thumper1944

Writers sometime have a vision- but usually its directed by the producer. Problem was that Katims never really had a vision on how the series should go- and he kept tinkering with it, prodded by the empty suits at the network (s). If this was about Max and Liz then you keep that central; don't throw it out and then think you can just bring it back and no one will notice. Add to that the network wanted to make Heigle the star (and its well known she did not get along with Shiri) and a mess was there to be made. Tess was a very wasted charactor- making her evil was just plain dumb. It would have been much more interesting to have made some of the Dupes really evil right off the bat in the end of season one, to set up the battles of season two. Another really stupid plot twist was the whole whole FBI special unit- typical hollywood stupidity there. If you were going to go evil with the government use the military. That whole thing was badly done. And Nicholas was a real joke as a bad guy. Maybe a better child actor could have carried it off but I don't know.

Here is how I would have done the show:

Season one all about Max and Liz, with the others gradually filling out their charactors; about halfway through the skins show and are beaten at the very end-then bring in the dupes as the threat for season two. No special unit.

Season two about the battle with the dupes and Tess showing up but not becoming evil.
By the end of season two they now know what they are supposed to do on Antar.

Season three they learn more about Antar; the Granolith shows up and the part with Max and healing and Brody and such. Liz is accepted to Harvard and she has to choose. Right at the end the word comes back that the resistance is in bad trouble and they need the Royal Four to have a chance to take down Kivar.

Season 4 is the battle for Antar- getting there, all that goes on, at the end the final battle.

Season 5 King Max and Queen Elizabeth and their coronation at the start of the season, then they start to rebuild Antar and all the troubles there in, as they find out that winning a war is only the first step.

And that is where I would have ended the series.

ana julia

Awww, David Nutter and Thania St James

Ok, lot of things to comment (BTW, I'm loving this thread right now )

First, I have problems with Katims and with Tigelaar.

If I have to choose, my issues with Tigelaar are nothing in comparison with my issues with Katims . The only positive thing he did after S1 was The end of the word, Ch-ch-changes and Liz and Max's wedding (I was going to write "Cate" and Max )
I have to give him credit for giving US a happy ending and not the one HE would have preferred.
I think he loved his show but hated us, at a point .

Liz is an excellent writer. I love the way she finishes what she starts. All has an explanation, she loves her characters, she has the best intentions.
When I think about how long we waited for the truth about TEOTW, and that they didn't even mention it, when they had 2 seasons to fill....then Tigelaar is in a pedestal for me.
This doesn't mean I'm going to follow her after LUX. I'll follow Shiri, like always, but not the rest. BTW, I hate that she has to go through the same twice….

But I was talking about Liz. My biggest problem with her is that she sold me one thing and she’s imposing me another.
To honour the truth I’ve always said the announced changes sucked but I also imagined once she realised viewers weren’t happy she would try to change direction.
No, instead of listening to the public she reinforced the changes, and, let me tell you, not even Katims on his worst moment was so obstinate.
As an example, comments on FB (to the cast, to Liz…) are “nicer” and much more diplomatic than in a message board. And usually we leave good comments and try to avoid the ones that might hurt. So, when people start complaining it’s because they are really annoyed, and if that matches with a drop on ratings you must pay attention to the things they are stating. Maybe you won’t be able to change what’s taped but, at least, send signals that you are listening.
I have nothing against Emma C. but from 5 messages, 4 were “Emma played cards”. “Emma went to toilet”, “You can’t believe what Emma said!”….
Now, if 3 out of 5 people comments below those posts were: “but we miss the family”, “where is CB?”,…(with 4 or 5 “like” from other people), then you are not smart at all if you go on posting the same statements and the same pics. You are not giving the right signal.

Shiri was smart when she created the Cast page to promote the season with the “original” characters; and was more than clever when she started posting pics of CB because it was the thing the fans were asking for. It’s the same thing she does with Roswell and when she talks about Jason Behr…

Maybe my biggest problem with Katims and Tigelaar, is that on trying to catch new viewers they betrayed (sorry if it sounds too strong) the ones they already had.
But then I think: We fell in love with some part of their shows and made them "our shows". But they are still "their shows".
They'll never live up to our expectations, once we make them ours.

*Coccy*

thumper i love your fanfiction


well.. he said that he had always wanted to end it with them getting married He said it in the commentary of graduation that he always had this vision and it helped him to write the story.
now i don't know if he lied or maybe he originally wanted them to get married and then die because a tragic ending is cool... who knows

honestly he always said amazing things about them, when I listen to the commentaries he's just so obvious... he doesn't talk about the other characters the way he talks about M&L (same goes for Ronald Moore) in fact i noticed that the fans of the other characters always kinda resented him for that (i guess that everyone hated him ) . Yes he tortured we dreamers, maybe his was a dysfunctional love toward the couple

