|
The drama of alien life continues for the teenage inhabitants
of Roswell, New Mexico where
a trail of devastation has been left in the aftermath of Tess's
shock departure. Tess has taken Max's unborn child back to
their home planet and Max is feeling alone and confused towards
Tess and his unborn son, heir to the throne. The third and
final piece in the Roswell jigsaw sees the aliens' true identities
become known to more people, and a number of tough decisions
need to be made...
The
third, and final, season of Roswell continues to follow
the exploits of the three aliens and their human co-conspirators
as they try to keep their true identity a secret.
As
with season two, the producers seem not to have a clear plan
of where this season is heading. There appears to be no real
path with which the writers can stick to. This means that
what we are left with is a collection of exciting storylines
that never seem to be truly exploited to their full potential.
This could be down to the fact that a third series was never
really on the cards and so when they got the go ahead the
writers had to make things up as they went along. This
season also sees a drop in the number of episodes - 18 when
compared to season one's 22 and season two's 21.
Despite
the fact that nothing really flows properly from one episode
to the next (Michael manages to be in charge for about five
minutes, Max dies for about five minutes, Liz leaves Roswell
for five minutes, Isobel gets married in five minutes, and
someone makes a surprise return for five minutes) this is
still an enjoyable third season.
Roswell
is not usually at it's best when it 'does comedy'. Sadly,
apart from Katherine Heigl (Isobel) and Nick Wechsler (Kyle),
none of the other young actors seem to be able to pull off
anything other than their moody teenager roles. Nowhere is
this more evident than in I Married An Alien. This
Bewitched parody is (surprisingly) a very funny episode,
and one of my favourite this season, despite the fact that
the other actors just aren't up to the challenge of camping
up their roles. Brendan Fehr (Michael) almost manages to pull
it off, but Jason Behr (Max) looks uncomfortable and ends
up just playing a clueless Max.
Samuel
Rising is this season's Christmas episode. It just (and
only just) manages to steer clear of sentimental pap - what
with it's sickly sweet autistic, cute little boy storyline.
But there is plenty of comedy to be had as Michael takes on
the role of Roswell's very own Santa. The kids seeing Santa
and one of the elves (Maria) in an apparent sexual position
(although in reality Michael's belt has managed to get caught
to Maria's elf costume) is about the funniest scene in this
season.
Maybe
it's a good job that Roswell didn't get a fourth season.
The number of people who know about the aliens grows every
year and it wouldn't have been long before there were more
people in Roswell that knew the secret than those that didn't.
And the number of villains who appeared in this season was
beyond belief. Towards the end it seems that every other episode
had a new villain after the aliens' blood - so they really
did a terrible job of keeping their secret.
It
was also great to see Colin Hanks return briefly as Alex Whitman.
And there are other interesting guest stars. Millennium
and Harsh Realm fans will be glad to see that Terry
O'Quinn appears in Michael, The Guys and The Great Snapple
Caper. Other notable guest stars include Jonathan Frakes
and John Billingsley (Enterprise) Interestingly enough
it is rumoured that Frakes originally wanted Enterprise's
captain Scott Bakula to appear in this episode, but Bakula
declined.
It
would appear that the producers realised that a fourth season
wasn't going to happen, (actually the show's executive producer,
Jason Katims, states this in his audio commentary for the
final episode, Graduation) as all of the events are
finally wrapped up and closure is given to the series. This
works really well and I have to admit to having a lump in
my throat during the final scenes.
The
extras are pretty poor on this collection. All fans get are
audio commentaries on a few episodes and a Class Of 2002
featurette. As this is the shows final year there really should
have been a few more extras thrown in.
Despite
the fact that this is a whole mixed bag of half thought out
ideas and plot threads, the final season of Roswell
is still a winner. And the fact you can buy this for less
than £40 is all the excuse you need to add this to your
collection.
Nick
Smithson
Buy
this item online
We
compare prices online so you get the cheapest
deal!
Click on the logo of the desired store below
to purchase this item.
|
|
|
£27.99
(Amazon.co.uk) |
| |
|
|
|
£35.99
(MVC.co.uk) |
| |
|
|
|
£35.99
(Streetsonline.co.uk) |
All prices correct at time of going to press.
|
|
