out during all hours of the night, up to who-knows-what, without being grounded? And when the kids were absent for so long, why didn’t the parents call the police? The parents sometimes seemed like tokens who looked the other way and were oblivious—and yet we are to assume that Liz’s and Max’s parents were good, active parents. Oh well, that’s television, I guess. But, there were some episodes with more realistic portrayals of parents. (Like Maria’s mom telling Michael, “Call if you need bail money.” I loved Maria’s mom.)

Like I said before, I didn’t expect that Valenti’s character would have much depth (as the “token adult” of this show) so I was pleased and surprised that they gave him as much to do as they did. Sure, he wasn’t the main star, but he was a major character with a real life. I was glad to see that. I was disappointed that they didn’t give Kyle more to do (since he evolved into a favorite of mine), but I guess had the show continued, they would have.

Yes, it is too bad about Alex leaving. The way he left was also a big surprise to me. Unfortunately, partway through season one, I’d accidentally read a spoiler which leaked Alex’s death. I knew it was coming. (I saw that Colin Hanks was only in the first two seasons, but I assumed the character was going to move away or something.) As soon as I knew that Alex died, I could not rest until I found out which episide it was. I was not enjoying watching the start of season two because I was wondering, “Is this the episode where Alex dies?” That sucked. So I did a little Google search and saw that he died later in the season so I could then enjoy the earlier episodes. What I didn’t expect was that his death would be part of such a major plot development. I had assumed (I’m always assuming!) that he’d be killed off in some tragic but unrelated event, and the show would quickly move on. But instead his death was integral to the plot and a whole mystery in itself. Very unexpected. I liked that.

A sense of humor is a major element for me in some shows, and I’ll overlook a lot of other flaws as long as the humor is there. And the humor was defnitely there with this show! I’ve found some Roswell sites with quotes from the show and I’m laughing and laughing at so many of them. What a hoot.