I Married An Alien

Fade up on the freakishly boring, robotic, glowing orb of aoh, dear God. There's no opening, pre-credits sequence at all, is there? We've just gone straight to the credits! And here's me, caught without even the vaguest notion of a wacky, anti-Dido opening credits quip! Damn. Wait, here's one: Shut up, bitch. Whew. Dodged a bullet there.

Fade up on a colorless split-level location shot on the corner of Pico and Fairfax (er, I mean "a charming adobe manse in the alien -- illegal and otherwise -- section of hipster downtown Roswell"). Isabel "Samantha Stevens" Evans opens the front door to discover Michael "Larry Tate" Guerin and Max "Tabitha Stevens" Evans bedecked in painting paraphernalia. Max holds buckets and rags, while Michael hauls in a ladder, brushes, rollers, more buckets, more rags, and an ostensible "painter's cap" that I believe he may well have picked up at the well-trafficked "French Lesbian Tennis Player In The '70s" tag sale going on near the farmer's market just around the corner. With mock wifely duty (for she is merely a mock wife), Isabel turns from the door and announces, "Honey, the painters are here!" Michael proclaims said wifely duty "funny" in a way that means, "I don't have time for your dumb cracks. At midnight, this hat turns back into Martina Navratilova and I can't be accountable for what kind of mood she'll be in." Max and Michael muscle past her, just as Jesse "Hi. My Name Is Jesse. This Is My Brother Darrin. And This Is My Other Brother Darrin" Ramirez enters the room and offers his help. Max offers that their painting the living room is "a housewarming gift from us to you," and Michael tacks on that it's also "a wedding gift. It's combined." Isabel laughs gamely before doing that [Insert Significant Landmark Day] Nazi thing she does so well, turning on Michael and deadpanning, "The wedding gift will be separate." Jesse confirms that "it's just very generous of you to take your Saturday out to paint our apartment," an essential recap of this episode's first eighteen seconds that confirms for us that Max and Michael are there to paint the apartment. Or else we would have had no indication, save for the brushes and rollers and lesbian hats and everyone already having said the word "painter" sixteen distinct times. I swear, if that Jesse didn't call me eighteen seconds into my morning each and every day and remind me, "Dan, wear pants," it's entirely possible I would just forget to wear pants. Thanks, Jesse. Now, back to thewait, what are they doing? Oh, that's right. Painting. Wait, what? Oh, that's right. Painting.

Disappointed that he won't have a chance to hang out with the Dutch Boy (if you know what I mean, et cetera), Jesse nevertheless hops to attention when Isabel reminds him, "My dad hates late." He grabs some golf clubs (oh, dads), and takes off. Michael waits less than a second after the door closes to report, "You know, you could have probably done this yourself." But Isabel's a sucker for realism, chiding, "Jesse's gonna let his wife paint the apartment all by herself." By which she means that he would not allow that to happen. Ooooh, sarcasm. "Writer" Ronald D. Moore, growing up right before our eyes! Max asks Isabel if she knows what color she wants, and she holds up two cards and compares, "Tucson ochre or New England brick red." She wants to see them both, so she gives Max and Michael each a color card and has them carry them to the wall. As the plucked strings of the familiar "Aliens Painting (Paint Paint Paint)" theme song kick up, Max and Michael retire to their respective portions of wall and give the color cards the consideration they deserve. They then put up a hand and turn the previously white wall two different colors. Michael quips that he is "exhausted" from the strain and retires to the couch. Max volunteers to Isabel that he "like[s] the ochre," and I briefly wish Jesse were there to offer his opinion on the garishness of the ochre, because Max's interior decorating skills (wink wink) are clearly not as honed as they should be. Not to mention the fact that those two colors are way too dark for that room, and that Isabel should consider going with a rose-tinted white that would turn a more pinkish hue when the light came in from the west-facing window, andwell, never mind. I'm just saying.