Sometimes i got the impression that the show got canceled because the writers, at one point, wrote the endings that they wanted and they didn't care about what the WB wanted anymore (Ronald Moore kinda admitted it) but of course it was too late to repair the damage and they lost viewers however.
The truth is always in the middle and i think that everything was way more complicate than what the rumors make it seems that it was.
Can't blame everything on the wb but i can't blame everything on the writers too because they admitted that they were never free to write things like they wanted (even when they were with the UPN, all the networks are more or less the same) and being always in the bubble of cancellation didn't make things easy either.

good point

i think that in roswell's case by the time the third season aired many fans didn't care about it anymore because the second season pissed them off
when the expectations are so high it's easy to get disappointed regardless if a season is really that bad or not.
Personally i stopped to watch so many shows that i lost the count. At one point i simply didn't care anymore. With roswell it didn't happen but i understand the feeling because i felt the same toward other shows.


ps: don't hate me but i think that Liz Tigelaar is a bit overrated, Lux's writing is nowhere better than roswell for me. Although the shows are so different that it's hard to compare them.

ana julia

I laughted so much with your post

Yes, and critics are in order when everything finished

After season 2, season 3 was a bliss

Same here!

For me she is overrated, too . But it's been 10 years and I can't believe Roswell left us without one single reference to Future Max So, for me everything is better than that!
Well, and I love melodrama

BBBoBBB

Katims and Moore were absolutely horrible in completing storylines, in continuity, and in keping track of the mythology of the series.

Ana Julia mentioned Future Max, good device to allow them to bury Shiri in the background, but never resolved. In fact, the last half of season 2 completely contradicted what Future Max said and no explanation was given.

How about the Granalith?? Object of intergalactic veneration, and source of incalculable power, time travel device, and it ends up being a bottle rocket??

Michael heals River Dog then never is able to heal anybody ever after??

Khivar, the boogyman that was supposed to be all powerful, rulers on other worlds trembled at hearing his name, and Isabel took care of him in one episode?? Knocked him back to his own world?? Yeah, right.

The list goes on.

I personally hated season three. I had no use for the Isabel character and even tho she's had tremendous success, don't think Heigl is that good an actress. She obviously couldn't carry Roswell. The more the show focused on Isabel the lower the ratings became.

I don't know if stubbornness is the reason that Liz is carrying through with stories the viewers have no interest in. By the time the show started to air, and by the time the fans started to react by turning the channel, the episodes had already been written and 6 or 7 were already shot. She didn't have ability to change the things that were already completed.

I don't remember anything in LU so far that seemed to be dropped into an episode for the emotional punch then was dropped and never dealt with again. Roswell was full of them. What ever happened to Ava for instance?? All she appeared in Roswell for was to tell Liz that Max had changed her??

At least LU seems to have some degree of continuity, it actually appears that some is watching the show and keeping track of the different story threads.

The fans shouldn't know the characters better then the writers. The fans shouldn't remember what happened in the past episodes of the show better then the show runner and writers.

And I have to disagree with you about being stubborn about hearing and reacting to the fans' complaints. Katims had 21 episodes in S2, he started to hear complaints about the lack of Liz time after the first 3 or 4 episodes. His reaction?? Less Liz. One of the fans' favorite characters and she got 2 or 3 minutes in an episodes and had very little to do even then.

Crystaline

That's exactly it. They alienated the hardcore fans in an attempt to make the show more attractive and flashy to gain ratings. And the sad thing is when that fails (and it has, twice over), those same hardcore fans are all they have left.

thumper1944

Forgot a very basic tenant of entertainment: Do NOT piss off your core audience while trying to get more. It virtually NEVER works. As a matter of fact I cannot think of any show that changed course after a season or two and that change made it much more popular.

BBBoBBB

Some of the most hard core fans of Roswell that I knew only saw season 1 in reruns over the summer before season 2. They were hooked and were looking forward to more of the same, underplayed scifi, a bit of native american mythology tossed in, great love story, etc. They tuned in to see answers to some of the questions that were raised in the first season.

Then season 2 started. Shiri's Liz Parker really captured the imagination of a lot of viewers who wanted to see her story continue and quit watching when it was obvious that she wouldn't get much to do during season 2.

It was a shame that most of the mythology and storylines that were laid down in season 1 were never pursued in future seasons.

Thumper1944, I heard that UPN told Katims when they bought Roswell the same thing, don't piss off the fans.

ana julia

Today, calmer, I think it was her first show and she was kind of pressured by the numbers, the channel and the new opportunity, and couldn't measure the consequences of the changes she was introducing. Very naïve of her.

As all of you stated, attacking the core of a show and when the numbers are just there is like jumping from a plane without parachute.

My problems with her are 2:

1) She wrote S2 as if she had been given 2 seasons and not 13 episodes. And investing all the 13 episodes, with no chance of changing direction or considering an early ending was a suicide.

2) If fans are asking for “an apple and no more water”, and you don’t have the apple, at least don’t piss them off posting pictures of “more water”. If those fans represent 10% of the audience you won’t have problem, but if they are the 50%...I mean: cheat them, at least!

