The Powers that Be!

[singerchic4]

I just had a thought for an interesting discussion topic. The story of Roswell was originally a Romeo and Juliet love story (between M&M and M&L). The pilot is a big indicator of this. I bet that when Jason Katims was writing and shooting the pilot he would have NEVER imaged an episode like "I Married An Alien" would ever happen.

The part of the writing process that I think would be interesting to talk about is the affect of the studio execs and ratings on the show's canon. I think it would be interesting to look at each mistake and weird character occurrence that made you say "what the heck" that just didn't seem to fit in the wonderfully enchanting story that was the first half of the first season. This show was so close to being cancelled a dozen times and as a result a lot of weird antics took place in acts of desperation.

I've heard for one, that the studio execs had scenes of the pilot reshot. I also noticed the stark contrast between the dress of the main characters from Destiny to Skin and Bones. I mean seriously?! These kids are supposed to be like juniors in high school and they dressed as such in season 1, but then all of a sudden Isabel is dressed in leather pants and halter tops. And this all came into affect because they heard their mom's message? No way, its the ratings man!

From this:
http://episodes.bittersweetblue.net/the ... VD_011.jpg
http://episodes.bittersweetblue.net/des ... VD_113.jpg
http://episodes.bittersweetblue.net/des ... VD_280.jpg

to this:
http://episodes.bittersweetblue.net/ski ... VD_113.jpg
http://episodes.bittersweetblue.net/ski ... VD_150.jpg
http://episodes.bittersweetblue.net/ski ... VD_148.jpg
http://episodes.bittersweetblue.net/ski ... VD_057.jpg

Another one is that I think towards the end of the second season they were pretty sure that they were going to be cancelled and decided that they needed a way to get the aliens off the planet for a good reason. Hence, the whole tess pregnant debacle. If they were cancelled, they all left. If not, have them stay and have Tess be a murderous bitch. I mean you can't seriously think that storyline would have fit in with the misfits that went south on 285 and interviewed each other for history class, can you?

The whole alien crystals thing--hello? Random! They promoted that chunk of episodes as "the crystals chronicles" or something weird like that.

I also heard that Katims didn't want to reveal the four alien until later in the first season but the network made them bump it up.

What else do you think got passed down by the powers that be?