(original air date: October 6, 1999)

They Met Cute

Liz: You're not an alien, are you?    Multimedia Episode Trailer (1.4Mb Quicktime movie)    Related Links The WB network Max: I prefer the term 'not of this Earth.' Joke, sorry.

Maria: One was like a muscular Beavis and the other one was like a chunky Butthead. The Deputy: I'm going to need a better description than that. I’m assuming theyweren’t actually cartoons.

Liz: Where're you from? Max: [points up] Liz: You're from up north?

Written by Jason Katims
Directed by David Nutter

ADDITIONAL CREDITS

Michael Horse - The Deputy

WHAT HAPPENED

Liz Parker is a sassy teenager in Roswell, NM, where a flying disk -- believed by many to have been a UFO -- crashed into the desert a half-century before. According to her voiceover, which frames this episode and probably all future episodes, this is the story of how she died two weeks previously.

When an apparently unrelated diner dispute turns ugly, a classmate miraculously heals Liz of a gunshot wound and later reveals to her that he is in fact from outer space. The shooting, meanwhile, precipitates a police investigation, which the couple and their friends must thwart. (more detailed spoilers)

ANALYSIS

Let's get one thing straight. We might have moved to New Mexico when I was very young, but we did in fact come from "up north," not from "up there."

That said, I found the first episode of Roswell to be an extremely charming -- maybe even haunting -- depiction of what my southwestern adolescence was like.... (complete analysis)

DANGLING PLOT THREADS

At the moment, everything's still up in the air. We know very little about the characters, the aliens or the mysteries of what happened in 1947. Who was the Hand Killer, and where did he (or she) end up? Why does Sheriff Valenti hate the aliens so much -- is it simply an attempt to prove to the world that his father, "Sergeant Martian," was right all along, or something else going on?

Do the aliens need Tabasco to live, or are they simply fond of spicy food? Either way, is this why the ship landed in New Mexico, or was it simply good luck that they ended up in the land of salsa?

If the show keeps close to traditional UFO explanations of the Roswell incident, then the government almost certainly dragged the wrecked spaceship away. If so, how did the pod containing Max, Isabel and Michael survive unnoticed?

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK

Reruns continue. Having survived the Crash Festival, the gang tries to get on with their everyday lives in "The Morning After."