Roswell, New Mexico Review: Pilot (Season 1 Episode 1)

Roswell, New Mexico Season 1 Episode 1, “Pilot,” is truly out of this world! 

The CW show’s debut surpasses reboot expectations by deftly developing themes, romance, and mystery in just thirty minutes. No other reboot, or pilot episode of the 2018-2019 television season, has managed to make me as excited and hungry for the second episode as the Roswell, New Mexico pilot. 

Inclusivity Will Save You 

The five-star episode clearly establishes a political perspective, but there isn’t a soapbox in sight.  Instead, it uses several different devices to let us feel and experience the timely messages.

The most resounding theme from the pilot is: the best way to protect humanity is to be inclusive. 

The repeated imagery of the traversing of window barriers between Liz and Max helps to establish this theme. Liz’s first sighting of Max is through the framing of her rolled down car window. Then, Max and Liz make eye contact through the window of the diner, and Liz invites Max in for a shake.

At the close of the episode, Max looks on at Liz at the reunion and he flashes back to watching her dancing, once again through the barrier of the window. When Max returns to the present, Liz breaks that memory window barrier by inviting him to dance with her. 

I love that when Liz invites Max into her diner world she doesn’t turn off her Counting Crows jam. One, it shows us that Liz isn’t ashamed of herself and her quirks. Latinas like 90s soft rock too!  

Two, and more importantly, it shows us that Liz isn’t carving out a new space for her relationship with Max. She makes space within her world to include him. 

So often with young adult romances on TV, we see two outcast types find their own safe haven together. The haven is separate and new and just theirs.

There is certainly an allure to that type of romance, but it also not very healthy. Humans (and aliens too!) need to exist in a community. Isolation is a temporary fix that can actually be very toxic. 

Instead of escaping their worlds, Liz and Max are finding ways to break the barriers of loneliness that their circumstances in this small town have created. They are finding ways to be a part of this small town, together. It is messy and fraught, but hopeful too. 

The ways in which Liz, Max, and Kyle allow others to know what they are thinking and feeling also contributes to the message that the best way to protect humanity is to be inclusive. 

Kyle communicates with Liz regarding the significance of their hook-up. They DTH (define the hook-up) before getting into it. That mutual respect creates a safe space.

It is unclear where Kyle’s character is going to go with the new information about aliens in Roswell. I feel secure knowing that Kyle is the type of character to be upfront about what he believes and needs. Even if he becomes an antagonist, he will be a character we empathize with because of that inclusivity showcased on this first episode. 

Max likewise lets Liz in on what he is thinking. He easily could have just created distance between himself and Liz after their bonding flashback instead of explaining his reasoning for not kissing her. 

But, he decides to explain how she is under the influence of his feelings for her. This is like consent plus. He makes it clear that he’s not interested or willing to consider kissing Liz when she’s under the influence, but he doesn’t just make that unilateral decision, drop it on her, and call it a day. He communicates with her and that includes her in the choice.

This inclusive gesture creates trust, safety, and sweet sweet sexual tension between the two. 

We also see that in instances where exclusivity is favored, such as the siblings’ decision to not tell Liz what happened to Rosa and to continue to let the town think she caused this terrible accident, there is an ominous threat of danger.

The secrecy is meant to keep Max, Isobel, and Michael safe, but it excludes all other people from their life. Ultimately, Liz gets shot as a result of this secrecy.

Isobel and Max discuss continuing to keep this secret and others from Liz. This introduces more danger to the situation because the show has established that keeping people out lets harm in.

The voiceover we hear explaining that aliens are vicious and terrible tells us that bigotry is a huge threat to Roswell citizens. All citizens. 

So, inclusivity guards against bigotry and harm. While exclusivity, including from people who feel that they are just protecting themselves, gives bigotry a highway right into the heart of the legendary town of Roswell. 

It is worth noting, too, how inclusive the show is. The cast includes many people of color, including its Latinx lead Jeanine Mason. On the first episode, we meet characters who are undocumented, who are LGBTQ, who have physical disabilities and who have invisible disabilities. 

It is very important that both the cast and the characters they portray hold true to the theme of inclusivity that the first episode offers. 

Chemistry

The careful weaving of hearty themes in the show is the main reason the episode is so strong. In a close second, the chemistry between the actors on Roswell, New Mexico is intense and exceptional, and it elevates the pilot from great to excellent.

I ship Liz and Max fast and hard. The eye contact! The music! The lighting! All the forces come together in an unexpectedly heartstopping ID checkpoint.

This is all the more impressive considering we already know that this couple will be a thing because this is a reboot! The fact is, Jeanine Mason and Nathan Parsons together are magic. 

Their first meeting is fire, and it is zero percent contained when they get to the top of the hill for their rainbow handprint bonding session. 

I am smitten with the way the episode keeps the two apart, building the tension for their eventual first kiss. Max doesn’t know that Liz crushed on him hard back in high school. And, there is nothing that she could say on the hill to convince him of that because she is also under the influence of his love drug. 

It is so satisfying and squeal-inducing! 

The dialogue between the two of them at that moment is also just delicious. The pause between, “yes,” and “anywhere,” in Max’s response to Liz’s realization that he would have followed her after high school is some earth-shaking stuff.

