Roswell Costumes
Last week, io9 posted a gallery of characters in costume. They featured costumes from Buffy, E.T., The Office, Supernatural, and even Gargoyles. It’s a good list that spans decades of TV shows and movies, animated and live action, sci-fi and not, so I was surprised when I got to the end of the post and saw nothing from Roswell. Most of the main cast dressed up in the pilot episode, and a few of the costumes had a clever significance. To make up for io9’s lack of Roswell goodness, here are Alex, Liz, and Max in costume. I didn’t realize the full connections on my own (especially about Ripley)—I read about them in Crash Into Me years ago. So I have an excellent memory for this sort of stuff. That’s why I’m a media student.
This one’s easy. Alex (played by Colin Hanks) dressed up as an astronaut. It’s a nice shout-out to Apollo 13 which starred Tom Hanks (his father), Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon. Alex doesn’t know about the aliens at this point, so it’s fitting that his costume is space—but not alien—related.
Liz dressed like Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) from Alien: Resurrection. It’s fitting because like Ripley, Liz is brought back to life by aliens. After a fight breaks out in the Crashdown, Liz is shot in the stomach and Max heals her, saving her life. Ripley’s DNA was mixed with alien DNA and later in Roswell, we find out the Liz also changed on a biological level when Max healed her.
Max dressed to look like an MIB agent. An alien MIB agent, oh the irony. The first time I saw the pilot, I thought the best part about the costume was that Max looked completely normal at the festival when everyone around him was dressed like space creatures. The alien looks human; the humans look alien. I love the complete reversal. Max prefers the hide-in-plain-sight strategy throughout the series and his choice of costume in the pilot certainly follows that idea.
The costumes are one of the many reasons I believe Roswell has the best pilot episode of any TV series I’ve seen. Maybe some day I’ll post my other reasons.