Roswell - The Complete Second Season
Season 2 of the cult science-fiction series Roswell opens on a promisingly positive note, with the rescue of alien teen Michael (Brendan Fehr) by Max (Jason Behr) and his pals, but as soon as things settled down, new challenges threaten their existence. That was par for the course on this imaginative program, which hit its stride in its sophomore year (2000-2001) with a tighter blend of thoughtful youth drama and otherworldly action. The season's chief threats to aliens Max, Michael, Isabel (Katherine Heigl of Grey's Anatomy), and newcomer Tess (Emilie De Ravin of Lost), and Earthlings Liz (Shiri Appleby), Maria (Majandra Delfino), and Alex (Colin Hanks) are Vanessa Whitaker (Gretchen Egolf), a congresswoman with a very sinister secret agenda, and Brody Davis (Desmond Askew), the new curator of Roswell's UFO Museum, who harbors an equally unpleasant plan for the friends. The struggle between human and alien forces, both good and evil, to uncover the truth about Max and his companions leads to a pair of shocking events--a death among the group, and in the season finale, Max, Michael, and Isabel's possible return to their home planet. Other highlights from season 2 include the imaginative period piece "Summer of '47," with the series regulars assuming the roles of townspeople and government officials at the time of the original alleged UFO crash; the two-parter "Meet the Dupes" and "Max in the City," which poses the alien quartet against their physically identical doubles (with extremely different personalities); and "A Roswell Christmas Carol," which offers an unsentimental retake on the Dickens story.

Roswell - The Complete Third Season
The sci-fi-themed teen drama Roswell begins its third and final season with Max (Jason Behr) and Liz (Shiri Appleby) back together and taking a desperate chance to find Max's son. After the many cosmic concepts of the previous season, the series dialed back the mythology to focus on the more--excuse the expression--human aspects of the characters. Roswell was often described as Dawson's Creek meets The X-Files, and accordingly Isabel (Katherine Heigel) finds romance with a lawyer (Adam Rodriguez), but struggles both with her mixed feelings about revealing her alien identity and with the aftermath of the tragedy in season 2. (The romance is later spoofed in a Bewitched-style episode.) At the same time, Max and Michael (Brendan Fehr) travel to Los Angeles in search of an alien bounty hunter that might be able to help them find Max's son. (They also find Roswell executive producer Jonathan Frakes making a guest appearance as himself.) Michael takes a night job that at first is played for laughs (in "Michael, the Gang, and the Great Snapple Caper"), then takes on threatening implications in a rousing two-parter that eventually leaves all parties not too much different from how they started. Michael also struggles in his relationship with Maria (Majandra Delfino), first when he makes new friends and later when she meets a figure from her past (Clayne Crawford) who revives a longtime music dream that might lead to bigger things. All the while, the alien trio faces the constant struggle of keeping their identities secret, even as the net seems to be tightening around them. When a key character returns in the series' penultimate episode, both the aliens and the humans they love face a critical decision.