Would we consider that hoverboarding? Whatever we call it, it feels great. 

The chemistry between Michael Vlamis’s Michael and Tyler Blackburn’s Alex is also piping hot from the instant they are on screen together.

Truly, the heat between these couples is a fire hazard and they should know better because they live in a desert. 

Thank goodness they don’t know better, though!

The exes reunite at the high school reunion and can barely keep their hands off each other. 

I absolutely adore the high school reunion trope on the episode. Kyle misses it but has one of the best lines in the whole episode when he expresses his regret.

KYLE: I have been working out. I’m a surgeon. It was going to be awesome!

I mean, what is a high school reunion other than a chance to subtweet your exes and former crushes irl. 

The entire high school reunion is fun to watch.

That is something about Roswell, New Mexico that stands out: it lets its audience care about deep political issues and get pleasure from the sexy and sleek couple moments at the same time. There is nothing guilty about this pleasure. 

Creator Carina MacKenzie knows that her audience can hold joy for a great high school reunion sequence with dancing and longing looks while also holding sorrow and serious reflection for the status of undocumented individuals in border states. Viewers can hold both of these types of content. 

In fact, the romantic and feels-based moments on the show actually help to ground the show for its more sciencey and political moments.

Life is like that.

One second you are caught in a memory of you and your sister weeks before she died tragically, and the next second you are gushing to your best friend about the intense connection you just made with your crush.

Life holds space for both and Roswell, New Mexico does too. 

Fine Tuning

There is little on the pilot that I don’t enjoy. It is impossible to escape the political reality of our world and I like that the show prominently features that reality, making it part of the fabric of the supernatural tale. 

I also like to feel smart. 

For me, the episode makes the political points best when it makes them subtly or through action, rather than through direct dialogue. 

When Liz thrusts out her passport to the officer as if it were a shield, as if it were armor, I really feel that.

The privilege of having documentation includes the privilege of indignation and confidence. Liz at that moment feels protected by her status as a citizen, and her bitter anger at the fact that her father does not have that protection seeps out of her gesture. 

The random bar guy’s racists comments to Maria and Maria’s rather direct calling out of those comments don’t pack the same punch. I’ve already seen examples like those in pop culture and in my own life, so they aren’t as fresh. 

And, because of the other parts of the episode that deliver that same message, the more on-the-nose references aren’t needed. 

Similarly, I find the radio guy at the diner unnecessary, especially when he goes on his rant about what the aliens are going to do, ending with, “and they’re going to take our jobs!”

The point there, that the racism and exclusion Liz faces is coming for Max, Isobel, and Michael too, is made better by the army guy’s voiceover warnings about the character of the alien species. 

The army guy is heard saying that the alien species is to be feared, is incapable of love, empathy, and kindness. The images we see while we hear this clearly illustrate how false that is. That, then, is an illustration of how wrong those ideas are when they are applied to undocumented people. 

I feel smart when I watch that because the show trusts that I know that is how undocumented, and Mexican people especially, are stereotyped in society. It also trusts that I can make the connection between these different groups in Roswell. 

That trust is slightly tarnished when the show directly tells me something that I already got from the more indirect storytelling.

But, the episode is a pilot and there is always going to be more exposition and explanation in the first episode.

I do hope that as the show continues it leans into the subtle and indirect messaging.  

Maria is the least developed of the main characters on the show so far. On the original show, Michael and Maria were an item, so the romantic possibilities for Maria are open at this point. 

The show has a great opportunity with Maria to provide some much needed asexual and/or aromantic representation. Maria is a woman of color with the darkest complexion on the show and is a bartender at the local bar. 

Latinx women with dark complexions are often overly sexualized in media. I mean, all Latinx women are overly sexualized in the media, but especially those with darker skin tone. And women who like to dance and drink are also often encumbered by an overtly sexualized gaze. 

It would be really interesting and freeing to see a character like Maria have an asexual and/or aromantic identity. 

However her character develops, I am eager to see more of Maria. 

Diner Dish

Every week, I’ll be including a Diner Dish at the end of the review to share my favorite lines and to dish about the many mysteries on the show. Here is the first Diner Dish.

• What IS Michael working on in that trailer! That science looks serious, probably quantum. 
• Isobel says that Max can’t be with Liz because of secrets, plural. So what secret is there other than their role in what happened to Rosa? And, how were they involved with what happened to Rosa! Did Isobel mess with Rosa’s mind so that she thought she was going crazy? If so, does that mean Rosa started doing drugs because of Isobel? 
• When Max shouts, “I’m not asking for permission!” everyone looks confused, including Max. Is this a sign of a latent alien quality in Max that will lead bigots to hurt him? I’m scared of that!
• What the deal with Liz’s mom?
• Liz says she doesn’t dance anymore in this town. So, she mentions dancing. That means we’re going to get to see her legit dancing, right? RIGHT?!
• I love that Max’s power isn’t soft and warm. It is explosive and big!
• “I don’t think Michael likes the world enough to bother changing it.” – Isobel
• “I like protecting people, it helps me sleep at night.” – Max
• “I’m just aligning myself with your feminist agenda, Sheriff.” – Max
• “Fine. I’ll kiss you then.” – Liz

What did you think of this episode of Roswell, New Mexico? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Roswell, New Mexico airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.

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