Roswell

The pilot episode was 20th Century Fox's highest-testing episode up to that point.

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Fearing the series would be cancelled in its first season, Roswell fans sent the WB network small bottles of Tabasco sauce (the condiment favored by the aliens on the show) as part of a campaign to save it. Roswell was subsequently moved to a new night and time slot and renewed for a second season.

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Before taking the role of Isabel Evans, Katherine Heigl tested for all three female leads. Majandra Delfino first auditioned for the role of Liz before winning the part of Maria DeLuca, and Shiri Appleby, like Heigl, eventually tested for all three female leads, winning the lead role of Liz Parker after several callbacks.

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An hour of unaired footage from the episode "The Departure" circulates online. The episode was originally two hours long, but at the last minute the WB network gave Roswell only its regular one-hour slot, so they had to cut an hour of footage to fit the episode into the time slot.

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The newspaper clippings shown at the start of the series' opening credits are the real headlines from the infamous Roswell "UFO Crash" of July 1947.

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Brendan Fehr (Michael) and Majandra Delfino (Maria) were not only romantically involved on the show; they were also a couple in real life and were even briefly engaged.

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In the scenes where the aliens eat, V8 Berry Splash was used instead of real Tabasco sauce. When the production team tried to use real Tabasco sauce, the actors' eyes kept watering and they teared up after every take.

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Although Isabel graduates before Max and ages him, in real life Katherine Heigl is five years younger than Jason Behr (Max Evans).

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Throughout the series, various characters make jokes about growing up to work at the "cheese factory" (most notably in the first season, third episode, "Monsters"). In reality, Roswell is home to a large production facility of Leprino Foods, the world's largest mozzarella producer.

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Heath Ledger auditioned for the role of Max Evans.

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, Majandra Delfino and Brendan Fehr hosted a series together on Instagram Live, where they rewatched and reacted to several episodes of the show along with fans.

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FOX was originally going to air the series but decided at the last minute not to. The WB Network bought the rights instead, but disliked the original pilot episode, so they had parts of it reshot. This means an unaired original pilot exists and circulates online.

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The "Twilight" books and the films that followed, especially the first installment, share many plot similarities with "Roswell." So much so that some have called "Twilight" a copy of "Roswell."

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The mountain the alien children come from (and often return to) is the same mountain Captain Kirk climbed in an episode of Star Trek (1966). It was also used as the mountain where Bill and Ted are brought to be killed by the evil robots in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991), and in Fastlane (2002), where Van and Deq go to meet a weapons dealer (and their car is hit by a rocket launcher).

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Nick Wechsler auditioned for four different roles.

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Similarities between Katherine Heigl's characters on "Roswell (1999)" and "Grey's Anatomy (2005)": in each, the character Isabel/Isobel talks and dances with a dead lover, is extremely particular about holidays, and dates a man named Alex.

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In late 1999, before the series aired, early WB promos featured a voiceover referring to Shiri Appleby's character as Liz Porter. When the pilot aired, her character's name had been changed to Liz Parker.

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As actress Majandra Delfino did in real life, the character Maria sang several times throughout the series, and over the years she released many albums and singles.

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Although it is claimed that the name given to the alien Nasedo is a Hindi word meaning "visitor," it was in fact invented by the series' co-producer and writer Thania St. John by scrambling the letters of the Arizona town of Sedona.

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Starting with season 3, in the series' opening title sequence the names of the stars who play the aliens (Max, Michael and Isabel) appear on screen first as "alien writing" and then transform into English.

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Sheriff Valenti was played by William Sadler, who portrayed Death in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991); that film also used the same mountain-face location where the pod chambers are hidden in Roswell.

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Although Diane Farr (Amy) and Majandra Delfino (Maria) played mother and daughter, Farr is only about 12 years older than Delfino.

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Majandra Delfino (Maria) was married to Devon Gummersall (Sean), who played her cousin on the series, between 2007 and 2008.

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Early in the first season, Michael calls Max by the nickname "Maximilian." From that point on, he instead calls him Maxwell.

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Brendan Fehr (Michael) and Adam Rodriguez (Jesse) both appeared on CSI: Miami (2002) and The Night Shift (2014).

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Jason Dohring (Jerry), Kristoffer Polaha (Eric Hughes) and Jason Behr (Max) all worked with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Dohring and Polaha worked with her on Ringer (2011), while Behr worked with her on The Grudge (2004) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997). Polaha also worked with Shiri Appleby (Liz) on Life Unexpected (2010).

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Brendan Fehr (Michael) plays the grandfather of Allison Lange (Laurie Dupree). In Christina's House (2000), they play boyfriend and girlfriend.

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According to Jason Katims, Majandra Delfino asked early in the series that her character Maria not be romantically paired with Brendan Fehr's character Michael. Intrigued, Katims decided to pair them anyway, and the result was extraordinary chemistry between the two characters. The two actors eventually had a real-life relationship for the remainder of the series.

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Colin Hanks and Katherine Heigl were born on the same day, exactly one year apart.

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Brendan Fehr (Michael Guerin) and Adam Rodriguez (Jesse Ramirez) worked together again on The Night Shift (2014), playing Dr. Drew Allister and Dr. Joey Chavez respectively. As on Roswell, only Fehr's character appears in the first season of The Night Shift, with both Fehr's and Rodriguez's characters appearing in later seasons.

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Although the series is primarily set in New Mexico, most of the filming took place in Covina, California.

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On the October 15, 2024 episode of The Sackhoff Show podcast (Katee Sackhoff), Jonathan Frakes tells a story about the need to keep the cast under control. He said he had to coach them not to do cocaine, not to arrive late and to know their lines. He named no one else, saying he assigned them to follow William Sadler (Jim Valenti) to learn how to be a professional actor.

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Most of the cast were significantly older than their high-school-aged characters. This is common in TV shows because it both removes child labor regulations and makes more experienced actors more appealing to the targeted teen and young adult audience.

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All three leads — Shiri Appleby, Katherine Heigl and Majandra Delfino — appeared alongside Erika Christensen in separate projects: Shiri Appleby in Swimfan (2002), Katherine Heigl in Wuthering Heights (2003) and Majandra Delfino in Traffic (2000).

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