Whats with this town and cheesy theme parties, anyway? The Crash Festival, The Soap Factory, The UFO Convention, and now the latest in a continuing series of trite misfires masquerading as plot developments, the Blind Date Concert. Fade in on Another Pointless Opening (oh, Im sorry, did I say pointless? I meant pointless. My mistake) at the Crashdown, featuring Alex "Hanks for the Memories" Whitman fingering his rockin silver bass and talking trash about how hes going to "kick some ass at these auditions" for, thats right, the Blind Date Concert this Friday night. On shift, in uniform, and apparently cognizant of the recent arrival of a wrecked oil tanker on the floor of the diner somewhere, Liz "Stop the Blandness" Parker mops madly in a vain struggle to add the challenging chore of "sweep" to an ever-broadening acting range which now includes an already diverse repertoire of "whine, mope, and grouse." Liz tells Alex that his band needs a better name than "The Whits," which Maria "I Dream of Jeannies Hair Stylist" DeLuca enigmatically remarks is "just an s away from what you really are." Lil Hanks utters a sarcastic "thats funny," changing the subject immediately and thus relegating Marias statement to "I dont get it. No, I really dont" status evermore (The Whitss?). Alex cranks the radio, and a DJ explains the precise nature of the physical pain about to unfurl over the course of the hour: "...the winner of the KROZ blind Valentine dream date..." Win a contest, date a blind guy. Strange contest, but I cant say Im not a little bit curious. Oh, wait.
Relinquishing the broom and acting against type for once, Liz, finally making sense, brings to light the central thematic focus of the episode with the truest words ever spoken: "This is so stupid." Yes, Liz. It is, in fact, quite stupid. But I dont think she means it in quite the same way I do. She means that its crazy for anyone to want to go out with someone a radio station picks out for you. Oh, foreshadows sake! For no sooner are Lizs protests uttered when they are drowned out by the DJ announcing that "were gonna crown our winner right here at one of our finer local establishments, the Crashdown Caf!" Finer local establishments? Yeah, listed in the Zagats guide under that cutthroat category "Finest Local Cheesy Tourist Diners in the Three-Foot Radius Around the Crashdown Caf, Excluding Gas Station Vending Machines and Wild Mushrooms Growing in the Parking Lot." But the floors are immaculate. So the doors to the Crashdown bust open, and in spill both the DJ and the remainder of the Roswell first-season budget in the form of perhaps two hundred gawking extras intended to represent, I imagine, the entirety of the state of New Mexico. Um, dont you people have other wacky Roswell events to go and plan? That "Crazy Hat Day" party at the old Soap Factory isnt going to organize itself, you know. Liz, as it turns out, has won the contest. Clutching her beloved broomstick like its her endangered children and this is the end of Sophies Choice, notes the strangeness of winning a contest she didnt even take the time to enter. Oh, silly Liz. When will you learn that pratfalls and slapstick hijinks are part and parcel of having a friend like Maria? Id go so far as to call it uncanny, if only it werent so damned predictable. As a clinically epileptic Maria ushers a typically stony Liz over to the teeming throngs, the DJ approaches and offers her some diversity in the way of cheesy tin-foil headgear, replacing her usual antennae with a silver tiara. The mercifully shortest opening sequence in series history thus ends with DJ Creepy asking Liz what thoughts are running through her mind, to which she drearily responds, "Its nothing I can say on live radio." Hmmm. Really? Thats so weird, because I didnt think there were any offensive words in the soul-bearing admission: "Keep your hands. Off. My. Broomstick."
Credits: Ive never actually tested the theory myself, but urban legend has it that if you play the theme song to this show backwards, it sounds exactly the same.
Commercials: Okay, Ill admit it. Im home writing this on Saturday night. And instead of "fast forward," I accidentally hit "stop," and the desperate, ghastly glow of weekend prime-time programming filled my apartment. I sure wish Saturday night television could get more depressing. Oh wait, it cant. Anyway, theres a promo on for the no-longer-hosted-by-Bob-Saget warhorse Americas Funniest Home Videos, which is apparently coming up straight-away. Except a hard-core monster-truck-show-friendly voice calls the program "AFV" in an apparent attempt to give the show a little more fierceness, a little more edge. And the awesome thing is that it totally works. Not.
School. Under ordinary circumstances, I might feel cattily inclined to note the most current in a seemingly endless procession of Marias never-appealing outfits. This time its a waist-length jean jacket once hijacked by a crazed man with a Bedazzler, that late-night-commercial rhinestone gun that makes Maria appear to have purchased this article of clothing in the "Gay Cowboy" section of her local Sears retailer. But I wont make that comment. Because these are not ordinary circumstances. No, indeed. Liz, apparently overwhelmed with the embarrassment of winning the radio contest, has come to school in dark sunglasses and a floppy-brimmed black hat, an outfit which she perhaps perceives as being "incognito" Nice try, Liz. But really, its impossible to deny: you look like Blossom.
