Lawrence Bender Joins New Roswell Production Team

It looks like we will be returning to the town of Roswell through our TV screens, after the new reboot of the cult show was picked up by The CW.

Lawrence Bender is on the production team of the modernised series, which will be titled Roswell, New Mexico.

An all-star cast and production team has been put together, with plenty of faces and names that viewers will recognise from similar titles on the network. Bender is joined by Carina Adly MacKenzie, Kevin Kelly Brown, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, and Julie Plec.

Why should those names sound significant to you? Because some of them have worked on your favorite television shows and movies over the last decade and more. Lawrence Bender, in particular, is known for his work on award-winning films such as An Inconvenient Truth. He has also worked on many Quentin Tarantino vehicles, starting with Reservoir Dogs in 1992. It was with Tarantino that he picked up two Academy Award for Best Picture nominations, for Inglourious Basterds and Pulp Fiction. A third nomination came for Good Will Hunting.

He has also just finished work on Seven Seconds, a Netflix Original crime drama of ten episodes, and is in final production stages on The Widow. This is a film starring Isabelle Huppert and Chloe Grace Moretz which looks set to debut at the Toronto Film Festival, this coming September.

Writer-producer Julie Plec will take the directing helm for the pilot episode - a new experience for her, although not something out of her comfort zone.

You may recognize her work from The Vampire Diaries, where she directed and was a show runner, as well as from being the creator of successful spin-off series The Originals.

Kevin Kelly Brown will bring some serious expertise to the line-up, as one of the original executive producers from Roswell's first time around. The show was notoriously doomed - having been cancelled several times and rescued, before finally dying after its third season. However, since it finished airing in 2002, it has only grown in popularity - gaining a cult status amongst lovers of the supernatural genre.

The CW is the perfect home for the show: their current scheduling includes other supernatural or sci-fi shows such as The 100, The Originals, iZombie, and Supernatural.

They have also picked up the new reboot of Charmed, putting their eggs in the cult show basket with two renewed series from the same era.

As for the cast, there are plenty of faces who will thrill audiences. Jeanine Mason has been appearing on Grey's Anatomy and is known for winning So You Think You Can Dance?. Until now, she has not managed to land a leading role - but in her turn as main character Liz Ortecho, she's sure to make a splash. The role is intended to be an upgrade and reboot on the original show's main, Liz Parker. This time around, she's the daughter of undocumented immigrants, which brings a new dimension to the plot's discussion of racism, politics, and immigration.

Playing opposite her as alien Max will be Nathan Parsons.

He will certainly be familiar to The CW viewers, having starred as werewolf king Jackson in The Originals. He was also previously a series regular on True Blood. More recently, he was also cast as Jack/Hansel in Once Upon a Time's new season. This is his first chance to really shine as a central character in a big show, but like Mason, he has already been tested enough in smaller roles to have confidence that he will be a popular choice. It's also clear that he has a definite predilection for these supernatural roles, and already has the acting chops to fill an alien's shoes.

Perhaps the biggest draw for many - particularly the teenagers and young adults who couldn't get enough of PRETTY LITTLE LIARS - is going to be Tyler Blackburn. He takes a very interesting role, as a military veteran who is dealing both with psychological trauma and FORBIDDEN love. Sgt. Alex Manes' interest in a male friend upsets his disapproving father, who has different expectations for his son.

Joining him is Michael Trevino, another popular actor who took a starring role in The Vampire Diaries, as well as guest appearances in The Originals.

By coincidence, he's also another former werewolf! His role is that of Kyle Valenti, THE SON of Roswell's sheriff. He learns about what the team have called "horrible things that have happened in his family's past" - a phrase that has us pricking our ears. Could it possibly be that the Valentis are responsible for the repression and cover-up of an alien presence?

That certainly seems to be the case, as two more aliens join the cast. Isobel and Michael are played by Lily Cowles and Michael Vlamis respectively. Though they are both extra-terrestrials, each has a different approach to the situation: Isobel has settled in well and enjoys her life, while Michael thinks about nothing except finding a way to get back off the Earth.

The remaining cast members who have so far been announced include Heather Hemmens, starring as Liz's former best friend Maria.

Then there's Karan Oberoi as Noah Bracken, Isabel's husband. Neither character has any idea that aliens exist in the opening of the series, but Noah has some suspicions that his all but perfect wife might be hiding something under the surface.

Finally, Trevor St. John stars as Jesse Manes, Alex's father - a man whom viewers might just learn to hate, given what we know about his personality so far.

It's all looking very exciting, and we can't wait for them to announce the air date of the pilot. In this age of Netflix, it's almost too much to bear to have a series that looks this good and yet isn't available on demand already!

 

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