Michael hits the couch and turns on the TV, becoming awfully excited awfully quickly because "Nickelodeon is having a marathon of Bewitched! My weekend's set!" Isabel retorts with the never-clichd "who are you and what have you done with 'X,'" cleverly inserting Michael's name in place of "X." Max explains that it's "the whole Maria thing," and Michael excitedly reports, "This is the one where Samantha turns Darrin into a goose." Max chides (so much chiding this week. That poor Ronald D. Moore must have had a very antagonistic childhood), "You need a hobby, man." Michael chides back, "You mean like golf? Riding around in some stupid cart?" Well, failing that, how about elegant plot development? Be a trailblazer. How does he know it's a marathon, anyway?

But hark! The front door begins to open, and Isabel freaks that Jesse is home ("The front door? Dammit, I thought this was the closet door!"). She runs over and grabs the door out of his hand, claiming that there is a ladder in front of it. Max and Michael, meanwhile, peel the color right out of the wall, and Isabel allows Jesse entrance to the house. What's the matter? Did he forget something? "Yeah. My balls." Max and Michael titter like eighth-graders. God, I love it when they keep the tone of this show consistent. Jesse senses an awkward silence and asks if they've been talking about him. Isabel proclaims him "paranoid," and chides (weep for Ronald D. Moore! Weep for him!), "The whole world doesn't revolve around you." Max passes the chide baton: "Yeah, it revolves around Michael." Michael goes back to the couch. Jesse leaves. I buy Ronald D. Moore a session on the couch.

With Jesse gone, Isabel joins Max and Michael in the living room. Seeking deeper meaning through the learned teachings of noted social scholar Elizabeth Montgomery, Isabel notes, "She had it so easy." Michael disagrees, retorting (which is really just a more pedantic form of chiding), "Samantha takes pride in her witchcraft, and she's made to suffer for it in an uncaring, secular world. She's a modern-day Athena." Isabel doesn't get the reference, so she makes with the all-about-her-ness, opining, "Think about how much easier my life would be if Jesse just knew who I really am." Michael suggests, "You could call it I Married an Alien." Perhaps she will, Michael. Perhaps she will. Hey, where are we going? Isabel stares back into the TV, which we see in close-up. On it is a shot of Isabel and Jesse in the pre-Technicolor shades of Nick at Nite's entire programming slate, driving in an obviously fake car while blue-screen scenery rolls out behind them. They're decked in fully Samantha-and-Darrin (or Jeannie-and-Major-Nelson) clothes and hair, Jesse smiling hugely in his dapper Eisenhower-era business suit and slicked-back hair. Campily, in the style of all those '50s television shows not one person in Roswell's demographic has ever actually seen, Jesse takes out a silver oval and smiles at Isabel, asking, "How many times do I have to tell you not to leave your alien orbs in the car?" She's all "sorry, dear." The laugh track bellows its approval at the cruel irony of a third gay Darrin. Today's Isabel stares into the TV and notes, "Yeah. That would be some show." Well. Let's go find out if she's right!

Opening credits. Very I Dream of Jeannie music accompanies an animated graphic of the night sky and a full moon, over which the words "I Married an Alien starring Isabel Evans" appear in a MS First Original Notion This Show Has Ever Had Sans Bold font. A Jetson's-y spaceship flies into the frame, circles once, and takes a plunge. It steams down towards Earth, and crashes into the desert. The whole run of the series until this point is successfully rendered in one animated minute.

The raucous applause track welcomes Samanthabel Stevans into her deco '50s living room. She notes a dirty kitchen, puts her hands disapprovingly on her hips, and speaks the words aloud, "Well, this is certainly no way to start a morning." She waves a hand and the dishes appear in the drying rack all clean and shiny because, well, he married an alien. She stands surveying the kitchen one ill-timed moment too long (though for all I know that could be intentional; the early days of the three-camera sitcom were not pretty ones. Even into the '70s, they were hardly considered high art, and my brother has a favorite story of having seen a rerun of Three's Company in which everyone leaves the living room and it literally sits vacant for upwards of twenty seconds before the hairy-chested used-car salesman wacky neighbor in waaaaaay too tight shorts for a man remembers to make his entrance), finally speaking the words, "I think we'll have French toast and sausage." A wave of the hand sends a loaf of bread floating from atop the refrigerator and into Samanthabel's arms, and the eggs come flying out of the suddenly open refrigerator. On another shelf of the fridge sits a plate of sausage links, which look all strange and yucky and meaty when they come flying through the air. But that's none of my business, really. Sausage is Jesse's favorite! And Darrin's, too! Both of them!

