ROSWELL on PLANET-SF

Roswell was one of those series that passed by 95% of viewers, but to those who did find it, it seems to have made more of an impression than most television series do.

Unsurprisingly for a WB series of its time, it mixes teenage drama with science-fiction, as alien hybrids Max Evans (Behr), his sister Isabel (Heigl) and their friend Michael Guerin (Fehr) find their lives in danger after Max saves waitress Liz Parker (Appleby) after she's shot in the Crashdown Cafe that her parents own.

Based on the Roswell High novel series, Roswell is aimed at an older audience than its source material.

This shift manifests itself in several ways. Apart from Max, Michael and Isabel, the books' alien characters are eliminated. In their place are the mysterious Nasedo and a fourth alien, Tess, who appear towards the end of the season. Valenti, the town's sheriff (Sadler), is also more ambiguous than his counterpart in the books who is part of an alien taskforce called Project Clean Slate.

Other alterations include making both Liz and Maria only children, changing the ownership of the UFO Center and the addition of Kathleen Topolsky, a mysterious guidance counsellor played by Julie Benz.

With the possible exception of the "Royal Four" idea, all of these changes are to the better, making the characters more three-dimensional and making Valenti's actions more intruiging.

Central to the show's success was the casting, with the regulars all uniformly excellent. The relationships between the teen regulars are all totally believeable, while William Sadler quickly moves from the stock local sheriff into something much more interesting. His willingness to trust Max in the season finale shows just how much the character develops over the season.

Other regular characters like Alex (Hanks) and Valenti's son, Kyle (Wechsler) are rounded characters, while there are some nice turns from the parents, especially Diane Farr as Amy DeLuca.

It would be remiss of me not to comment on the eye candy on display here, and it's excellent, notably Shiri Appleby, Katherine Heigl and, in the final half dozen episodes, Emilie de Ravin as fourth alien Tess. More importantly, all are excellent in their roles.

In the UK, the first season was known as Roswell High on both Sky One and BBC Two. The former was uncut as far as I'm aware, but was in 4:3 and broken for ads, while the BBC showed it in 16:9 but annoying cut it for a 6pm timeslot.

Therefore the ability to watch the series as it was intended would be something to applaud, if only we could watch it as it was originally intended. However, as the back of the DVD case informs us, Roswell has been subjected to music substitutions (or, as the cover tries to spin it "includes new cutting edge songs selected by the original Roswell music team!).

I suppose Fox should at least be applauded for admitting to the substitution on the packaging, but I dislike their attempt to portray this as a positive development. Executive producer Jason Katims tries to put a spin on it in his letter to the fans in the 8-page booklet, but I'm not remotely convinced that his view that the new music is better is right.

It would be easy to turn this into a rant, and obviously any DVD release is better than no DVD, but it's both annoying and noticeable. Some of the music has been retained (such as Sarah McLachlan when Liz is healed, the Dave Matthews Band at the end of the first episode and Save Ferris when Isabel dreamwalks Alex), but other tracks, such as Beck's "Novacane" when Michael takes up painting have been replaced by inferior tracks.

Many fans have put the blame on the music rights holders, but as far as I'm concerned, they're just trying to protect their interests. Fox are more culpable because they should have either secured the DVD rights in the first place or done more to preserve as much of the music as possible.

Obviously they would argue that they did, and to have paid the rights to other tracks would have made the set extortionately expensive. However, I can't help thinking that instead of releasing all three seasons over just seven months, a slower release schedule would have enabled them to assess the sales figures of the first set and see if these justified paying to retain more of the original music.

Okay, rant over and time for a quick look at the extras.

Six episodes have optional commentaries - Katims and director David Nutter on the Pilot, Nutter alone on Blood Brother, writer/exec producer Thania St. John on The Balance, Shiri Appleby and Majandra Delfino on Sexual Healing and Crazy and Katims and director Patrick Norris on Destiny.

The six episodes are well chosen, and the commentaries are reasonably interesting. Katims has an annoying habit of saying "you know" every three or four words, but there's some interesting information in them, while Appleby and Delfino make a good partnership as you'd expect.

The pair also feature in the set's only deleted scene, which is set after Liz's shooting in the Pilot. There are also two audition scenes featuring Emilie de Ravin and Sensefield's video for "Save Yourself", which stars Shiri Appleby.

Finally, there are a couple of featurettes. Behind the Scenes of Roswell mixes some EPK footage with what seems like more recent interviews with a couple of the cast (Colin Hanks seems to be attempting a Robinson Crusoe beard), while Roswell High: The Making of Roswell has the books' author Melinda Metz and editor Laura J. Burns discussing the novels and their transition to television.

If it wasn't for the music substitution, I would regard this set as a must-have (I'd also have given it 10/10). It says something about my feelings about this that despite my love of the show, I waited until I could pick up all three seasons for less than fifty quid before buying it. Maybe Fox couldn't have done more, but maybe, just maybe, a slower release schedule would at least have persuaded them to pay for a few more tracks for the second and third seasons.

As it is, the DVD does at least provide an opportunity to watch the series uncut (well, apart from the music, obviously) and in widescreen and, despite all the replaced music, the quality of the series still shines through. back to the top

ROSWELL
THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON

Starring SHIRI APPLEBY,
JASON BEHR,
MAJANDRA DELFINO, BRENDAN FEHR,
COLIN HANKS, KATHERINE HEIGL,
WILLIAM SADLER,
NICK WECHSLER

20TH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT

REGION 2 DVD (CERTIFICATE 12)

RATING: 8/10

NEXT RELEASE:
THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON