Roswell Fanatics

I don't necessarily mean that you'd have to keep the parents in the dark, I just meant that the kids would have to have had some more accountability. For example, when Max, Liz and Isabel are trying to catch up with Michael and Maria in '285', Liz calls her mom and says she's studying at Maria's and that if her mom needs anything, to call Liz's cell phone. I didn't have a cell in high school, but my friend did, and if I told my mom that we were at her house and she should call my friend's cell if she needed me, the first thing my mother would do after I hung up with her would be to call my friend's house, just to make sure I was actually there. I'll freely admit that my mother is a bit of a nutcase, but you'd have thought that, just once, one of the parents would check up on their kids like that.

I understand exactly what you're saying here Laira. Since I'm from divorced parents, the one parent I lived with was a bit more lenient with me just because I was the last child and the only girl but despite that, I could never have stayed out all night long without my parent knowing. Especially when you grow up in a small town where everybody knows everybody. And the whole bit about just calling her cell phone... my parents definitely would have called the house on purpose just to make sure I was telling the truth.

Maybe it just depends on the parents. The Parkers never had a reason to distrust their daughter, same with the Evans family. At least that's my guess. But I definitely do think that except for the Parkers in 1x16 and random Amy Deluca moments, parents could have definitely become a bigger obstacle. A normal one that would have been shared alike by human and alien teens.

I think that there's also a convention in some of these teen shows, (especially teen shows with a supernatural element,) that parents will not intrude on the plot arcs of the teens unless there's some specific reason that the writers want them to, no matter how unrealistic this seems. Buffy was like this the same way, and you can see it in a lot of other shows to a greater or lesser extent.

Chrisken wrote:I think that there's also a convention in some of these teen shows, (especially teen shows with a supernatural element,) that parents will not intrude on the plot arcs of the teens unless there's some specific reason that the writers want them to, no matter how unrealistic this seems. Buffy was like this the same way, and you can see it in a lot of other shows to a greater or lesser extent.

Well, I don't know ... Joyce Summers seemed to have resigned herself to the fact that her daughter was a bit of a rebel and that unconventional rules would have to be applied, long before Buffy 'came out' to her. You still see her protective moments, in parent-teacher conferences and such. And I think having Giles on Buffy's side as a mentor and go-between for her and her mom did a lot to keep Joyce off her back. Not to mention, Joyce did things like keeping her daughter from getting a license and such.

And in 'Dawson's Creek', you at least had constant background info re: all the parents: Joey's mom, dad and sister Becky; Dawson's parents were a major story line for a while there; Grams; Andy & Jack's dad; Pacey's parents (if you can call them that); there was also that guy whose mom was Joey's boss at the Country Club who was a constant presence; and so on.

In a show about aliens, perhaps reality is the first precept sacrificed. But still ... you read the books, and their families all played a bigger role. Would it have made show? Who knows, I'm afraid.

LairaBehr4 wrote:One of the things that always bugged me about the show was, the parents really don't play that big of a role, apart from Valenti. Maybe my parents were the exception, but it was really hard for me to get out of the house without telling my parents exactly where I was going and who I was going with. Spur-of-the-moment road trips were absolutely out of the question. I think a part of it was just me, because my younger siblings got away with much more than I did, but in that aspect the show always seemed very unrealistic to me. So when T says that the parents would have played a bigger role if the show aired now, that is definitely something I agree with.

I totally agree Laira,
I found it very odd that the kids could go where they pleased whenever they pleased and didn't have to answer to their parents. It was shocking to see Max/Liz have to face angry parents at the end of Sexual Healing but that was one of only a few instances where that happened.

Roslover39 wrote:I totally agree Laira,
I found it very odd that the kids could go where they pleased whenever they pleased and didn't have to answer to their parents. It was shocking to see Max/Liz have to face angry parents at the end of Sexual Healing but that was one of only a few instances where that happened.

Exactly. What happened all the other times the characters snuck out overnight? Max and Liz had spent at least one other night away from home before that.

Imagine being Tess, a girl with no parental guidance at all. She was free to do whatever and answer to no one. And I can only remember seeing Alex's father twice.

Question:

If Amy Deluca went ballistic when she caught Michael in Maria's bed, I wonder how she felt when she found out he had his own place?

See, I really like the idea of the Tess/Ed relationship. A couple of fics delve into that really deeply, and really well. Was it a relationship of equals, both contributing their share to the evil conspiracy to take over the earth? Was it a teacher/student dynamic, with the teacher not really making himself responsible for Tess's whereabouts all the time? Was it more sadistic than that, more controlling? Was Tess the way she was because of herself, or because of Nasedo? Would she have made the bargain with Khivar if Nasedo had lived? DID Nasedo really make the deal she refers to in 'Departure'? There's a fic, I think it's Aftermath, where Tess has a flashback of Nasedo killing her puppy when she was a kid, and a playmate from down the block when she was a little older. Is that really what they were like, those two? Was Tess allowed to go out as late as she wanted, do whatever she wanted, as long as it furthered hers and Nasedo's endgame?

Questions, questions, questions ...

Amy's actually rather cool. I think she freaked out finding Michael in Maria's bed just because it was the first time. The rest of the time, she's pretty understanding about a lot of things. To a degree, anyway.

Yeah the whole Tess/Nasedo dynamic was very interesting. Don't want to gross anyone out but I wonder just how intimate it was.

I always liked Amy and in my own wacky, cracked way I see her as a closet weed smoker.

I was just reading all the comments and what roslover stated regarding tv is so true do you know that since roswell i have not locked myself into another series on tv. nothing holds my interest. i see myself coming home from work saying hello to my family and jumping on the computer the fics have become my tv due to all the wonderful minds out there. thank you