Speaking of whom, Jesse rounds the corner into the kitchen in the same dapper business suit and a smile to throw some sunlight off on the North Pole in January. Entrance applause. Nice touch. He looks sternly upon her, asking, "Isabel, how many times do I have to tell you: no alien powers in the house." Man. Is there a rule somewhere in The Cold War Guide To Domineering TV Husbands that every sentence has to start off with "How many times do I have to tell you"? Actually, I guess there kind of is that rule. And studies show that 90 percent of the time, the second half of the sentence is, "that you cannot play in the band." But this time? Alien powers, and the fact that she shouldn't be using them in the house. So that's different, then. He smells the French toast and smiles broadly enough to accidentally swallow six nearby planets and a large mug of coffee that seems to have mysteriously disappeared from my desk, excusing her with, "Well, maybe just this once."

And we're back in Roswell, 2002. Boo! I hate it here! Gone are the exposed brick wall behind Isabel and also my will to live. Jesse enters the kitchen wearing a suit that I think is supposed to be the hyper-modernized version of the one he was just wearing. But, really, it looks exactly the same. He bids Isabel a good morning. She carries (no floating! Poor Muggles!) a mug of coffee to the table, and as she makes her way back to the stove, she tells him, "This time, I think I have really" She opens the cover on the French toast and sadly reports, "burnt it again." Banter about the fresh-squeezed orange juice that he says is perfect but isn't (where's the laugh track to remind me to find this gag hee-larious?), and suddenly he has to run to a [dialogue obscured by my lack of desire to hit "rewind"] meeting at 9:15. He's out the door. The walls have been painted. I think they decided to go with the too-dark "wall of plums" shade, rather than the way-too-dark "wall of blood" shade. Good call.

Jesse's gone, and we're back in time. So take me away. I don't mind. The kitchen door opens and in walks Kyle "Squiggy" Valenti, bedecked in black leather pants, jacket, and hat, and I have no doubt that his cowboy and policeman friends down at the Gay Biker Costume Depot will all, when the song is written twenty years hence, find it fun to stay at the YMCA. He enters with a boisterous "Hello!" to wild canned applause, and shows Samanthabel a metal contraption of some sort, asking, "Know what this is?" She hazards, "A carburetor?" He leaps on her line, "No, it's a carburetor!" Pause. Laugh. Set-up. Punch line. Continue: "How did you know that?" She responds that she's a "modern woman." And yet she still can't play in the band. Squiggy Valenti sits down at the table and lays out Plot B: "It may look like a carburetor, but in reality it's a gold mine." He tells her that it could be a "special carburetor. One that made it possible for a car to get three hundred miles to a gallon!" She looks at him disapprovingly. He amends: "Two hundred?" The laugh track loves it. Loves it! Isabel reminds him and us, "You know Jesse doesn't like it when I use my powers in your get-rich-quick schemes!" Poor bondage-bound Squiggy Kyle looks mournfully at his carburetor, sad in the dawning knowledge that he was forced against his will fifty years into the past, and all that remains of his once-promising character is that he is a car mechanic and sometimes people think he's gay.

And we're back to today, and this is already tiresome. I thought this site had a policy against recapping sitcoms. And, also, Picket Fences. In the kitchen, Isabel asks Kyle, "Why do you always come to me with these things?" Kyle tells her that it doesn't even have to work well; all it has to do is work. She waves a hand over it. I guess it's fixed. Plot B resolved. Bring on the wacky neighbor.