Exactly. And that’s why I say Tigelaar is Shakespeare in comparison with Katims

I understand. I meant she was stubborn because a couple of us told her (or wrote) we didn’t like the announcements she was doing before the season began…We disliked so many new characters and the direction the season was going to follow.
The complaints have been massive for some weeks, but some of us tried to express our minds when she was planning it.
I even remember a poll (that I know she read) where fans were asked for their favourite S1 episode. Well, more than 90% choose the “family episode”. So she can’t say she didn’t know.

Katims was mean , and Liz is just “not smart” when it comes to public.

And I feel more than an idiot because in both cases I campaigned, like crazy, for their shows to be renewed

Crystaline

Hence putting Max and Liz back together. But he still did a piss poor job of it if you ask me.

GrhmLz

Absolute WORD to this! I remember all this and some of the commentary still sticks in the back of my mind to this day. S1, shifted into something else come S2 (which I can deal with part of) and then S3 - well, let me stop there! I can't stand that season.

THIS is what I started to miss most this season. It wasn't like I expected CB to be together right away but it was like ALL direction for them kind of ceased and Liz/CW had these characters settling down into one, big ole' blended family unit with CR drama taking center stage. CB took a backseat and so did C/B/Lux. We even cut short for some one on one - Cate/Lux and Baze/Lux time.

Absolute WORD to your whole post - I so agree with it!

OMG, yes! I mean, c'mon. MT do the nasty, she get's knocked up, kills Alex, AND now it's okay for ML to be together without the world ending?! Yeah, okay. I'm sure that set up makes for a very 'awesome' and 'powerful' foursquare that is needed to bring down Kivar and defeat him for good now.

Yeah, to be honest, I was a bit disappointed by this whole direction too but I think I was just shell-shocked by the 'sudden' ending. I mean, silly me, at the very least - since we were dealing with 'aliens' and not 'astronauts', I expected such a flying device to at least resemble more of a spaceship rather than a pint size rocket built for two.

Yup, that it does. The CHADS are endless.

I'm there with you. With a few minor exceptions like Ch-ch-changes, I have no use for this season. For me, it's like watching a new show with new characters and storyline direction. I just can't reconcile it to S1 - which made me fall in love with Roswell.

If I have to compare continuity holes between LUX and Roswell, Roswell wins by far in my book. The one thing Roswell and LUX S2 share in common would be placing certain characters and character relationships in the background and treating them with secondary importance in the storyline (Liz/ML vs. CB/CBL). At least, for me, that stands true. LUX appears to have done a lot more of shoving things to the background while Roswell just completely dropped important things without a revisitation at all.

WORD. Even Majandra (Maria) herself spoke out in an interview back then on Shiri's behalf and admitted that she didn't like how both Shiri and her character onset were getting the shaft as S2 progressed all the way to the end. If I remember correctly, I think Majandra said she herself even threatened to walk off the set she was so frustrated. I guess she really had her girl's (Shiri's) back on this particular issue.

Liz's time onscreen was very clearly diminishing throughout the second season in my eyes. That appeared pretty intentional to me in order to move forward more strongly with MT. The show slowly shifted to a stronger alien/alien relationship based theme and moved slowly away from the more dominant alien/human relationship theme of S1.

thumper1944

bottom line with both shows is that the producer, who is supposed to be the one to guide it, screwed the pooch. Whether it was arrogance or vanity, stupidity, whatever, they blew both shows. And its a continuing theme on TV over the years. No one ever seems to learn the lesson: when you have a core audience, consider what they want in everything you do.

ana julia

Exactly!

Crystaline

And on the flipside for many shows, there's also the danger of pandering too much to the fans and ruining a story. That was the problem with Lost. They never had any big master plan. They were pretty much only throwing sht at the wall to see what would stick for 6 years. But that show was a different ballgame compared to Roswell and LUX. They had huge ratings. They weren't at the mercy of their network. They had a massive online fanbase. So.. not really comparable.

*Coccy*

don't let me start about LOST O____O
i should have listened to my friends who always teased me about it saying that i cared so much about the plot and the mysteries when the writers would never give the answers anyway.

lost writers are hands down way worse than Liz, Katims and many others. Mostly because they believe that they're geniuses
really don't let me start about them.... i still can't believe that they were able to say that something was "A" one moment and then totally deny it one moment later making it seem that some fans are fools when actually they got it right and even the writers themselves originally agreed with them.


i agree that most of the shows get ruined by the last seasons.
Honestly i don't remember i single show that i watched that didn't got crappy seasons after the first one or two. I guess that some people should work for the movies instead of tv-shows because they suck when they need to develop long term things.

On the other hand i don't understand how is possible that some shows have good ratings and are renewed for so many seasons. Good ratings doesn't automatically mean quality.
Smallwille isn't smallwille anymore, i think that right now it's "the new adventures of Lois and Clark" how many seasons they have?
what about "gossip girl"? horrible show with horrible characters.
"7th Heaven" is another mystery. I get that it was a show for the families, i even liked the first seasons (my mom used to watch it while she was making dinner ) but the last seasons are atrocious something that the families and kids definitely shouldn't watch.