Modern day America gets a slap on the wrist in the reboot
of the 1999 sci-fi series, Roswell, now aptly titled Roswell, New Mexico. It
shy’s away from the teenage sweethearts take
of the original series, and is rather an adaptation of author Melinda Metz’s
original Roswell High book series, whose main character is a Latin American
named Liz Ortecho.
The
series speaks volumes of what is happening in America. The premise of aliens
living secretly in the Southwest resonates strongly with fear, division, and
bigotry in modern America. And the series embraces the LGBTTQQIAAP
(lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning,
intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual) community by introducing a gay alien (or as
I say, gaylien!).
In the season premiere (Friday 21 June at 20:00 on M-Net City, DStv
channel 115) Liz (Jeanine Mason) decides to return to her hometown of Roswell after
she’s been away for more than a decade. At her family diner, she meets up with
her high school crush, Max (Nathan Parsons) who is an alien who lives in
constant fear he will be exposed to. His [gaylien] brother Michael (Michael
Vlamis) and sister Isobel (Lily Cowles) also have to hide their true
identities.
Executive producer Carina Adly MacKenzie told The
Hollywood Reporter "I thought it wasn't the right project for me. I
had been on The Originals for the whole
five-season run, and after that, I really wanted to lean away from sci-fi and
fantasy and do something with a political angle. I wanted a project that really
said something."
For her and fellow executive producer Julie Plec (who also worked on The
Originals) the pitch to TV execs was important. "They're expecting this
teen sci-fi thing, and I went in like: These characters are almost 30, their
lives are really hard, the lead girl has a chip on her shoulder because she's
tired of being marginalized in 2018, and also there's aliens! I didn't really
think that was the way they'd want to go, but they did."
Comments
Post a Comment