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cartoonfangirl1218 · 26 days

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Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends

Well I'm back to expound on my new little hyperfixation. Tubi has plenty of nostalgia era progreams from 80s and 90s so after going through Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego and Sherlock Holmes in 22nd Century, I stumbled upon this and if you're a fan of Gargoyles. I think you'd appreciate this show. Hell, the showrunner of Gargoyles actually wrote a series bible for this one. It didn't get used but still the themes of fantasy blending with scifi, discrimination and tolerance are present in this one in plenty of spades. Plus conspiracies lots of conspiracies.

The basic premise that there is a secret sector of the government called The Alliance. It basically operates with the gov. knowlegede but does its own thing. Its main mission is to find the aliens roaming around Earth and imprison, exterminate or use them as partners in the world wide fight against invasion forces.

Basically aliens exist and these aliens are the basis of famous myths like vampires, banshees, yetis etc. There not magical creatures but aliens who settled here long ago.

Anyway, main character is Nick Logan, a bounty hunter who accidentally arrests a lycanthrope. From there, the battle unearths long locked memory that his father was abducted by aliens. General Rinaker (leader of the Alliance) is concerned about this loose cannon getting too involved in their affairs decides to control him by recruiting him to their team.

Of course, Nick doesn't play by the Alliance's rules like 90% of the time, deviating when he sees the Alliance wrongfully imprisoning or targeting aliens who don't want to hurt anyone. Nick begins to believe that the Alliance is less the nuetral evil it presents itself to be and wants to create a better world where aliens can coexist.

Nick's partner is Sha'lainn Blaze. A banshee teenager who gets exiled from her clan. I use teenager loosely as its implied she's around 200 years old. She believed that they should stop isolating themselves and try working with humans. That was basically traiterous and they shut her out and tried to kill her, driving her to the arms of the Alliance. Since she's young, she's the most idealistic and compassionate though she has a few cheeky jokes in her too.

There are more characters but I should get to the main alien races.

Banshees are like nature witches, not only predicting a person's death but have a connection to Earth, able to suck energy from their surroundings to form energy beams, rock slides etc. Their main enemies are technology (Sha'lain is a bit more tolerant as she was in favor of steam engines. Yeah she's old) and iron and vampires.

Cuz in this world vampires are not the suave, bat changing creatures. Instead they are serpentine, fanged, winged and incredibly creepy. See above. Not only do they suck blood but they suck electricity, energy and technology. They're just parasites and are hated enemies of the banshee with the whole naure vs tech.

The other main alien group are lycanthropes who are like hulking, two legged wolves with bits of technology embedded into their skeletons. Seriously a cool blend of science and classic monsters. They like to enslaves the yeti race and the human race and. . . yeah, they want to enslave others.

As you can tell, lots of the aliens don't like each other. This even includes yetis who have sasquatches cousins that they treat as uneducated labor. All these inner divides (much like humans with their racism, sexism, etc) further encourage hate and division when they could be joined to fight bigger problems. This is a reoccuring theme.

These are the main ones that pop up but there are plenty of others like golemns, the Norse gods Loki and Odin pop up as well as Titanoi with the lost city of Atlantos (apparently based on Satorini) Japanese omni, Chiruac kalinches, pans, vodun and others around the world that the writers utilize with their own twists on the source material to make dynamic fights and body horror moments.

Now to the other characters. The beta team of Fitz and Nema aka my favorite characters. While Nick and Sha'lain often go out to recruit or eliminate aliens. Nema and Fitz are the ones that go out to the scenes of UFo landings or alien destruction and create plausible excuses (Gas leak, military planes etc.) or new conspiracy theories for people to grab onto like "No, there aren't werewolves. That was actually the government's secret prisonor mutation experiment gone wrong. Don't tell anyone." The suspiciously specific denial allows the Alliance to keep their facade wile everyone chases the wrong lead.

Fitz is ex-CIA and should be an actor if he ever quits the Alliance as he clearly enjoys hamming it up with costumes and accents. Always there for witty one-liners or improvised manipulation of facts. Nema is more straight-laced, coming from work as weapons expert in Cairo military. She's the deadpan snarker to Fitz. Obviously, they get together, and obviously they're adorable. While they seem like loyal Alliance operatives, unquestioning of their orders and believing the Alliance is protecting the planet, their friendship with Nick and Sha'lainn makes them reconsider.

General Rinaker is the head of the Alliance and like any military man believes the cause of war allows for collateral damages and other unpalatable actions like pointing missiles at alien refuge centers and separating aliens (yes, it sounds timely but this was made in 1999 so more things change more things stay the same). While he's a tough guy, you believe that he is doing what he thinks is best but its clear that his rigidness won't allow him to see a new better type of Alliance.

Jefferson Trueblood is General Rinaker's second in command and like the others is primarily loyal until Nick points out how the Alliance is growing increasingly distant from its original goals to a facist organization (literally fascist organization. I didn't think those words were allowed in cartoon tbh). He doesn't get as much spotlight but he does have his own episode leading to surpremely moving scenes in the finale.

So yeah, those are the main characters but there's plenty more like Nick's rival (in his own mind), Agent Keung Ling, the Vodun spirits, Ruck who's leader of lycanthropes and his son, Athos, Ty-Yet (a yeti operative) and others that all get their day in the sun.