Maria "Mrs. Poole" DeLuca is instantly comfortable in her role as the archetypal crazy gal door, seeing as her character construction has had three years to transcend that description, but hasn't. She enters the house with a spirited, "Hey-ho!" Oh, I so enjoy this outfit, in her floral patterned shirt and capri pants that match the nylon couch in the middle of the kitchen. She's looking for her "good-for-nothing boyfriend," who we learn is "on Neptune" buying her a birthday present. Mrs. Maria Poole sits down on said couch and begs for more info: "How much is he gonna spend? Tell me everything!" And then we're back, Unwacky Non-Neighbor sadly explaining, "He wants to take me out for my birthday week, and I don't know." And, see, this right here is my real problem with this episode, I think. Now we're all dour and serious, because that was just a silly sitcom, but this -- THIS -- this here is real life. But that's a faulty equation, because rather than "sitcom campiness" versus "real-life pathos," what's really being juxtaposed here is "a stupid show about aliens" and "a stupid show about aliens," which has a really six-of-one-half-dozen-of-the-other quality I think they're just not getting. Talk about sex with Michael is resolutely ignored by me.

Knock knock. Isabel gets up to answer it, and discovers, I think, one of the now-unemployed members of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones (referred to these days as "The Television Without Pity Television Without Pity Bosstones," perhaps?) standing on the other side. It's a guy in his twenties wearing a fedora-type hat that threatens to incite a zoot-suit riot at any moment if we're not all very, very careful. But it's the "sale rack at Chess King" sweater that screams, "Employ me!" It's all a muddle of information I don't quite know what to do with. He asks if she's Isabel, and she responds warily that she is. He's "Eric Hughes, Jesse's friend from Cornell." And though living a life of paranoid delusion so vivid that it makes her think she's living in a '50s sitcom, she nevertheless drops her guard enough to invite a perfect stranger into her home just because he drops the name of someone her husband once knew in college. Let's file that under "Sense, Makes No" in the Roswell glossary and move on with our recapping day. Zoot Suit Eric tells her that he "just had a gig in Texas" and decided to stop by. Eric apologizes for not being able to attend the wedding, but he had "this gig in Saint Paul, and then another gig in Chicago." Uch. "Gig." It's the '50s everywhere now, daddy-o. Also, when people say they had a "gig," they're begging people to ask what they do for a living. Isabel bites, asking the logical question: "Are you a musician?" Eric laughs twisting-of-the-French-handlebar-moustache-ily, and clarifies, "No. I'm a reporter."

Exit applause for Squiggy Valenti and Mrs. Maria Poole, who use the word "reporter" as a panicked cue, leaving Samanthabel all alone with Eric "Scoop" Hughes. Scoop is wearing a trench coat now, and it dawns on me that the only reason we didn't know he was a reporter from the get-go is because he's lost the little card sticking out of his hat reading "Press" like Fozzie Bear in the opening scenes of The Great Muppet Caper. He adopts a strangely Bogie-after-really-invasive-oral-surgery accent, acting from here to Sputnik with the line, "I must say, I was pretty surprised to hear old Jesse was getting hitched. You must besomething out of the ordinary." We were all surprised, Scoop. Isabel awkwardly asks him how long he'll be staying Roswell, and Scoop explains, "My editor's been driving me crazy. Says I have to come up with a slam-bang piece of investigative journalism. Something that really knocks the lid off the place. Or I gotta find another line of work." Scoop leaves the hat on when we chung-chung back to present day, Isabel telling Scoop that he has to stay with them because "Jesse is so excited to see you. He's always talking about you and the guys from the fraternity." ["Yeah, I'll bet he is. Did someone order a pizza?" -- Sars] Scoop thanks her and agrees, thinking maybe he'll find a story here and adding, "This is Roswell, after all. So, know where I can find any aliens?" Isabel laughs. The credible threat to their safety in this context is zero.

It's boys-will-be-boys-o'clock at the Ramirez place, Jesse and Scoop catching up and drinking beer and WHY WON'T HE JUST TAKE THE DAMN SWEATER OFF ALREADY? Interestingly, I have a sneaking suspicion that Jesse is thinking the exact same thing. Scoop investigatively sleuths out a CD from the rack to the CD player, laughing at the couple, "I don't believe you guys still have this CD." What outdated chestnut could it be? Is it the Dido CD? Scoop hits play, and "Everybody Dance Now" by C+C Music Factory fills the room. Jesse is all, "Shut up, I do my jazzercise to that album," as Isabel escapes to her bedroom and wonders why the script tells her to feel so unsettled about all this.