Anyway, Liz and Marias conversation centers around Lizs infuriation with Maria for entering her in the radio contest, and Maria notes again, much to my continued amusement, that "Max dumped you." Anything she says after that is completely incidental. Because I love it when people are mean to Liz. Really mean. Like, utter cruel dialogue like "Max dumped you" actually makes me want to, like, buy Maria a lollipop for her troubles. Now if shed just take that extra step and pull the fashion debacle that is that hat down over Lizs face, dance around like Fat Albert, and scream "Mushmouth! Youre Mushmouth!" in front of every student at West Roswell High School -- well, Maria would just about have a date for the prom. The trite school montage and contrived avalanche of ill-advised dialogue continues, as the girls run into Alex posting fliers all around the place. His band lost their singer. He needs to find someone immediately, because the auditions are tomorrow for -- sing along if you know the words -- The Blind Date Concert. Maria takes it upon herself to volunteer for the part, offering, "Begging is so unbecoming. Ill do it, Ill do it." Alex says theyre looking for someone with a little more professional experience, and Maria, taken aback, lists her star-studded dossier: "Wednesday nights at the Pizza Pan." Oh, good grief, I think I smell a karaoke joke brewing. Which Im really looking forward to, because if theres one thing this show does exceedingly well, its a zany caper. Alex: "Im sure youre very good [annoyingly derivative Hanks Senior-esque pause] at the karaoke, but . . ." So Maria fakes hurt and Alex relents, telling her to "stop by the garage this afternoon." As Alex walks away, a teeming throng of girls spots Maria and Blossom, and with a "There she is!" shriek, they descend upon Liz with ruzzah-ruzzah about how darn cool they think this is. Max looks on, glassy stare in check, dousing an ambiguously un-product-placed chip product of some kind in Tabasco sauce. And thats pretty much one of three indications that there are aliens on this show this week. Gee, Lizs social cachet really seems to have altered dramatically from "that cheesy girl whos somehow in every science class Ive ever taken" status since she won a date on the radio. That makes intuitive sense to me for some strange reason. Not.
Blind Date
Meanwhile, Kyle "Wheres My Daddy" Valenti makes his way over to Max "Evans of Nine" for the purposes of some ritual male bonding. Which isnt a bizarrely out of context move for his character at all. But in light of Lizs current unavailability (I think shes, like, dating a radio station or some such thing), Kyle attempts to bond with a reluctant Max by way of two blatant but unexplained 80s pop culture references in his explanation of Lizs pattern with guys: "Shes a man-eater. And I pity the fool that radio station fixes her up with." Kyle finishes his "watch out boy shell chew you up" diatribe and leaves Max, who is deep in asserting that "we didnt break up because we were never together," while gazing soulfully into Kyles eyes. Hmmmmm.
Cut to a woeful example of something once referred to as "garage band culture in Roswell," where Alex and the rest of The Weiner Dogs Brothers Band jam through a rousing chorus of that latter-day grunge classic, "We Love Our Very Baggy Pants." Maria enters said garage and immediately takes over the proceedings. Her no-longer-subordinated wacky antics are quickly becoming such a focal point of this series that it feels like the producers created a Maria-themed spin-off and secretly replaced the show we thought we were watching. Got all that? It means step. Off. Maria. Amid protest, she hands over music to the group of boys apparently attempting to distinguish themselves as the core of Roswells bad-ass alternative universe (one of them even gets to say "hell!"). But Maria wants to do pop songs: "You guys want to win this thing, right? And whos judging it, a radio station, and what songs do radio stations like, they like the famous songs, yknow, the songs they play over and over and over again." The band expresses some serious reservations with Marias attempt to mainstream their wildly divergent sound. Oh, come on.. Its not like youre an all-lute-and-French-vocals band. Youve never even played in a public forum before, and this scene has already gone on so insanely long that I feel like its that part of The Whitss: Behind The Music when "it was at that moment that they realized -- that things would never be the same for the band." And yet, strangely, I continue to discuss it. And here is what I say: Alex and the guys (cast solely on condition that they "look exactly like Alex") continue to stare incredulously, one of them finally cross-examining, "We dont even know if you can sing." Touch, skinny alterna-boy, rhythm guitarist of The Whitss. Maria, not about to be shown up by Alex or any of his cardboard cutout doppelgangers, grabs for a microphone and orders, "Give me an E-flat." Cue slide guitar sound effect, offering two notes to Maria.
Meanwhile, somewhere on Long Island, a phone rings in the house of my music-teacher mother and my college-professor-of-music stepfather. Turns out its me calling. "You guys, E-flat," I ask with a self-righteous "I rock the bad-ass world of music SO hard because I can harmonize with my parents" roll of the eyes. Herb and Nancy scurry off to different pianos and return with the results of this weeks Roswell Plot Inconsistency Poll: The first note is an A-flat, the second an F. Hey, djb, is this psychotically nitpicky point really germane to the discussion of the arc of the show in general? Hmmm -- well, you try watching a scene fifteen times that actually hinges on the line "give me an E-flat" that isnt Josie and the Pussycats and expects us to swallow it as a significant consequence in the plot, the show, or my life. And then you tell me. Thanks, Nancy and Herb. See you Sunday for dinner.