And all these episodes move forward the idea that hate is a circular threat, that what you use to divide people or in this case, aliens prevent peace and ahem alliances for a better future. Not just among humans and aliens but prejudice between the aliens, the continual fear of refugees trying to protect their families, etc. All the aliens may do some criminal acts, or horrifying in some cases but the show gives space to show their reasoning.

Like the vodun, they are alien slugs who lost their world and can only survive by inhibitating human bodies, killing the person's mind so they can control the body. It's bad but you understand why, they want to live. General Rinaker is a human example of he seems like a bad guy but you get why he does the unethical (by our standards) things he does. Basically, everyone is flawed and everyone exist in shades of grey on this show.

Which the show can get dark showing suicides (like literally. No heroic last minute rescue, the guy just died), bodies being ripped apart, bodies being drained, all the body horror stuff, I was impressed. Sometimes the good guys aka our heroes make the wrong decision and have to deal with the lasting consequences of "just following military orders." The final episodes have several make heroic sacrifices for the end of the world.

But it's also fun with some excellent episodes like a perfect Superman parody with alternating color schemes, alliterative names and big ol twist. A heist episode in Area 51. Trippy psychic battles. Invasion of the body snatchers, of course. B-horror movie with gigantic mutated ants. Plus three different two parters.

And. . . and there's two major conspiracies. One is what the hell happened to Nick Logan's dad. The other. . . well that's just spoilers. I got spoiled because I read it on wiki before I watched the show but it did make me appreciate how they steadily seeded the points of the conspiracy and forshadowed it. All while hiding another conspiracy in the conspiracy. Yeah, it's a double whammy!

So, okay I spent a lot of time on how I enjoyed it. But of course it has its flaws. The animation is not as good as one would be used to in the present day. Very broad lines and unrealistic body shapes (mainly on males which is different from the norm), sometimes some scenes seemed reused. Also its coming off from the 90s so they're several scenes with raves. I find them cheesy. I still don't get the obsession of 90s and raves.

Although almost everyone gets a day in the spotlight and there is continuity, there isn't much depth. Not much on backstories or tragedies etc. Its definately a plot driven show more than character driven though there are good characters in there.

And while they seemed to have a big enough budget that they got voice actors for every role instead of doubling them up (looking at you Legend of the Dragon), some lines are cliche, tropy, you get the idea. This is particularly a fault with Sha'lainn as she cries out "Nick" like twice in every episode. I think they're recycling it so there's dialogue and it isn't just gun blasters.

Honestly, I feel bad for Sha'lainn as she sometimes gets Jean Grey syndrome, getting drained of her powers or getting knocked out often in fights. I mean, she's part of the Alliance now, can someone give her combat training? However, when she does get her badass time to shine, she gets her badass time to shine so she's not always helpless.

Nick's mission to find his father can get repetitive and annoying but he's supposed to be annoying everyone within the show too so I forgive it. Unfortunately it hampers his relationship with Sha'lainn. They get together, it should be no surprised but I feel like there isn't enough recipocation on Nick's end considering the number of times he leaves her in the lurch to chase a new lead. I get that stubborness and persistance in his mission is supposed to be the point, that he's too distracted to do anything else but I feel bad for the girl.

However, the show is cool in that it lets them get together early on. Not that you'd notice it much as I suppose too much kissing would turn off the kiddies or whatever but it's refreshing too. You know, they're together but they're not hampered by romantic drama, no jealousies or cheating or whatever. Same with Nema and Fitz.

Plus in Nick's search for his real father, he never forgets his fake father, Walter and continually accepts him as just as much of a father as his original, raising him since he was three. I just liked that message that even though they aren't blood, Nick doesn't just disregard their relationship.

If only, they had the same consideration for his mom. I mean the woman is there in flashback and is mentioned like once in the finale as having passed and being a strong woman. I'm just curious. How did she end up knowing two men who were connected to the Alliance? Was she connected to the Alliance? Did she have suspicions about her husband or did she pretend not to to keep Nick safe? Nothing! But that's just my nitpick.

Also can I just point out the diversity among the Alliance. There's a Chiruac native, African-Americans, Eastern European, Chinese, Egyptian. Today, people would call it woke but back then no one had a problem. Same with the gender parity. One, I forgot her name was third in line of command. No one bat an eye or made jokes about a woman being in charged or that it was pandering. They just showed them and let things get done. Like Gargoyles.

And yeah, I'll stop there. I enjoyed the show and if you like Gargoyles, I think you can get into this one. As long as you lower your expectations too because Gargoyles is amazing. This is like Gargoyles with less budget and less depth. The potential is there but its underratedness keeps it from reaching to the heights.

Which reminds me that even though it's on Tubi, it's not in order. The first 16 episodes are in order. But after that you have to check wiki because its out of order and you miss the continuity. It's most eregious with the final 6 episodes where the preceding four steadily build to the two part finale and need to be watched in order to appreciate. I mean, it's supposed to be chronological for a reason.

Supposedly some other company tried to reboot it as a comic in 2021 but I haven't seen anything so I must assume its been cancelled. Too bad, I wouldn't have mind it returning to get some rightful love and more depth.

#roswell conspiracies: aliens myths and legends #tv shows #nostalgia #gargoyles #just tagging so gargoyles fan check it out

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